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Rebs Gaming: Inside how 343 Industries Leadership ruined Halo: Infinite Campaign

How does Phil Spencer and Matt Booty not give a flying fuck about their largest IP?

If any of these allegations are true it’s an absolute embarrassment for Microsoft leadership. Fucking hell that’s bad
You have some serious reading comprehension issues don't you?

former 343 Industries leadership ruined Halo Infinite Campaign’s development:

You know what former means don't you? Phil has already acted on this many years ago, you're mistaking leadership of the entire Xbox division and the leadership within 343i at the time.
 

Robb

Gold Member
What did the leadership actually do then? Because the campaign was by far the best thing about the game when it launched while the multiplayer was an absolute mess all around.

All I’m getting from this is that the higher ups either didn’t seem care about any aspect of the project in the slightest or are absolute shit at determining the quality of what they’re presented with if they thought the multiplayer portion would carry it at launch.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
How does Phil Spencer and Matt Booty not give a flying fuck about their largest IP?

If any of these allegations are true it’s an absolute embarrassment for Microsoft leadership. Fucking hell that’s bad

I mean seriously though, what are the odds thats true? Agreed if they truly didn't care about Halo, they probably should be fired, just seems very, very unlikely. Certainly the budget didn't seem to indicate a lack of caring.
 

mdkirby

Member
Infinite was my first halo game in years. Loved halo 1 & 2 in my uni days. Skipped the xOne, and picked up a seriesX whilst my ps5 was in for repairs. Had high hopes, despite the graphical complaints prior to release, it’s long development and huge budget, and it’s grandiose naming…but it was one of the most tedious and forgettable single player campaigns I’ve players in recent years. They have completely lost the magic I remember those games having. Granted I used to play them all in the same room on split screen co-op with friends. Maybe that made me think the old ones were better than they were. But yeah. I don’t think I’ll be playing another halo game.
 

FireFly

Member
Say what you will about HALO 4 (which I like for the most part), it's so much better than this empty shell of a game was. Infinite had great gameplay and HALO 1 feel for sure when it comes to world exploration, but everything else just wasn't there. And this effin' thing is still selling for $60 and even when it gets on sale it's still way too much for what you get, while Gears 5 on sale cost almost nothing and miles better than HALO Infinite.

Enough is enough. Fuck 343! MachineGames can make much better HALO game.
Halo 4 had a broken sandbox with teleporting bullet sponge enemies. Halo Infinite has an arguably perfect sandbox with great combat and the SP is just lacking in encounter and environmental variety.
 
I enjoyed the campaign in fairness.

The open world didn’t help overall, but the tight set pieces are corridor/internal parts were spot on.
 

BigLee74

Member
The campaign was good - enjoyable in its own right - but rarely felt like a Halo campaign. Unlike other Halos, I have felt no need to go back and replay it.
 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
Neogaf will never live that down

Ironic that this "great campaign" is never mentioned when people talk about good single player games ever.

People mention Doom 2016 all the time but never Halo Infinite, it never crosses their mind until their forced to defend the games existence somehow.

No, Halo Infinites campaign was one of the weakest in the series, I do have to hand the game designers credit though. They designed the grapple hook so that players wouldn't notice that 90% of the map was completely barren with nothing to do, but you zipped around like Spiderman so didn't notice. Those guys knew what they where cooking and managed to design a workaround to hide a very glaring flaw.

Utter travesty that it won and enough people voted it GOTY for "Coop" that did not exist yet that it landed on the word chart, they voted for a name, nothing more.
 
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cormack12

Gold Member
Is this guy reliable before I watch?

I thought the gameplay was solid enough. I was annoyed with coop coming ages later and still having progression bugs even now. The overarching story I dunno, I remember bits. The open world was a bit meh, though I liked the FOBs for resupplies.

The multiplayer was fun I loved BTB and now Firefight is back that's also a major plus.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Tbf. The campaign was pretty good. What it lacked was biomes though. I legit thought....this can't be it for a halo campaign?

Playability and scenarios were pretty damn fun though.
 

Griffon

Member
What matters is that a brave and stunning woman was put in charge to lead one of the most famouns franchises in gaming.
header.jpg

Doesn't matter if the game was a sucess or not, that wasn't the point.

iu
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
The campaign was excellent, maybe it was good the management didn’t interfere. The only red mark in my books is that the final boss on Legendary is ridiculous
 
The campaign was excellent, maybe it was good the management didn’t interfere. The only red mark in my books is that the final boss on Legendary is ridiculous


It sucked. What about the 4 hour padded slog to get to the final boss where you fight wave of enemies as you try to leave the structure? Or the most underdevelopes open world in any AAA game? The non existent setpieces? Total lack of variety of environments? Lack of any interesting activities in the open world? The terrible design for combat encounters where they all play out against the same situation over and over. The "story" which was barely anything at all.

The campaign was a disaster.
 

nush

Member
What matters is that a brave and stunning woman was put in charge to lead one of the most famouns franchises in gaming.
header.jpg

Doesn't matter if the game was a sucess or not, that wasn't the point.

Master Chief being a total chad and copping a feel of both her ass and boob.
 

Z O N E

Member
The open world part of it was pretty bad because there was nothing to do.

With other games you have many quests and mini-quests, but in Infinite it was just collectables and some secrets.

I wish they just stick to the level formula like they have always done.

I'll even go as far as to say that I prefer Halo 5s campaign over Infinite. Also, Halo 4/5s realism art style is better than the current Infinite art style.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
It sucked. What about the 4 hour padded slog to get to the final boss where you fight wave of enemies as you try to leave the structure? Or the most underdevelopes open world in any AAA game? The non existent setpieces? Total lack of variety of environments? Lack of any interesting activities in the open world? The terrible design for combat encounters where they all play out against the same situation over and over. The "story" which was barely anything at all.

The campaign was a disaster.

Now that you put it like that… :D

I guess the sandbox and mechanics in Halo are so fun I overlooked all that
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Ironic that this "great campaign" is never mentioned when people talk about good single player games ever.

People mention Doom 2016 all the time but never Halo Infinite, it never crosses their mind until their forced to defend the games existence somehow.

No one names FPS campaigns when discussing best ever single player games.

Doom is one of the rare examples, not the norm.
 

BlackTron

Member
It had the feel and gameplay of Halo which was nice to have in a modern game, even if the campaign is not as good as past games lol.

Even though I owned the full version CD I often used the handy Halo CE demo on PC which just included Silent Cartographer and online play with Blood Gulch. I didn't feel like I needed anything else for my Halo gameplay fix from a single or mp standpoint most of the time because Cartgrapher was the biggest sandbox 1p level. Infinite just took that level to an extreme. So even if the campaign could be better Infinite still checked my basic boxes for Halo from a gameplay standpoint which is still #1
 

SHA

Member
Weird video. Says a lot while telling you almost nothing of substance.
One of the real obvious substances is the story progressed so far that they just wanted a new beginning rather than using all their cards and left with nothing to show more in the future, it's obvious the higher up interfered with the game development and wanted the story to continue, it's written all over Phil's face, he said the story will continue.
 
I didn't hate the campaign. I thought it was better than 5. Playing with people in a a huge sandbox is really fun. I actually reinstalled it yesterday to eventually play the campaign with a coworker at my new job.

That said, it was underwhelming for what should have been an awesome experience considering the time and money invested. It was definitely slapped together, unfocused, and didn't really deliver any "highs" like the previous games in the series. The ending was abrupt and it felt like we got 66% of a game. I honestly don't really even remember what happened too much in it.

The music was awesome though.

I'll say I'm ready for a different team, or massive shakeup of upper management to take the reigns because Halo 5 and Infinite's campaigns were so mediocre compared to the previous outings that I think management just don't understand the series anymore.
 

DragonNCM

Member
What matters is that a brave and stunning woman was put in charge to lead one of the most famouns franchises in gaming.
header.jpg

Doesn't matter if the game was a sucess or not, that wasn't the point.
Can some one edit this so Clowns are holding that useless shit head of 343 ?
 

The Fuzz damn you!

Gold Member
What matters is that they made a cover with that woman being lifted by halo guys. Nothing else matters.
When people claim “there are no misogynists on Neogaf,” this post - and the others like it right here - are the proof to the contrary.

No, it’s not the gameplay.
It’s not the artwork.
It’s not the level design.
It’s not the management.
It’s not the engine.
It’s not the story.
It’s not the characterisations.
It’s not the graphical fidelity.
It’s not the publicity.

No… it was the woman.

“Nothing else matters.”

And as for people who claim there are no Xbox shills on Neogaf… well, boy, that sure doesn’t seem like the case either, does it?
 

Saber

Gold Member
When people claim “there are no misogynists on Neogaf,” this post - and the others like it right here - are the proof to the contrary.

Pfff lmao ok.
She lead their main franchise to Doom, with the thread stating the main reasons for the game being a disaster but nah people are mysogynist.

If anything both of you deserve clowns suits.
I would suggest her make that Halo game a critical sucess first before doing that scene.
As for you, if you think criticizing and mocking someone who did a terrible job handling a franchise is mysoginist, then I suggest you go to Resetera.
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
Neogaf got it right. Game was hella fun. If they had added any sort of story expansion I would replay it all in a heartbeat.
I think Infinite’s open world was well done (albeit small) and the mechanics were solid, but the actual story missions were hot garbage (BRO let’s walk down a massive underground corridor again) and the story was a botch job even by 343 standards. Not to mention that open world came with performance problems, and lacked the promised co-op. The game realistically was not even close to where it should have been considering it was what, six years since Halo 5, new engine, $500 million budget (yea I know MS says that’s not true, I think they’re lying).

Now, 2021 was a horrible year for releases so yea maybe it got graded on a curve but I read plenty of threads on this website and have not seen anyone recommend Shitfinite in a thread about FPS or open world or single player games.
 
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Honestly, that sounds like a bunch of excuses. The campaign was bad. The story was bad. The changes in lore made to the Halo universe from 4 onwards have been bad. Almost every idea that has come out of 343 has been bad. 343 are simply a C-tier studio with an inflated budget that have never produced a single compelling game in their entire history. Not even with one of the largest budgets the industry has ever seen have they done anything worthwhile. 343 has been a let down from the beginning and should be stripped of the Halo franchise. A new studio should pick it up and reboot.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Honestly, that sounds like a bunch of excuses. The campaign was bad. The story was bad. The changes in lore made to the Halo universe from 4 onwards have been bad. Almost every idea that has come out of 343 has been bad. 343 are simply a C-tier studio with an inflated budget that have never produced a single compelling game in their entire history. Not even with one of the largest budgets the industry has ever seen have they done anything worthwhile. 343 has been a let down from the beginning and should be stripped of the Halo franchise. A new studio should pick it up and reboot.
I think the 343 that is operating today is totally different from the one that put this game out. As soon as it became obvious that they couldn't manage the live service and were losing even the shills, MS gutted the studio and sent girlboss Ross packing. They also are throwing out the shitty engine that they made and using Unreal. Whether or not that will translate to a higher quality game, we will see.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
It's ok if people like subpar shit. I love forspoken for instance. Just accept that people can fall in love with imperfect gems.
You like it because it's good.
It's not "subpar shit" you like.
It's a good game other people fail to recognize :)
 

Shut0wen

Member
It remains the only Halo campaign I've never finished - and that includes the abomination that was Halo 5. The open world was simply disastrous to Halo's tight gameplay loop and should never have made it past prototyping.
Though ive never finished 5 ive also never finished infintes, just everything from ai to the far cry loop was just shite and the mini bosses were all just generic enemys that were bullet sponges
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
and it's baffeling to see how some people STILL think MS has not a management issue.

AND it seem there is some turmoil inside Bethesda softworks
I guess that people know about the mismanagement, but most people blame Phill Spencer. He can and he should change some heads for sure, like Bond, but he can't direct the insiders
 

gatti-man

Member
The idea of the campaign was good but the execution was so sorry and ridiculous. Why have this open world and don’t update it, have roaming bosses or any kind of event based gameplay? It’s like they made an open world just to say they did and then pissed all over it.

MS needs to hire more gamers to make their games. Its why they keep turning out clunkers and Sony eats their lunch.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Yeah, from 1998. What else you got?

You see people bringing up any modern FPS when discussing greatest single player games?

Far Cry 1,2,3
Dishonored series
Doom series
Quake series
Prey
Halo 1,2,3, ODST, Reach
Cyberpunk 2077
Titanfall 1,2
System Shock
Borderlands series
Bioshock series
Wolfenstein series
Early Call of Duty

Probably missing a few. Those are all considered pretty great
 
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DragonNCM

Member
The idea of the campaign was good but the execution was so sorry and ridiculous. Why have this open world and don’t update it, have roaming bosses or any kind of event based gameplay? It’s like they made an open world just to say they did and then pissed all over it.

MS needs to hire more gamers to make their games. Its why they keep turning out clunkers and Sony eats their lunch.
Campaign was good at launch but they diched out as soon they made launch....there was so much potential to update game with new biomes & story but no.....they updated multiplayer with GASS shit, fucking Clowns.
 
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