• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo Infinite will skip December's Game Awards, "so we can kind of restart this journey together after the holidays"

Riven326

Banned
this team sucks

get multiplayer out and start iterating at a rapid pace

'restart this journey together' wtf are you saying, keep your head down and grind
What I want to know is, why hasn't Phil fired any of the upper management at 343? The game had been in development for five years and they still don't have anything to show for it. Heads should roll and if Phil can't get it together on his end, whoever his boss is should fire him.
 
What is this 'journey' anyway? Chasing Bungie (who aren't particularly impressive in their own right) and trying to make a half-assed Destiny clone from the decaying corpse of their once relevant franchise?

Stupid-ass PR-speak, take the journey your god damn selves but at least try to drop something decent on GamePass in the next year or two so I can feel like I didn't waste my $1 on the XBL->GamePass upgrade.
 

NickFire

Member
What is this 'journey' anyway? Chasing Bungie (who aren't particularly impressive in their own right) and trying to make a half-assed Destiny clone from the decaying corpse of their once relevant franchise?

Stupid-ass PR-speak, take the journey your god damn selves but at least try to drop something decent on GamePass in the next year or two so I can feel like I didn't waste my $1 on the XBL->GamePass upgrade.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one blinking a few extra times at the journey mumbo jumbo fluff nonsense. Instead of talking like they are passing the joint around they should lay it out there. Is there a new realistic launch target, what exactly is being changed in the game, how long do these changes usually take, etc., etc.? And if they don't have concrete ideas yet just say it and be direct. Pretty much anything else would be better than vague notions of starting a journey with respect to the flagship title that was supposed to launch last week.

Anyway, since they are talking in fluff and platitudes and avoiding a show of this size during their launch window, my gut is saying that even holiday 2021 is a reach goal right now.
 

DavidGzz

Member
The whole generation should have been delayed. Bad timing with the power level as well. Next holiday we would have gotten machines that can do 60fps with raytracing instead of one or the other.
 
I can always count on a Halo/343 thread to deliver quality memege.

I don't really care about TGA and like incubase said, it would be a hell off a redemption arc if they make the game really good. Not 2 years down the line but at release with a sweet campaign and MP

Defo rooting for them to deliver
 
Last edited:

the_master

Member
Geoff Keighley: "So ladies, you ready to show off that new Halo Infinite footage for us?"

343i:
5fgOi9D.jpg

(this is an actual employee of 343i working on Halo)
Not sure what she does, but she most probably is a great professional, great at what she does.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
When all is said and done Halo will be among the top looking and performing games of 2021 upon release, i know its funny to poke at it now but without the pressure of having to make the launch window 343 can focus without rushing and there is A LOT of top talent there capable of bringing their A game. I'm confident the game will impress.
Yet Bluepoint and Insomniac for example with the pressure of a launch window actually made top looking and performing games. Hell say what you will about Ubishit they managed to deliver not one but two well received launch games that were cross gen and PC as well.

if 343 has all this talent where is it
 
Last edited:

the_master

Member
Geoff Keighley: "So ladies, you ready to show off that new Halo Infinite footage for us?"

343i:
5fgOi9D.jpg

(this is an actual employee of 343i working on Halo)
Not sure what she does, but she most probably is a great professional, great at what she does.
What I want to know is, why hasn't Phil fired any of the upper management at 343? The game had been in development for five years and they still don't have anything to show for it. Heads should roll and if Phil can't get it together on his end, whoever his boss is should fire him.
But they did!
The director was recently fired, new people was put in charge, and now they are doing some heavy restructuring top to bottom for what they are talking about.
 

darkangel-212559

Dreamcast Love
WELP!

I was planning on getting a Series X in the summer but I honestly don't even think it's worth getting till at least Q4 2021 for Halo Infinite.

And honestly that's being generous as fuck for these devs. Christ what a fuck up.
 

-Arcadia-

Banned
Gameplay looked fun, funner and more interesting than I’ve seen Halo since Bungie left. I didn’t even mind the visuals that much, despite how old they looked.

I hope we won’t be left waiting too long, and if we are, all this extra time makes it worth that wait. 343 has got to start acting like they’re the stewards of an AAAA, loved gaming franchise that defined a generation, and less like they’re some bumblefuck indie devs, doing everything for the first time.
 

OrtizTwelve

Member
Honestly they should just remake everything from the ground up and reboot the franchise and make it more traditional or linear like combat evolved.

I am not sure about this open world thing they’re going for. That’s probably what’s making things complicated.
 

Mojoraisin

Member
What I want to know is, why hasn't Phil fired any of the upper management at 343? The game had been in development for five years and they still don't have anything to show for it. Heads should roll and if Phil can't get it together on his end, whoever his boss is should fire him.
You must have missed intersectionality 101. A white male cannot fire Bonnie Ross. She’s a woman. If Phil would have been black possibly. If it was a black woman in charge, Bonnie would have walked day one.

If Phil would have been gay on the other hand...
 
Last edited:

Riven326

Banned
Not sure what she does, but she most probably is a great professional, great at what she does.

But they did!
The director was recently fired, new people was put in charge, and now they are doing some heavy restructuring top to bottom for what they are talking about.
That's five years too late.
 

Cato

Banned
One thing is for sure though, the version that was supposed to ship this month with the console will be the source of some amazing documentaries in the future, what did it play like, how open was it?

Seems like its gonna be signifigantly redone besides the story

I think so too. When it releases as a next-gen title, against not just early launch titles but against much more mature third-party releases, things like that static grass that didn't even move will not really be very next-gen.
And if they release over a year from now, when everything under the sun will have RT left right and centre ...

I think it is not a matter of just tweaking the engine and textures but they need to do major re-work on the entire engine.
They are no longer going up against early launch titles.

I would be surprised if it launches before 2022. Especially if they are just starting massive rewrites and redesign of the core of the game.
They are even saying they are going to "restart" development after the holidays. That to me sounds like a holidays 2022 release, at the earliest. Unless MS eventually just loses patience and just does a CrackDown3 on it. Without a release or announcement, just sneak it in as a free2play game on GamePass, as-is.
 
Last edited:

Andodalf

Banned
The game isn't going to be massively overhauled and if you think so you're going to be disappointed. The extra 6-8 months the game will get will just help offset COVID and let them have a new lighting model for next gen day one instead of in a later patch. It'll hopefully be a bit more polished, but the content of the game won't change much, besides some extra MP maps maybe.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
The game awards are irrelevant so this isn't surprising. The days of needing to wait for an even to show a trailer should be long gone hopefully.

I just want to see MP, and I hope to god that they kept all the advanced movement of Halo 5.
 
Last edited:

Tschumi

Member
I think the problem here is, when you invest this much money into a game like this, you can't ask people to just forget about your colossal failure and give you a free pass for a year.

But, you know, that's a cheap shot by me. More generous would be to say that, after seeing all the other 4k60 stuff that has been made for the XSX, Halo Infinite strikes me as an extremely gorgeous game. They're absolutely hampered by the focus on attaining 4k60, and I don't think they'll be able to improve much on what they showed without going for a chequerboard'esque approach.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Why? Because Phil can't manage a project? C'mon. Sony have delivered excellent launch games and the console is great albeit with a few teething problems. Nonsense take, David.

Because I'm salty about not having 60fps and raytracing at the same time, I'm not really into first person shooters anymore so not too concerned about Halo. Don't get me wrong, I am loving both of my consoles right now. Juggling so many games and having a blast but I just wish they were a little more future proof. Oh well, I know for sure I'm getting the mid gen refreshes of each. I just wish I didn't have to.


Edit: I should picked my words better, I mean it would have been ok with me to have the launch holiday '21. Not to have an actual delay last minute.
 
Last edited:

Tschumi

Member
Why? Because Phil can't manage a project? C'mon. Sony have delivered excellent launch games and the console is great albeit with a few teething problems. Nonsense take, David.
I'm with you man, in general, but I personally do also kinda think that, for technologies like ray tracing and objectives like 4k60, the generation feels about a year too soon - for ps5 also. That said, considering that the generation came a year early, in my estimations, PS5 is absolutely doing a lights out better job than XSX at handling this unwieldy tech... thanks to their revolutionary approach to efficiency and speed over brute power~ i wonder if XSX is gonna be microsoft's PS3~
 

renzolama

Member
They're gonna be restarting Halo for the rest of their existence.

Yeah there's nothing in OP statement to indicate they're any closer to having a clue what they're trying to build than they were before the reveal. All of the language sounds vague and hopeless - 'huge implications and ramifications' 'restart after the holidays' you can practically hear them sighing. I enjoyed Halo 4/5 as straightforward shooters with relatively fun mechanics and gameplay, but it's hard to believe that whatever they eventually produce from this development saga is going to be anything other than an unfocused mess.

Halo Infinite will be the most 'great game pass game!' of all great game pass games
 
Last edited:

Evangelion Unit-01

Master Chief
I'm expecting the game Q2 2021.


The graphics aren't the only issue here. At the end of the day the game could be the next Crysis for graphical benchmarks and it won't matter if it is not the game that Halo fans want. They need to get Halo fans excited again and I didn't see anything in the demo that would do that.

I'm beating a dead horse at this point so I'll just recycle one of my old posts:

The last Halo that managed to stay in top 5/top 10/top 20 for its lifetime was Halo Reach. It held on in the top 5 despite having sweeping gameplay changes that frustrated fans and going up against an incredibly strong Battlefield, COD, and Gears at the time. Prior to that Halo 3 managed to survive 3 years going back and forth between #1 and #2 against three separate COD titles-COD 4, WaW, and the juggernaut that was MW 2.

While the console shooter market has changed and there is more competition it hasn't changed that significantly. Where the old market was made up of COD, Battlefield, Halo, and Gears, the new market is COD, Fortnite, Apex, Rainbow Six, Apex, Destiny, and Overwatch. There are more shooters out there but they all comfortably sit in their own space with very different gameplay mechanics.

Contrast that with Halo. Halo changed with Reach, 4, and 5 all shedding or modifying core gameplay principals. The game adopted mechanics that made it closer to other games on the market. As a result fans of the core Halo gameplay were displaced and the population dropped.

Halo 5 is a decent FPS. It is mechanically pretty sound and it has a satisfying gameplay loop. I think it would have a decent albeit niche audience if it were F2P and separate from the Halo IP. When people buy a multiplayer sequel they come in with expectations. People expect COD, Battlefield, Street Fighter, Counter Strike, and Halo to look, feel, and play a certain way. It is up to the developers to meet that audience where they are. Halo 4 and 5 both failed to do that. That doesn't make Halo 5 a bad game but it does mean that it fails to excel as a Halo game.

There is a rabid fanbase out there that wants that classic style Halo. It doesn't mean that there isn't a market for Halo 5 MP it just shows that there are two separate markets. Rebrand Halo 5 MP as "Guardians" or something and put it out there-I think it would do alright. That said, I believe that the market for classic Halo is larger. If you look at the top XBL charts today Halo MCC, a game with old clunky netcode, is ranked comfortably above Halo 5. A refined Halo 1/2/3 would do well today with modernized features: centered crosshair, 128 tick servers, high FOV, modern netcode, etc. Some counter and say that a game like that is too clunky and punishing for todays' audience. I disagree-look at the success of CSGO, Valorant, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six. All of those games can be incredibly technical and punishing for newcomers yet they remain as some of the most played shooters on the market. People are hungry for those competitive shooters.

Where I think Halo traditionally did well was with it's sandbox. Halo is a competitive shooter at its core but the sandbox allowed for people to dress it up into a more casually appealing package. Big Team Battle with Tanks and Hogs, Zombies, SWAT, Snipers, King of the Hill, and endless crazy custom games built with Forge were all layered on top of the core competitive gameplay and Halo saw tremendous success as a result. When the gameplay changed it lost this appeal. That core competitive experience was lost. As a result the casual experience that was built on that foundation was lost as well.

Microsoft should give classic Halo a chance. They changed a model that was working well and have been met with a lackluster response. They might be surprised with the response to a return to form.
 
Last edited:

Andodalf

Banned
I'm expecting the game Q2 2021.


The graphics aren't the only issue here. At the end of the day the game could be the next Crysis for graphical benchmarks and it won't matter if it is not the game that Halo fans want. They need to get Halo fans excited again and I didn't see anything in the demo that would do that.

I'm beating a dead horse at this point so I'll just recycle one of my old posts:

H5 had the best Halo Arena experience since 3, and it had the pro scene to back it up. It wasn't just popular due to casual modes.
 

ZehDon

Member
Exactly as expected. They’re better off aiming to launch on the anniversary of CE.

If they show this game again with extended gameplay before launch, the entire industry will be watching. 343i are out of excuses.
 
They should have separated the games with your character and progression linked across them all -

Halo ODST - Battle Royale like Apex.
Halo Infinite - Destiny PvE/RPG-lite one mode and classic multiplayer the other mode.
Halo X - Campaign.
Halo Craft - Balls out modding/community like Minecraft.

I guess they didn't get my memo.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom