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Sketchy twitter rumor- Halo no longer considered a top flagship at Xbox, next Halo game has half the budget of Infinite, will determine fate of series

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About time I'd say, halos been coasting along with MS money since the beginning of time for the Xbox. These bro gamer games like God of war or gears of war (seriously wtf?) made by violent developers need to either make themselves more Japanese or find a new target demographic (hint mobile). If it worked for blizzard it could work for halo. Imagine, a series like halo in it's rightful place, on your phone because Sega died for this
 

JCK75

Member
It's my useless opinion that Halo was always meh as a single player/online experience.. it was dudes drinking beer and talking shit in the same room playing that was lightning in a bottle..
 

AJUMP23

Gold Member
They lower the budget based on performance, not on flagship. Also a reflection on faith in 343 to produce.
 
This looks like just a list of what everyone believes will happen to 343i and Halo.

sQZiImY.jpg
 

tryDEATH

Member
343i should have been dropped after Halo 5 giving them another shot after Infinite is insane. Not taking the Halo IP from them is Phil's biggest mistake, which makes him responsible for Halo's current uncertainty. Give the IP to either The Coalition, id Software, or Certain Affinity and let 343i either create their own IP or revive an older FPS IP that they can make their own.

I would let 343i have a go at a CoD spin-off, they have been trying to go after that audience and playstyle since they got the Halo IP. They can go anywhere with in that universe from classical FPS with boots-on-the-ground, to jet packs, wall running, and even grapple hooks. They have been obsessed with changing Halo's mobility, something they can fully explore with CoD.
 
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nemiroff

Gold Member
It's been said in many similar threads, but this seems to be a problem with MS's hands off approached for its studios. I understand the philosophy behind it, and it could be the best way in theory. But the hands off approach probably works best for studios that has actually proven themselves, studios that they can trust fully.

343 has been a disaster, and many of us predicted it. MS should've put the breaks on 343 ten years ago and given the franchise to another studio or a third party (they've done that with success with other IPs).
 
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Nubulax

Member
Imagine not being able to manage your own cornerstone flagship IP properly and expecting me to have faith in you managing the countless other IP you buy :messenger_tears_of_joy:

They will mismanage all their studios into the ground. I have zero faith in their leadersip.
Just on principle alone they shouldnt be able to buy their way out of their F ups with ABK... its a shame they dont have to suffer the consequences and have just been gobbling up a ton of historic IP they had no part in developing or making succesful and going to rip it off other platforms
 

LastBattle

Member
I might be daft, but I can’t understand why they won’t use what they have as a baseline and add lots of DLC campaign to expand infinite over the next 5 years or so. What was there was great though a little thin, and at the time I assumed they would continue to add to it. Now I get the impression they are moving on from infinite, which feels like a huge waste given the money and resources invested.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
I think it's clear that Halo is not the tentpole of the Xbox brand that it once was, and now that they have their new tentpole in Starfield it's no surprise they want to move on.

That said, halving the budget is a poor strategy. I think they should simply rest it for a while, maybe for the rest of the generation, and then come back when the audience is hungrier and it feels like an event.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
COD will be the new flagship franchise anyway.

Halo had it's hey days when arena shooters were the rage. At some point during the 360 generation, COD overtook it as most played online game and never looked back.
 

Kdad

Member
Given GaaS and GP, i'd expect that to be the fate for the majority of IP over the next 10 years...shovel content, don't invest...big budget gaming is coming to an end.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
if they can kill off halo, imagine they kill the next Microsoft big IP once they buy even more publishers.
 

havoc00

Member
Do you think if 343 did a better job halo would be in a better spot or did arena shooters and halo just run it’s course? Same with gears ?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Given GaaS and GP, i'd expect that to be the fate for the majority of IP over the next 10 years...shovel content, don't invest...big budget gaming is coming to an end.
Gamers have been trending to GAAS and MP for ages. So it's natural for studios to cater to their wants.

What will happen is a lot of SP modes will fizzle out. Halo puts a lot of effort into SP story. COD still has franchise mode too, but that series makes tons of money. I wouldnt be surprised if a lot series that traditionally have SP just stop doing it and gun for MP only.
 
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ZehDon

Gold Member
Do you think if 343 did a better job halo would be in a better spot or did arena shooters and halo just run it’s course? Same with gears ?
Counter-Strike has changed virtually zero and it's still the biggest game on Steam. When everyone else followed Call of Duty, Counter-Strike stuck to its guns (no pun intended) and retained its niche. I firmly believe Halo could've done the same, if 343i hadn't started chasing Call of Duty the moment it got its hand on the series. Each game, it became less like Halo, and became more like whatever 343i wished they were actually making instead of Halo. Infinite returned to Halo's core, and its gameplay is fantastic. Do that, but with a real Halo game built around it, and they'd have released the game they needed to. Personally, I hope Microsoft just shelve the franchise for a generation or two. 343i are the worst developers in the industry, and they simply don't deserve a fourth chance to piss on the ashes of the billion-dollar franchise they systematically destroyed. Make sure MCC keeps working on future platforms and call it a day.
 

havoc00

Member
Counter-Strike has changed virtually zero and it's still the biggest game on Steam. When everyone else followed Call of Duty, Counter-Strike stuck to its guns (no pun intended) and retained its niche. I firmly believe Halo could've done the same, if 343i hadn't started chasing Call of Duty the moment it got its hand on the series. Each game, it became less like Halo, and became more like whatever 343i wished they were actually making instead of Halo. Infinite returned to Halo's core, and its gameplay is fantastic. Do that, but with a real Halo game built around it, and they'd have released the game they needed to. Personally, I hope Microsoft just shelve the franchise for a generation or two. 343i are the worst developers in the industry, and they simply don't deserve a fourth chance to piss on the ashes of the billion-dollar franchise they systematically destroyed. Make sure MCC keeps working on future platforms and call it a day.
Who would you turn over halo to and what would you do with 343?
 

Del_X

Member
Halo is only as good as the team behind it.

I don’t want it handed to another team if they don’t have the passion for it. id maybe doesn’t want it. Why force it?

I’d rather 343 close and a studio pick it up years later. For what it’s worth, if they actually pick up from where infinite left off and DO NOT ABANDON THE MAIN STORY AND PREMISE like the prior two entries, then there’s something there.

Certain Affinity is more likely to get “merged” into 343 and bring their tooling from Tatanka with them.
 
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havoc00

Member
Halo is only as good as the team behind it.

I don’t want it handed to another team if they don’t have the passion for it. id maybe doesn’t want it. Why force it?

I’d rather 343 close and a studio pick it up year later.
Do you think 343 isn’t a talented developer Or just not a talented halo developer ?
 

MLSabre

Member
Imagine not being able to manage your own cornerstone flagship IP properly and expecting me to have faith in you managing the countless other IP you buy :messenger_tears_of_joy:

They will mismanage all their studios into the ground. I have zero faith in their leadersip.
I'm getting real EA vibes from this.

I'll never forgive EA running Westwood into the ground.
 

Del_X

Member
Do you think 343 isn’t a talented developer Or just not a talented halo developer ?
I think they’re actually pretty talented. I’d be fine with them doing a different series. They just have poor leadership and have failed to address their core tooling and staffing challenges.
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
Who would you turn over halo to and what would you do with 343?
Bonnie Ross lead a decade-long culture of mediocrity at 343i. "Under-delivering on the bare minimum" is basically written on their business cards. You're not fixing an infection that bad that runs that deep. Rip the Band-Aid off now: close the studio, re-home the best talent, and just be done with the whole fucking ordeal.

As for Halo, I wouldn't turn it over to anyone. Shelve it for two generations, minimum. Microsoft is about to be the proud owners of over 30 total first party studios. Let the dust settle, find the groove, prove the fucking insane play they're making actually pays off. Then, when they're making actual hits again, producing actual AAA top-tier video games, then they tap their brightest for a pitch: "How would you resurrect Halo?"
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
They just need to make a halo that had the most action, (lots of explosions, bad guys, linear gameplay) and the best graphics, and keep the core gameplay the same. It would have been a hit and still will be. They focused on the wrong thing for halo.
 
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Noxxera

Member
Lmao Halo isn't dead. If you believe that rumor wtf. Infinite had a bad launch, that's the only lesson the developers and Xbox can take from it. It was too ambitious and launched in "beta" or w/e. Next game they simply have to worked all features out in advance and release at once. They can, if they want, do some major changes in the next game. I can believe that rumor it has half the budget of infinite tho.
 
Starfield, Fallout, COD, ESO, Forza arguably...Halo is their franchise you associate with Xbox but hasn't been their biggest franchise in a while.
 

Noxxera

Member
give it a rest for next 10yrs. Let other new IP takes its place. Same goes for GEARS series as well. People are tired of these games. GEARS HALO needs a full rest now.
I think its more the developers that are tired of the games. I can play new Halo and Gears game easy. I found the aim or whatever in 5 bad tho, thats a major fault. Could be I was just bothered by the reticle.
 

FrankWza

Member
But Halo is definitely in a terrible position right now, going to be hard to dig itself out
 

LRKD

Member
Halo doesn't need budget, it needs vision. Everyone at 343 was hired intentionally to have no vision of what halo is. Look at the old interviews of 4, and they all say as much, they hired cod fans to make a halo game. And look even at the story, they completely misunderstood that the forerunners ARE human. The misunderstood master cheif and cortona. They hired people who knew nothing about halo, and expected them to make a good halo game.

Id be more then okay to never see them make another halo game at this point. 3 terrible main line games is just too much.

They need people who understand the gameplay loop and story of the original games. As well as a huge focus on forge imo, i didn't care much for forge, but it was a huge part of what kept a large portion of players playing 3 and reach. So good campaign, split screen, forge, firefight, ALL at launch, it honestly isn't that hard, but it's impossible for 343i
 
The problem is really Master Chief. His story ended in 3 and then they brought him back and although I enjoyed Infinite, I lost interest in whatever Halo was trying to say after original trilogy.

Reminds me of Star Wars where every thread leads back to Skywalker.

They spent so much time and energy building out Halo's lore but the focus of every story is a human super soldier. Tell Halo stories not Master Chief stories.
 

SHA

Member
They'll present new Spartans from unknown training facility, biggest plot twist yet to be scene, I'm fine with that amount of budget being invested on the story and forge mode.
 
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