Rumour: 343 to stop Halo development and become ‘Project Management’ studio - Infinite SP DLC scrapped

[Dreadknux]

Coming off the back of news of huge layoffs at Microsoft/Xbox, it sounds like there’s going to be a massive shake-up at 343 industries and the Halo franchise in general.

According to a French report (I’ve linked an English translation via Reddit here:

• All single-player content for Halo Infinite (and Halo in general!!!) has been scrapped
• Infinite will continue to be a multiplayer-only experience, as layoffs and staff reductions have not affected the content scope for the game into 2023
• … but 343 is losing around 1/3 of its workforce through dropped contractors and the shifting of many personnel into different Microsoft teams (including Joe Staten, who was brought in during 2020 to help right the ship for Halo Infinite’s release; he has left 343 and gone to Xbox’s Publishing group). Bonnie Ross is also gone, ICYMI.
• There is a conflict as to the future/vision of 343; one side, a desire to build on the narrative of Halo, another side looking ay the studio’s financial needs/opportunities (read: MP monetisation)
• Single player content has been seen to not lead to player retention, and has generally been difficult to develop, leading to new leadership’s decision to scrap the plans
• 343 will be restructured to serve as more of a “project management” studio, with the “game development” part of the studio “disappearing” and new content outsourced to third party developers.

I was never the biggest fan of Halo, but I still find it sad that the franchise has fallen so low over the last decade. I remember when Halo 3 was the biggest thing on the planet when it came out. Now look at it.

All of this sounds crazy, but hopefully this restructure opens the door for more competent studios to be given the license to develop single player ‘Chief content, but this likely won’t happen for another 5-6 years (if it happens at all).

I reckon that these changes will probably be a good thing in the long-term, but man. What a lot of wasted potential. Ten years of nonsense. Since Halo 4, 343 industries has proven to be an absolutely terrible studio to manage the series, and the chickens are seemingly coming home to roost.

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Important Aside: I originally saw this being talked about in Status Updates and didn’t see a topic for this in here for some bizarre reason(!?). Let’s make more topics please!

[jungle_penguins]

I am speaking as if this is true, it seems true at least: https://twitter.com/BathrobeSpartan/status/1616169276984942599

 

 

The problem with single player retention is it is always going to be bad. The endless battle between business and art and it comes down to this is pretty harrowing. Truthfully, there's no business reason beyond making for good marketing on continuing campaigns for Halo. What once was 1/3 of the playerbase playing is now 5% (on PC anyway). The problem is data driving like that leads to just wanting to take out everything that a minority use. That just means multiplayer matchmaking is the only viable option for Halo, and that's not fun. 

I'm serious, pragmatically speaking, the only thing most people play Halo for is matchmaking multiplayer. Not even private matches. At that point, might as well just reboot everything like Apex Legends is.

So, assuming all of this is true, the new management not only chose who to fire but also chose to close a door on themselves, while also nothing is actually fixed fundamentally. The engine is apparently up to be used by others, this does not solve anything on developing games. They just budget cut everything and assume other studios can pick it up.

Possibly, they can pick things up. More importantly, the smaller scale might be much more helpful for the brand, especially with spinoffs that are going to use different technology. This may turn great, but it can easily result in big stagnation that Infinite already is and solve nothing. Personally, I rather Halo just be niche, anything grander backfires since the assumption is Halo can be popular while changing nothing substantial. 

 

[Johnster4]

A change in leadership at 343 should have happened when MCC launched, the fact the Bonnie Ross, Frank O'Conner and Kiki Wolf were allowed to stay for that long was a complete disaster in the long run.

When thinking about it  this is another example of why game dev's shouldn't cater to people outside for the core fanbase like they have been doing since Halo 4. I just hope the next dev that comes along make a Halo game instead to catering to Call of Duty or Titanfall fans.

[Dreadknux]

4 hours ago, Johnster4 said:

When thinking about it  this is another example of why game dev's shouldn't cater to people outside for the core fanbase like they have been doing since Halo 4. I just hope the next dev that comes along make a Halo game instead to catering to Call of Duty or Titanfall fans.

Funnily enough, my major criticism of H4 was actually the opposite at the time! I found that the plot and key story beats were generally obtuse and inaccessible (thus making the campaign quite unenjoyable) unless you went out of your way to access missable terminals (or apparently read one/some of the Halo books, someone told me). Now that was catering to the core fanbase in a way that didn’t work at all, for me.

But yeah, H4 was just weird (I liked Spartan Ops tho). And I never got an Xbox One so H5 just passed me right by. My understanding is that the whole franchise just took a nosedive and lost the core of what made it so accessible and successful in the 2000s.

[Johnster4]

13 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

Funnily enough, my major criticism of H4 was actually the opposite at the time! I found that the plot and key story beats were generally obtuse and inaccessible (thus making the campaign quite unenjoyable) unless you went out of your way to access missable terminals (or apparently read one/some of the Halo books, someone told me). Now that was catering to the core fanbase in a way that didn’t work at all, for me.

But yeah, H4 was just weird (I liked Spartan Ops tho). And I never got an Xbox One so H5 just passed me right by. My understanding is that the whole franchise just took a nosedive and lost the core of what made it so accessible and successful in the 2000s.

This was exact opposite of Bungie philosophy when it came to lore, where the games came first, rather than tie anything into the expended universe.

As for the games themselves, this cutscene alone is where this is the worst cutscene in the game because of how confusing it is but it's the more important cutscene in the game 

 343 could not keep a consistent narrative in their trilogy as just kept changing antagonist with every game.

 

[Strickerx5]

I just want to say that my heart goes out to everyone that was laid off, both in 343 and around MS in general. That, bar none, is the worst news out of any of this.

 

This is the lowest point the franchise has ever seen and I'm honestly just... tired. I can not stress enough how Infinite's current state was entirely, laughably avoidable at every step of the process up until now by anyone who even had a remote say at the table. All it came down to were the higher ups at both 343 and MS telling themselves "if we simply release a Halo game with MTX elements, we'll be fine".

After a botched first showing, pushing their devs to their limits, calling in a hail mary in the form of Joe Staten, and duct taping every last line of code together, they put out exactly that in November of 2021. And ya know, they got what they had hoped for... for about the first month. The actual situation hit them over that holiday break, and it became clear how actually fucked they were. Congrats, you released a game that, on the surface level, could get people through the door. Through the miracle of your talented devs, you even managed to make a lot of it fun. But numbers plummeted starting in January because ya ignored three big ass factors. Team retention, tech debt, and content.

Infinite was largely made by contractors. MS and 343 did not retain most of them following the game's release. Suddenly 343 found themselves with not only less hands on deck, but no clue on how half of their systems even worked. For a live service game, that's a death sentence.

To add insult to injury, they had to do a lot of bs to launch the game at the time they did. Remember when they promised that Slipspace was this brand new, built from the ground up engine that would make updates super easy to implement? A Lie. It's another update of Blam! with a jumbled together backend that was built more towards monetizing every last thing rather than actually being functional; let alone easy to use. To get the game out the door, they ham-fisted shit over that last year. As shit went online to over 20 million people, it broke hard. Now you were left in a situation where most of your staff is going on a well deserved break for the holidays and, meanwhile, one of the few playlist you have in your live-service game is busted and there's little you can do about it... let alone most other features outside of simply playing MP and campaign not working. This is just the tip of this specific ice berg that, to this day, they are still struggling with.

And lastly, to spit on the corpse, content. Halo 3, a game released in 2007, saw a total of 7 maps introduced within its first year. Infinite, a live fucking service game, has seen 4; 2 of which are forge maps. Add in the lack of features and modes that, up until Infinite, were series staples and it ain't hard to see how the population for the game fell off so hard. Only recently did we get things like forge or online campaign co-op but the game is still missing a ton and, what's there, is often still broken. Again, they were more concerned about the MTX systems being in place that they put everything else on the backburner.

All this to say, I'm far from surprised we're at this low point. The leadership at both MS and 343 completely shit the bed. Sure, Bonnie was removed from her position months ago but she was far from the only one at fault. But hey, in classic capitalism fashion, most of them are going to be just fine. It's the devs that made the game worth anything in the first place getting cut. What's left is a series in more of a limbo state than Sonic arguably was post RoL and Forces. As MS's premier franchise, idc how much money you're about to throw at CoD, that's beyond embarrassing.

I know fans are freaking out about "what comes next" but honestly, them saying anything won't solve a damn thing. It should be clear to anyone where their heads have been with this series so any kind of press statement will just read as actual trash to me. Quite frankly, I'd rather them just keep Halo out of their fucking mouths until they actually have something concrete to not only show, but play. Over the past decade they've made it an art of having some poor pr person from 343 come out after a fuck up and say "we're sorry, we'll do better, we love halo" and I am beyond sick of that shit. Not only does it take the heat away from the higher ups and put it square on the devs at 343, but they never have actually done better.

At this moment it actually taxes me to show any real emotion towards the series and, honestly, about gaming in general these days. I know some would say "well just drop it" and I am simply just not like that. I'll remove myself from it because that's simply what a healthy human being does with things that don't benefit them, but I've never been one for the dramatics of going "I'm done with X forever!" Doesn't solve a damn thing and, most of the time, those same people always just come back when the next thing rolls around. And, as much as I'm ranting here, I do actually have fun playing what does work in Infinite. I still do think the raw gameplay is the best in the series (and its art style if great as well). I wish they were still looking to fix the whole thing.

But yeah, idk what else to say. I don't know where things go from here, and honestly, I'm short of caring atm. I still love Halo deeply, but fuck this.

[TheEyclopediaHBookReader]

I don't find Halo to be as bad or good as it once was, the 343 era was just Halo shaking off it's celebrity status and going back to a 'creative and indepent passion project' in the vein of Combat Evolved, while continuing the franchise to keep Microsoft stable in the industry, and you have fans and the hardcore debating that it isn't popular compared to now - that happens with almost all franchises to begin with in a era after Star Wars - The Force Awakens - even Mario and Nintendo

[Blacklightning]

On 2/6/2023 at 3:04 AM, TheEyclopediaHBookReader said:

I don't find Halo to be as bad or good as it once was, the 343 era was just Halo shaking off it's celebrity status and going back to a 'creative and indepent passion project' in the vein of Combat Evolved

Ah yes, because nothing says "indie passion project" quite like big budget multiplayer shooter live services jam-packed with lootboxes, microtransactions and/or season passes. Jesus christ. I'm beginning to feel like people just didn't play any of the 343s past Halo 4 or willfully bury anything past that in the back of their memory Unreal II style.

[TheEyclopediaHBookReader]

On 2/7/2023 at 5:16 PM, Blacklightning said:

Ah yes, because nothing says "indie passion project" quite like big budget multiplayer shooter live services jam-packed with lootboxes, microtransactions and/or season passes. Jesus christ. I'm beginning to feel like people just didn't play any of the 343s past Halo 4 or willfully bury anything past that in the back of their memory Unreal II style.

i meant the story in particular and the atmosphere

The latter you mentioned after the "indie passion project" line you underquoted from me - are from business related standpoints emphasized from the publisher/shareholders/suits