The multiplayer is amazingly fun but 343 are currently the worst ran studio in MS's arsenal. 6 years + a year delay and we get this incomplete shell of a game.
MS really needs to make heads roll. I mean Lionhead got shuttered for less.
I don't think they're badly run at all. They faced development challenges, some of which involved the death of crucial coworkers during the pandemic, deaths they acknowledged via social media.
Plus there were ongoing challenges with building the new game engine. Ambitious changes to the Halo formula that have never been there before, changes that were very well received. That's fine, things happen. They set out in new directions to do things like an academy, weapon drills, practice mode with bots, all major, not insignificant additions to Halo, along with assassination missions, FOBs, an actual go anywhere open world with a grapple that can interact with all of it in the most wide and vertical Halo world ever, optional outpost missions, optional marine rescue missions, etc.
Oh, and a massive increase in geometric detail compared to any prior Halo. That's the biggest change to this Halo game engine. They can build assets in a more modular fashion, the way it's been done in Assassin's Creed since the implementation of a GPU-driven renderering system similar to what's used in Halo Infinite.
They had positions they needed filled that weren't filled until later in the process. I believe they lost their lead technical environment graphics artist to his passing away at the height of the pandemic.
More than half the challenge on a major project such as this is shipping it and getting it out the door. Then they have the assessment phase where they look at what could have been done better, what they got just right, what was simply beyond their control, the hires they need to make going forward, and to better assess their plan for updates going forward.
The opportunity to build a new game engine is something 343 has wanted to do since before Halo 4. For years they were stuck with Bungie's engine as it was, which was more difficult for creative to work with, it was more technical in nature needing the help of programmers for most things. They were again told they would get this chance for Halo 5, and it didn't occur then, either.
343 has been one of the more consistently strong developers who are always putting out a highly rated game for Xbox. Halo 4, Halo 5, Halo MCC, Halo Infinite - all games rated 84-88 on sites like metacritic. People can say what they want, but 343 has never missed for Xbox once, and you're suggesting Microsoft shut down easily one of their best producing, more consistently top selling studios out there?
Everything they have released has sold as strongly as what we typically associate with an enormous success on the Playstation side, but shut them down!?
Has their new content rollout been stiffled and slow for Infinite? Yes. Shit happens. Last I checked they had issues with MCC, too, but then they fixed that all up, did they not? And the same will happen with Halo Infinite.
2-3 years from now, or especially when major campaign DLC launches, we are going to laugh at the suggestions the studio be shut down.
Are there calls to shut down 343 because they consistently produce bad games that don't sell? Quite the opposite - people are calling for Xbox to shut down this studio because they consistently produce highly rated and strong selling titles for Xbox. It's like Ukraine taking advice from Putin on what direction their country should go in. How long can the excuse "it's only selling and doing well because of the Halo name" fly in the face of the fact that 343 just doesn't make bad games, ever?