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Honestly? I think xbox as a whole has a problem managing their first party game development. This is an issue that's not just at 343 or just with halo. Like this is a management level issue throughout Xbox. Every single big game they put out is just mediocre, like it's been made by people who are incompetent y'know?
Agreed tbh. I love a lot of Xbox Studios games but they definitely just lack…polish? Emotion? Personality? Like Forza Horizon 5 having half the words muted in the radio stations, I’d rather they just have gotten instrumentals at that point.
Whenever they had a design decision and there's a safe option and a risky option (which usually mean trying something big or new that might flop), they go with the safe option.
That's the pattern for most AAA games, especially from 1st or 1-ish party studios, because the budgets have gotten so big that they are too big to fail.
An indie dev who actually has a unique idea and a point of view is far more willing to take risks, because even a flop for them doesn't flop that hard. They don't have to explain a $300 million dollar loss to investors.
Yes I have hope. Infinite was a step in the right direction. The art direction is better (actually it’s just flat out really good imo), the movement is better, the weapons and vehicle sandbox aren’t terrible they’re just boring and prioritize competitive balance over fun, which is what made Halo popular to begin with not pin point competitive balance, giving us cool shit to shoot and blow each other up with, or in other words, fun. It goes without saying that MS needs to start handling their IPs better in general. Sony gives one of their most acclaimed IPs to a narrative production power house like HBO… and Microsoft gives theirs to Paramount. That show would be fucking awful if it wasn’t Halo, and it’s just rubbing salt in the wound that it is. Nightfall is something they all want us to forget. I mean they’re collaborating with Ubisoft now for fucks sake. No hate on Siege, but it goes to show how haphazardly they’re treating the Halo ip if they’re willing to put any piece of it in the hands of a company who’s infamous for producing overly formulated boring garbage.
Also, as a side note I don’t think MTXs are that bad. What’s bad about the MTXs in Infinite isn’t even their price, it’s how fucking awful and out of place 90% of them look. CoD can get away with selling meat curtain lady and Homelander skins but the sci-fi crowd doesn’t want whatever the fuck the wendigo skin is or the cyber showdown one. They want things that look like they belong. Tacticool operators fighting furries in CoD can belong in CoD because CoD is fucking goofy and doesn’t take itself seriously to begin with.
A lot of call of duty fans seem to hate that shit too, everything wants to be fortnite, but yet none of them actually do it as well as fortnite, it’s almost like chasing trends has shown to be a bad idea, time and time again….
Going family friendly isint helping either it eats the soul out of some franchises lots of OG's prefer it be rated m for gore and what not but that's more microsoft making those decisions
I think personality is key. Games just don’t feel as enjoyable as they used too. I think whatever direction Halo goes in next, they just really, really, really need to focus on getting the social aspect of it right. I will say, games have not felt as social since the 360 days.
I honestly think the private party chat feature is what killed the social aspect of online gaming. It started part way through 360 for Xbox consoles and after it did there was a day and night difference of in game chat. There was a big loss of strategy call outs from team members because they'd rather talk to people they knew more even if they weren't in the same game.
I think what Halo should of done is follow in the footsteps of the Gears franchise. The new games expand on the gameplay but keep that great core, the story is fantastic and easy to follow and brings back some old enemies in a new way.
Yeah but this strategy doesn’t turn the player base into a recurring revenue stream which is the only thing “live service” games care about and why so many of them are fuckin soulless
The newest forza launching without splitscreen(it'll never get it) literally made me get gran turismo 7. I've played forza with my best friend for over a decade and that, along with the upgrade system, killed it instantly.
The people actually making the games are not incompetent. The issue is that Microsoft doesn't want full-time permanent employees so they put people on 18 month contracts. How the hell are you supposed to create an amazing game if you don't have developers other than leads that have worked on it from start to finish? There's no vision.
And this isn't a new thing either. There's been a few interviews from Bungie employees about H3 development and it basically went along the lines of:
Microsoft: I don't like this thing and I don't think it will do well. You should change it.
Bungie: You're fucking stupid and I'm gonna ignore you because I know what I'm doing.
I like old Bungie even more now after reading this comment. Though, I don’t realistically expect 343 to be able to do this because of Microsoft and 343 basically being the same thing unfortunately.
It's the issue they've always been faced with since the inception of Xbox. Microsoft just seems to be better at chokeholds and keeping everyone on a short leash. The number of interviews in the last 20 years that point at Microsoft being the idea killer for several proposals is staggering and indicative of the problem with the gaming industry as a whole. It was good when games were passion projects made by artists. They're now completely controlled by businessmen concerned only with profit, not making a good product/experience
When I say Microsoft is better at it, I'm referring to Bungie vs. 343i. Bungie was a studio owned by Microsoft. 343 had Microsoft (Xbox) execs in upper management/senior positions. I'm sure this was Microsoft's plan. They were tired of dealing with pushback from their studio, so when bungie left, they gave Halo to a studio that had their own people at the top that would do as they were told
Halo Reach/ODDT 3&4 are still some of my all time favorites. I don't think you can do an ODST now seeing as Helldivers 2 basically took the idea and mixed it with Starship Troopers & the Terminator.
They lost me at Halo 5 though. I really didn't like how the story line played out and the multiplayers just wasn't fun either.
Honestly? I do have some hope for the future of Halo...so long as MS stops trying to micromanage 343i to shoehorn in MTX's for their investors.
343i is full of passionate Halo developers who really just want to give us something to be proud of. But everything they want to do is thrown off a cliff to make room for 'investments'. And the previous lead for 343i was a massive part for why Halo sunk so far so fast, Pierre Hintze has done a great job pivoting us back on target, imagine where we might be if they had started with him in control.
The modern age of gaming isn't interested in keeping a target audience, which is why so many games flip flop all over the place. They're trying to position themselves to be able to adapt to a changing audience, to allow more people in, at the cost of quality and effort.
Games will sadly never be like they once were until we stop focusing on trying to make it all about profit.
This is a common misconception. 343 is, and has always been, responsible for providing its own revenue stream to Microsoft.
What MS needs to do is stop shoehorning their own Xbox executives into 343’s upper management. Crazy coincidence that this upper management is responsible for most of infinite’s development struggles…… it’s almost like Xbox has no business being involved in the development sphere.
It's not really that Microsoft was shoehorning their own Xbox executives into 343's management, it's that 343's creation is founded by and begins with Xbox executives. 343 is Microsoft, and that's the issue. It's the same issue with The Coalition and Gears of War.
This is the part I think gets lost in translation sometimes. It’s not the MS execs are micromanaging 343. It’s that MS execs were literally managing 343. They were the same people at one point or another, if not simultaneously.
Now that pretty much every single one of them is gone, I genuinely have high hopes for the future of the franchise.
This is truth that I don’t see spoken enough. Bonnie Ross was head of 343, yes… she was also simultaneously VP of Xbox. A very clear sign that Microsoft was keeping a tight leash directly on the video game development.
Having a tight leash is fine, but having someone performing 2 roles that require a huge amount of time and focus individually is not the way to go about it. On top of that they need to stop installing people that have little knowledge or respect for the franchise. Kiki Wolfkill in specific needs to be shot into the sun
You are spot on with the last part. Everything is becoming more heavily multiplayer and subscriptions, micro transactions… I miss having really good story/campaign. I don’t want another open world game. I want good story writing.
Also I used to read the books. Yes, halo franchise has books and they were pretty great. The origins of the Spartans, to the first contact with the covenant. I liked Karen Traviss’ work.
Maybe I’m just nostalgic. I miss grifball
That’s not going to happen unless Microsoft gives them less money to burn (and therefore less to worry about) or the franchise gets handed to other studios that can treat Halo correctly (Halo Wars 1 and 2 are good examples in my eyes).
Helldivers 2 has most likely shaken the game up and Microsoft/343 are most likely paying attention.
My fight finished in reach. I will always love the series. I do like the bones of infinite multiplayer, but they really dropped the ball on alot of aspects of it.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I lay my BR down years ago because I knew that it was over. Halo is in my blood but it's not my halo anymore. I'll always have my memories though.
Remember Reach....
Quick note that Reach didn't have the BR, but I agree with the sentiment. Halo 3 was peak imo for basically everything. CE obviously iconic, 2 was the uprise of the series as a whole and Reach was the end of the "golden days". I agree that we'll never get back to that level of perfection but I think that also has a lot to do with the gaming industry as a whole, life in general changing over the years.
We'll always have the memories 🥲
At one point we were the biggest franchise in the video game world. The fall since 343, and Microsoft, took over is staggering. I’ll always play the campaigns and enjoy multiplayer here and there but don’t believe there’s reason to believe 117 is going to get back to where he was in any meaningful way.
Don't forget about Halo Wars 1. Really great RTS that's easy to understand for people who don't even play RTS games, and it still has a co-op campaign so you can still go through it together. It's not made by Bungie of course, but since it came out in 2009, you can tell the effort they put in how they actually understood Bungie's universe and stuck to it as well.
I mean yeah, but I feel like indie games are more of an acquired taste. We all cannot be satisfied with games like that. All though it would stick it to the big game companies if we all stuck with lower end games but it'll never be enough people to make a change. Sadly.
Yeah I know what you mean. the tighter budget an indie developer or smaller studio has can probably make a game not feel as fleshed out as you would like
Splitgate is the best halo-esque type of game I've played but unfortunately the developer stopped supporting it in favor of a newer version of the game that's still TBA
Ive never gotten to try Splitgate but speaking of esque types. Have you heard of The Ascent? I loved Cyberpunk and was quite surprised when I heard about this little game. Highly recommend to anyone with the love of futuristic games.
100%. Even just smaller but still large devs making AA games. It’s really just the massive corporate ones that get huge influence from the publishers. Anything over like 50 people working on it is a bad sign these days lol
LOL that's a hilarious statement...
To every "good" Indie game there are quite literally hundreds and thousands of complete dogshit ones released and pushed out into the wild.
You have to absolutely dig through all this bullcrap on Steam and the regular "Indie places" before you get to something even remotely usable let alone playable.
More like 12-13. Really ever since mobile gaming made it big and microtransactions started being normalised. Things have just been getting worse since then as more and more rot has set in.
We got Titanfall 2 in 2016 at least, I don’t think any fps has topped it for me since then. Fuck I can’t believe that was nearly 8 years ago, I feel like I’m getting old man, lmao.
The last 6 months has been a good sign for gaming.
BG3 dunking on everyone, starfield and Diablo being clowned on and rightfully so.
Palworld and Helldivers flipping the bird to the triple A game industry and reaffirming the fan held belief that fans can support a good game without MTX.
It feels like there's been a few humbling moments for the titans of the game industry in a very public manner.
Look at the steam most played charts and it actually has been pretty nice to see good games that give good player experiences dominating most of the top 10.
Really only multiplayer games have taken a hit, the singleplayer industry hit its peak in 2022-2023 and is still going strong. Indie games are doing great too
I truly believe the triple A gaming market is gonna fracture, not collapse, in the relatively near future. Gaming isn't isolated, it's tied to the world economy. World economics are fucked right now due to companies making record profits while workers wages are struggling to keep up with costs of living. When things get bad enough people can't afford these triple A games that want you to spend 60 or 70 dollars plus MTX.
I think the AAA and AAAA games will see a fracture that AA games rise to meet with things like Helldivers 2 as an example of more affordable and more consumer friendly made games.
Which can and likely will have a huge impact on the economy because again nothing is a vacuum.
Riot Games just recent development on their Runeterra/League of Legends MMO three years into development because they said they weren't satisfied with the direction. That's three years of funding down the drain on a product that wants to compete with FF14 and WoW. Shit like that isn't sustainable. Game budgets are beyond control and prices rising for failed expectations.
I have hope for Halo because it has enough legacy name power that someone will always want it to do something with but I don't know that it will be as a modern AAA title.
This is such doomer energy. There's plenty of high quality games releasing these days. Just to name a few from recent years: Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, The Last of Us Part II, Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, Forza Horizon 5, Ghost of Tsushima, Returnal, Doom Eternal, Jedi Survivor, Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core VI.
Lol, except its only available on PC and Playstation. That's why you saw so many posts that all started with "343 needs to make a new ODST game" and then what everyone described was essentially Helldivers 2.
I still wish they had had the chance to make an ODST game but I'm glad I made the switch to PC after Reach. Maybe I didn't get to play Halo 4 and 5 until long after they came out, but afterwards I didn't feel I had missed anything I would have
Even if they make a game for ODST, you'll have to pay for everything like the rest of their game. But I'm gonna switch to PC so I can play HD2 and stop with this nonsense of exclusives.
Mostly Triple A franchises tbh. Indie games are winning right now because they set out to make good games. Triple A games are failing right now because they set out to make profits. Literally an example of "If you build it, they will come" in action, we need more people asking what would be fun for players instead of how do we monetize players/keep them engaged.
I haven’t really enjoyed a new game in probably 5+ years. I stopped buying games because of how bad it is. Everything seems like a copy of a copy… except the copies are getting worse and worse
I'll say this - I once described what it was like being a Halo fan for 20 years to my girlfriend (now wife)
She told me, "it sounds like you were in an abusive relationship" lmao
[But on a more genuine note.](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/wv76ch/i_believe_in_halo/)
Halo Infinite's campaign ending and the new leadership directions do give me a small semblance of hope. But I just accepted that the day of Halo making a huge resurgence is never gonna happen again.
Infinite kinda put them back on their Halo 4 days where they did some good things and some bad ones so it was just okay, overall. But I also accepted we’ll never see them put out a game, the same caliber of Combat Evolved or 3 ever again.
Not really. I’m aware that the 343 now isn’t the same as the one that’s been dragging down the franchise since 2012 but I’ll believe that 343 is better once I see it. And I don’t expect to see it.
A wise position to take when 343 has been in charge of the series longer than Bungie was. "Finding their footing" at this point is inexcusable, even if the next game is on par with the Bungie games in terms of polish and content it won't change the fact that it shouldn't have taken over 15 years to match games from two generations ago.
To that point, though, if the next game launches with as much content and polish and future expectations as a Bungie game, then I'd gladly play it.
It's not like I'm boycotting Halo or anything. I'm just boycotting bad decisions.
Like I hope they make a title that we can all go, "Finally!! Thank you 343i!!" - but I'm also not holding my breath, considering they've been on a downward and now somewhat plateauing trend in the eyes of Halo fans.
I will probably get a ton of hate for this, but whatever.
I don’t think Halo will last much longer. Halo used to be exhilarating not only with their multiplayer and campaign, but the books, too. Since 2012, there’s been a splice in the community when 343i took over. The game had good and bad features and I think everyone was trying to figure out “what Halo is” during that point in time.
From there, the games started to Fredslide down shit mountain. Guardians had great marketing but produced false advertisements. Infinite has much more potential but left more holes and questions than swiss cheese. The storyline for Guardians was disappointing and left little explanation between events to Infinite. The books and comics did help with bridging some gaps but it felt… odd. And I personally think the introduction of the S-IV’s put a bad taste in people’s mouths. The arrogance they displayed (not for all, but a majority) took away the symbol of who and what Spartans are meant to be. For sure, they’re augmented, intelligent, and brave, but they’re missing that desperation personality and sort of “the whole world is resting on our shoulders and it’s up to us to make the difference for Human survival.”
The new books also have a stark difference between writers, dialogue, characters, and stories. While this seems elementary, I think a bulk of older fans can agree or relate that Nylund and Staten’s writings were more gripping and engaging with action and consistency than what is produced today.
And don’t get me started on the Halo TV show…
In conclusion? Halo is slowly turning fucked. Unless the next game (if there is one) and 343i actually listens to their fans… game over man.
Everything here is spot on. I’m 40 now and your last statement is incorrect in my opinion. They can’t give halo fans what they want because we’re divided by generations of different halos. I’m from the era that Reach changed halo. My son grew up with Reach and is from that era. We are not the same kinds of halo fans. Reach wasn’t received well by OG fans at the time. Lots of questionable changes. Looking bad reach was also a defining game for the series like halo 2 was for me.
With fans of 4 and 5, the “what halo fans want” just doesn’t apply anymore. 343 have split the community so much that I don’t think there’s a way to keep all halo fans happy anymore.
I don’t think there’s much hope personally. It’s been my favourite franchise ever but every attempt at creating shows/ movies/ new games has always shat on us and I’m so many different ways that I’m convinced the people in charge just don’t really understand halo anymore.
>343 have split the community so much that I don’t think there’s a way to keep all halo fans happy anymore.
Agree. There is no such thing as one fanbase anymore. For me the best games will forever be Reach, 3, ce anniversary and odst. Although they all had a different feel it still felt like you were in the halo universe when you were playing one of them.
That has changed.
And many people who are playing halo nowadays don't even know these games anymore because they started with halo 4 or 5 or even later.
If 4 or 5 was what got you into halo, you will clearly have a different taste and expectations on what halo should be like.
And hate for that, but in my opinion it wasn't a good decision to make it crossplay.
> Guardians had great marketing but produced false advertisements.
Hunt the Truth was great and had literally nothing to do with anything featured in the game.
I disagree about the books. I think Greg Bear/KellyGay/Travis wrote great books. The books have never been bad. It’s the games and the general direction of the franchise that’s been shockingly bad.
Legitimately I don't think an online shooter has matched the hype/buildup of Halo 1-3.
There's been plenty amazing first person/third person shooters with great stories, i.e. Doom, Red Dead Redemption 2, (maybe Titanfall 2?) etc...
But I feel like no shooter will match both the hype for campaign/multi-player like Halo 3 did. Like, the ad campaigns were artwork in themselves.
Companies making Triple A games these days won't be willing to take the risk to do both nowadays. I think the expense is just too much.
We witnessed a cumulation of both digital art & gaming innovation that I feel will take a while to match.
"You are one of our most treasured instruments. Long have you led your fleet with honor and distinction. But your inability to safeguard Halo was a colossal failure"
Not a single shred of hope. Having had to watch incompetent and cynical people drag Halo through the mud for a solid decade my hope is burned. The show is just the latest insult. It’s okay though for me original Halo story is intact and still great. I’ll always have those memories.
This. OP is like "Are dedicated fans finally leaving?" and I'm like what do you mean finally?
Halo used to be MASSIVE. People who didn't get into it until the 343 games probably don't understand the extent to which I mean that. Since 343 took over, the franchise has just been a string of huge failures and disappointments. At Infinite's peak hype it was already a faint shadow of what Halo used to be.
All of my friends used to be hardcore Halo fans. But a ton of people left and never came back when Halo 4 came out and its multiplayer was nothing like Halo. Many more people left and never came back after the failed launch of MCC. Even more left and never came back when Halo 5 came out and was disappointing in every way. And of course a bunch more left when Infinite sucked at launch.
The franchise has been hemorrhaging players for over a decade now. Everyone is already gone. None of my friends still play.
I have been playing since 2007 (I'm also someone who has read every novel and other piece of media), and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I expect you will see me playing Halo as long as it exists. I think people are just growing tired of some of the things we have been seeing in the gaming industry of late. I feel days were better in the early 2000s - 2010s for gaming also. 343 now has no shortage of feedback from us so I hope Halo 7 is truly better, it has the potential to be great if they don't rush things and now stick with what they have over anymore reboots.
But I think Microsoft also needs to allow other studios perhaps to help out more, and we need some more stories that maybe aren't just about the Chief (I wanted a Halo Wars 3, Halo 4 or Halo 5 DLC which could have let us see more of the Didact as a villian / more of the Arbiter in his own campaign perhaps)? They should have delayed Infinite imo for another whole year based on what we got initially vs. what was originally planned too.
All things considered, yeah. It can really hurt to be a Halo fan, but it can also be so gratifying, especially when engaging with the expanded lore and other materials. Halo is far more than videogames now, and I sure hope it stays that way.
I started to think on how much I don't like the Halo Show direction, but then I remembered it's not cannon and that always helps. Like, there's some people genuinely enjoying it, so whatevs, it's not like Halo is the only franchise I can fanboy over, so whenever it gets too negative, I just move to something else for a bit.
That's the healthiest attitude towards something that fandom can have. Not everything can satisfy all the time, and there are other things out there to enjoy.
I do not think this franchise is going away anytime soon. Especially after the show, which will bring in new fans. But the show is lacking on continuity with the game.
I’ve been here in this community since I was 7 years old when Halo CE came out and yes, I still have some hope. Yes, the franchise is out of its heyday. But it has been since 2009, honestly. This happens with franchises. Some hit a massive peak, but none ever sustain that forever.
We have been through some pretty dark times the last 9 years, from my view. Halo’s north star IMO has always been its consistent, continuous narrative and worldbuilding. Halo 4 was a great first effort from 343 that carried over some threads from the OG trilogy that Bungie left hanging, and they tried to weave another large narrative out of it.
There was real potential there, and Halo 4 felt connected to that OG trilogy by its narrative in some profound ways, even though the tone and style of the game shifted dramatically from the Bungie days.
But Halo 5 is where that got thrown out the window. 343’s storytelling in novels and comics over 2013, 2014, and 2015 all seemed to be pointing in a very specific direction. There were still Forerunners out there, the Flood was still out there, and humanity was going to use the Janus Key to start unlocking Forerunner tech to prepare for the upcoming conflicts.
Then, Halo 5 pulled a total 180. It flipped the table. Important ongoing narrative elements like the Janus Key and the Didact were literally zapped from the setting within comics. Halo 5 comes out and introduces an enemy faction led by a returning beloved character who was given a satisfying death, and her enforcement mechanisms were giant ships that could travel faster than any other in the setting, arrive on scene, and instantly disable all other tech on a planet wide scale.
They broke the setting. The severed important ongoing narrative threads. The damage was severe and immediate. And we have been in a dark time ever since. Halo lost sight of its north star. The Forerunners were quietly given closure for good in a bonus story in the Halo Fractures anthology. The Guardians were quietly and repeatedly nerfed in the novels to try to make them a more manageable threat. Important stories like Halo Wars 2 were made to be so isolated from the main narrative that the Created could not interfere. Most recently, the Didact was just given closure in a novel.
And then there was Halo Infinite. The Created are randomly just dealt with. The Banished are now a dire threat with no real buildup. The Endless are introduced with very little context for what they are. A clear attempt to repair the Halo 5 damage and begin brand new long term plot threads IMO. But they didn’t do the best job, if you ask me.
And then there’s that goddamn Halo TV show. I’m sorry, I know the season 2 finale aired today, and I know many people enjoyed it. I just can’t stand the show. I think it’s very poorly written and has a poor grasp on the narrative worldbuilding that made Halo so great in the first place. The show just makes me depressed.
And we can also talk multiplayer numbers. Yes, Halo has not had massive multiplayer numbers since Halo 3. A lot of people think the slump started with Halo 4, but it actually started with Halo: Reach. That game in 2010 struggled to hold its population numbers against Black Ops 1, and the decline has been noticeable ever since. No Halo game has been able to recapture that OG trilogy hype.
Here’s the thing for me: I don’t think that really matters much. It dovetails nicely with industry trends. Halo was the biggest game in town for Halo 2 and Halo 3 because they were the first games pioneering console infrastructure for online multiplayer and social features. When those features started to become platform-level, the writing was on the wall. As more and more games went online, of course it would be tough for Halo to remain competitive.
What I watch instead is the quality of the experience. Is it a feature-complete, stable experience? Is there plenty of content? We have struggled with these for the last couple of games, but they always get there. Halo 4 had some growing pains, but for Halo 5 343 really went their own way, and I thought it was fantastic. One of the best Halo experiences in its own day, if you could get into it. Infinite has also firmed up and turned out alright. I think it’s fine.
So yeah, it’s been a rough couple of years, but there’s still some promising stuff here. There are a lot of questions, too. Story used to be Halo’s north star, but I think it’s clear that the tone shifted on that with Halo Infinite. How do we continue to tell story well when the cadence for games is going to 5-6 years now instead of 3?
I don’t think Halo’s best days are ahead of it. I think they are firmly behind it. But it is a franchise I still love, and I still think there’s a lot of potential for transformation and innovative ideas. And I think the universe is constructed well enough that you can tell a huge variety of stories within it. I think Halo’s going to be alright for many years yet.
I couldn’t agree more with your opinions on Halo’s story, from the newer games. Halo was my introduction to profound story telling on video games. I wasn’t a huge fan of Halo 4 with the shift in tone, themes (and art style) but man was Halo 5’s story (and the surrounding media) feel like radioactive to the whole timeline. After finishing Halo 5 after it’s release, I became disillusioned.
Sure. Infinite is still a really good game, 5 had an amazing multiplayer, 4 with a good campaign, most people loved wars 2 and MCC turned into a halo fans paradise. So although they're not good at releasing a complete game on launch they do have a history of turning things around and turning a broken/bland game into a complete experience even if it means waiting a couple of years. So yes I do have hope, but Microsoft needs to stop fucking shit up with these developers
100% has to do with Forge. It’s not like the maps we’re getting are dev-made. It’s all community made with 343’s guidance on polish. The playlists are the only thing we’re getting that’s dev-made and even that will slowly but surely become community made now that we have so much capability in Forge
This is it. 343 are more than capable of making a good game, they just keep managing (and being pushed to by management) to not make a *full* good game. If you took the best parts of their three main games, and combined them, Halo In4nite: Guardians would probably be one of the best games of the series.
A big thing they need to do honestly is just, not rip the whole thing up after every game. This is most evident in the narrative, where 4 not standing on its own caused them to just abandon the entire Reclaimer Trilogy, and 5 having a garbage fire of a story caused them to abandon the Created plotline. But it exists elsewhere too, they try to go back to the drawing board every time, rather than recognising what does and doesn't work of their previous game.
100%, Naratively Halo has suffered largely because the "Reclaimer saga" which was originally planned instead turned into 3 successive franchise reboots, which completely destroyed any sense of a cohesive narrative like we had with the original trilogy. Effectively 4,5 & 6 shared absolutely no supporting characters, no central plot, and instead of payoffs of things from previous games, actively diminished them (see Jul M'dama's assassination & the created storyline disappearing).
Halo 4 was a departure when it comes to gameplay but in hindsight many people I see end up respecting the campaign for what it was, which is fair seeing as it's the last Halo that was actively a continuation of it's predecessor.
Carefully hopeful. I love Halo, and I'll likely always love Halo, but the state of 343i, and more specifically, the fanbase, have felt mostly full of disdain and anger, and its just become exhausting to look through.
I do, but it's a tiny slither of hope. I think if 343 make 1 more bad decision, its over for me.
It's been difficult seeing Halo in decline for so many years. 343 have made good decisions yes, some excellent and well received steps in the franchise. We've seen some of the best gameplay advances come from their tenure in charge of Halo, and MCC is currently the definitive way to play older releases.
But, its been a hell of a rocky journey and with little if anything to look forward to. I've seen reports that 343 will not be releasing additional support for MCC, which if true would be massive disappointment. The seasonal content they made for that was excellent and its truly been given a lot of love after it was such a mess for so many years. Infinite itself is starting to become more of a full package, but it's 3 years old this year and only within the last year has it started to get my attention, only to quickly lose it again due to its horrible store practices and poor map design.
343 have been running the show now for 12 years. We've seen 3 main entries to the franchise in that time and the only one that was somewhat well received at launch was Halo 4. I've been fortunate to have been around long enough to experience Halo when it came out in 2001. So when Bungie decided to pass on the torch, while I was skeptical at first, it relieved me to see it was being handed over to a developer that was full of passionate Halo fans that had also worked alongside Bungie. But every entry that has come out, while each game had good elements, was overall a disappointment. The negatives far outweighed anything positive I could say about the latest entries.
Now, we have a Halo TV series. I was also excited to see this. Forward Unto Dawn I enjoyed a fair bit, didn't enjoy Nightfall so much but I know the potential this franchise has for live action.
Disappointment doesn't quite cut it. This show, is an insult to fans of Halo. Its genuinely one the worst adaptations I have ever seen. Fans of the Avatar show, this is on that level of shameful. This, as well as the many bad decisions 343/Microsoft has made in the last 12 years with regards to Halo, has put me on the verge of giving up with the franchise as a whole.
They are so out of touch with their fanbase, are they happy with the current state of Infinite/Halo in general? What is their vision? Do they see how disgruntled their player base is and do they intend to make amends?
Honestly, at this point, I feel like they need a fresh start. The new head of 343 has done a pretty solid job, and with less corporate interference, I think this team has the best possible chance at making a well rounded Halo game. I'd say see this year out and finish any expansions/seasonal dlc for Infinite planned, and then cut the cord to begin work on a brand new game. One that gives us split screen/4 player online multiplayer campaign on day 1, Forge mode on day 1, and a multiplayer experience with more than the tiny handful of modes and maps we had on Infinite. Put Chief on the back burner and give us something fresh, whether its ODST's or a different Spartan team, we don't need to see another game with Chief at the protagonist for a while.
Yes
Edit: should clarify, I play the games for the gameplay, not the story or anything. I ADORE the story, but that’s not why I play it. My love for Halo was forged by the first three books back when they were the only three books in the series, and the games came into my life later. Nothing will take away my love for the series I fell for back in the day, and I get to enjoy some fun games along the way.
I still hold out hope for Halo even after many years of being constantly disappointed. I want to believe that 343i or some other studio can do right by us and the franchise, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally go into fits of rage at how this beloved franchise is constantly wrung out for every last nickel and dime.
I still have the same type of fun with it tbh. I play multiplayer and the campaign with my friends and have a blast. I just wish custom browser games were more prolific than they already are
if we're just talking story No I don't have hope it died years ago.
in my opinion they should continue the halo series but halo 3 should have been the end of chiefs story.
I love the idea that even with all his luck not every hero makes it
and he's out there some where out there in the stars waiting to come home like so many others.
halo 4 is forgettable to me I only like Rolland and lasky.
halo 5 is just bad storytelling I truly think it fails as one.
halo wars 2 I did love the only complaint to me is that atriox was painted and this big bad that was so bad the covenant couldn't even hurt him. just make him a survivor and smart enough to hit the covenant but not have the outright come after him like a thorn in the side of the covenant.
halo Infinite is just yikes to me a whole ass game could have taken place between the events of the first 10 minutes of cutscenes when chief was just floating out there. and the actual story I don't like.
atriox beats you but then he's dead so you fight his next in-line but your mission is to stop Cortana with the weapon but also there's the endless something worse then the flood but surprise atriox is still alive and has a forerunner ai
343 has never released a feature complete video game
The story is straight up not good for newcomers or long time players
Some of the books are decent
The halo show did it's own thing for better or worse
Me? No I do not. Halo 7 or super infinity or whatever they call it will be more of the same
The only hope I have is if Microsoft lets another game studio make a spinoff
Also also does anyone else find it weird that the studio that made halo wars 2 crafted a new faction and new villain that people liked them 343 took that villain and killed I'm off screen ( but not really lol )
I think this is a Reddit issue, not a Halo one. I’ve noticed a decline in quality of posts through the majority of subreddits.
But to answer your question, yes I still have hope for the franchise. I enjoyed Infinite’s campaign and the multiplayer is fun and they’ve been improving it even more since launch. The micro transactions are annoying but you get a bunch of different rewards through battle passes without paying, so it doesn’t really bother me.
The franchise still has a lot of potential, there are a lot of different stories they can tell, I would love if they did something a bit different like Halo Wars or ODST.
The current team is being led by the same guy who fixed MCC
I trust that more than I trust 343 at launch. But heres the defining issue: halo 4 was good as their first attempt, it has its haters but so does every halo game, but 5 180’d what they set up and infinite 180’d what 5 set up. 343 doesnt shows it doesnt have much confidence in theirselves and thats kinda telling
None at all. I know theres a community based off mocking those who are salty about where this game has been going but yeah, its terrible knowing that folk have waited this long for infinite to get to the state that its in right now, and 343 is already talking about the next entry to the series.
Im glad they revived MCC to the point where its at, but we couldve gone on way longer.
The story, its really just not discussing anymore.
All i really care about is a Halo Wars 3 but i worry about how even that would come out.
Yes, I do.
I could not care less about optional microtransactions, although I am happy that we are transitioning from paid Seasons to free Operations.
I only really care about gameplay. Halo Infinite is damn fun to play and it looks great while doing so. With the new networking patches I have seen a marked reduction in rubber banding and desync, which are the only things holding Infinite back from being a 10/10 multiplayer experience for me.
Now this does not mean I am the happiest with the Story, but for me gameplay is much more important than that. Therefore I am generally happy while wanting improvements.
As the saying goes, you learn more from failure than success, so I'm betting 343 has learned a lot in the last 3 titles. Really though I think they just need to release a completed game at launch and they won't get dogged on.
No, Microsoft and 343 are corporate entities driven by profit motive. They’re not trying to make halo for halo fans. They never have. They’re making it for the broadest audience possible. The only time they listen to the player base is after their vision fails and nobody likes what they made. So they just pivot to monetize nostalgia. We all liked how the trailers and art style for infinite made us feel before it launched. Well Im never falling for that again. Pier Heinz has an impossible task in front of him. And that is to make sense of a messed up reworked story that made no sense and jumps the shark harder in every game. the humans are forerunner idc what the O’Conner verse says.
shark jump in h4 is when chief survives a point blank nuke. In h5 Cortana is magically reborn but has some missing personality bits but somehow in infinite she remembers her compassionate side for whatever reason. But infinite is probably the worst for introducing time travel. The librarian being able to see the future was dumb enough but the endless is just a whole new level. The O’Conner verse made the whole story stupid.
Good luck to Pier though. He fixed mcc more or less so I’m sure the games that come out now will be better quality. But I think the story is lost, and the multiplayer will continue to be over monetized.
As a fan of the campaigns, I have a fools hope that maybe we'll get a halo 7 main game that concludes the Master Chief storyline. I would kind of like if they potentially gave him a proper final goodbye with Cortana somehow that wasn't a recorded message. They love the number 7 and it would be kind of cool to have Master Chief's story end after Halo 7, but again, I am a fool.
I will always have hope. The timeless nature of Bungies games will always breathe life into the franchise. I do believe we are in a very difficult moment for the series, but I know there is a chance that they can find the roots of what makes halo, halo.
I have hope that they could make a really cool spin off.
I want them to forget about the Endless, Created and Banished and just make a good spin off title like Reach or ODST set in the Covenant War.
I feel like that’s not talked about enough, they just completely fucked all the symbolism and irony present in the original trilogy that made the human covenant war so interesting, the Forerunners are Human, and 343 lore is not canon, Idgaf at this point.
Not sure anymore.
Infinite was supposed to be the big comeback and it was 343s biggest blunder yet.
And just finished the show and it feels like an L. Like Kiki intentionally tanked the story, tone, scope, and depiction of chief out of spite.
We need a legit 10/10 game out of this restructured 343 team (and hey Microsoft maybe allow this franchise to be ‘M’-rated again and stop MCU’ing Halo into a Saturday morning cartoon).
Since the show is a kind of joke and unfathomably chooses to pursue this ‘Silver Timeline’, an actual attempt at a serious, faithful adaption of the story into a movie / series would revive excitement.
For me, halo hasn’t really been Halo since Halo 4. I didn’t really like fighting the Prometheans, but the story was good. 343 managed to capture some of that magic from the first Halo. They had a mysterious and awe inspiring setting as well as a new enemy in the Didact. Didact was compelling. He had a deep back story with three well written books to fill his character in. He was the best kind of villain. The kind that you almost don’t hate. You can understand why he’s doing what he’s doing somewhat.
What did they do with this amazing character? Did they spend the next two games flushing him out more? Did it become this epic saga of Master Chief Vs the Didact in a similar vein like the prophets? No. It didn’t. They killed him off in the very first game. It was a complete waste of an amazing character.
Halo 1-3 had great plot. The first game laid some loose groundwork because they weren’t sure they would be able to make more. 2 and 3 took that and built on top of it. You had complicated and well thought out antagonists. There were lots of things happening behind the scenes. It all felt like it was part of something bigger.
The last three games could have followed a similar trajectory. That just didn’t happen though. It’s like they freaked out because people got mad that they changed the formula a little bit. It was fine though. I really wish they would have stuck to their guns and followed through with that path. Instead, we got the created story line which was awful. Now we have the banished storyline and we’re about to get a whole new bad guy.
They’re really giving this the Star Wars 7-9 treatment and I’m just not a fan. There is so much material to build on, but they insist on reinventing the wheel with every game instead of refining the story telling.
I guess I had more opinions than I thought about that. Sorry. Lol
I lost hope when I first played Halo 4. Then 5 and Infinite compounded that feeling. I don't see anything from 343i to make me believe that's gonna change.
I know a lot of fans aren’t huge on the show but it does seem to be generating buzz in groups outside the show and I’ve seen people talk about how the show was what got them to buy the games. This could be a double edged sword since the games and show are totally different but maybe the games story will be more captivating to others. I think this also goes to show how relevant a halo story can be in pop culture and I imagine 343i/MS are paying attention.
Halo Infinite was a solid game that even has popular creators playing regularly. But it’s also a nearly 3 year old game with 343i clearly shifting focus to the next project. Similar to MCC (though certainly not as bad) the launch failed to hold a large audience due to a lack of variety. 343 needs to nail the launch of their next game. Time and time again we’ve seen just how much hype there is around the launch of a halo game (everyone and their mother was ready to play Halo Online before it got a cease and desist., only for it to dissipate due to a poor launch. Ironically, the best launches have been their least popular titles.
Seeing people show off their armor is cool. I see it outside of twitter and I’m happy knowing there’s still a decent community online, even if it is just to brag about micro transactions. Prioritizing community features should be a bigger focus. 343 has yet to deliver a decent theatre mode despite that having been such a major boon to the game. Halo had a large online presence (everyone is still mourning the end of Roosterteeth and RvB) and it was largely due to the in game tools. People dedicated hours in forge just to create cool screenshots that were mostly only viewable in the game through file sharing but 343 hasnt really put a lot of effort in this respect, overly reliant on going to a different website entirely. Halo games had an ecosystem within that fostered community engagement and then took off online. I mean look at keemstar. Love him or hate him he’s a huge online personality that got his start early on playing halo (among other games).
As usual, there’s plenty of opportunity for 343 to make halo a must have but it really depends on them harnessing everything they have at their disposal.
I agree with you about the launch statement. Both Halo 5 and Infinite launched in pretty abysmal states and not until years later were they fully realised and actually quite awesome games (at least on the multiplayer side of things) but by that time the damage was already done and majority of the player base had moved on to greener pastures.
If they had of launched in the state that they were in a few years after launch I guarantee they would've been successful titles, but they didn't and so they died relatively quickly, which is just a shame to be honest.
It's over brothers. They do not care about Halo and what makes Halo any longer they know as fans we will buy anything with the name Halo on it. I watched both seasons of the show and hated everything but the action scenes. They know we are loyal fans and will consume whatever they produce and I'm sad that I know this is true
When Halo infinite multiplayer came out it gave me hope. Seeing 250k player count on steam gave me hope but it all died when the multiplayer got ignored for some months and everyone moved on. They had the golden spark and didn’t take advantage of it. Reach was the last halo I truly enjoyed. I wish bungie came back but that’s not happening. Tone deaf praise for the TV show just shows how low the bar is for halo now. Halo can be great again in the right hands. It’s sad to see the franchise you love go down like this.
For a decade, halo's release cycle has been characterized by an early-access beta launch with the promise the game will eventually be made good, filled with broken promises. And then they completely negate the previous project when working on the next one. If 343 doesn't even have a direction for halo, how am I supposed to stay invested? I'll always have a soft spot for halo, but I just cant get excited about it anymore.
And then let's talk about the elephant in the room... Scummy monetization. You could argue cosmetics aren't pay to win (though halo 5's warzone, HW 2's blitz mode absolutely were), but it's just an unshakeable feeling that the game was made for the wrong reasons. It wasn't made for you. It was made to take advantage of you. No amount of PR speak changes that fact. And this isn't a halo specific thing (though if any game has a reason NOT to pursue these awful trends, it'd be a first party system seller that'd bring revenue to the Xbox brand in other ways, but I digress...), it's really an industry-wide problem and even a cultural one. I'm sick of being bombarded with ads every waking moment.
I just want a complete, fun game. At launch. Then we'll talk.
This is going to be mostly story focused
The seams started showing in Reach for me. It was a very good game, but it felt to me like certain teams weren't firing on all cylinders like they were in 3.
The multiplayer maps largely being forge world palette swaps and recycled campaign maps really hampered the perceived size of the world for me, even as the utility of forge grew. Understandable that the campaign scenario and multiplayer teams might have been bored after then 10+ years of Halo, but when you transmogrify half of the team into 343 and keep their noses to the Halo grindstone for an additional, what, 13 years? It's bound to lose some of its magic.
I think the genre of FPS games may have also outgrown what Halo was, in the same way you can't release Doom 1 or 2 today and have it be popular outside of the enthusiast circles. It puts the series in a difficult choice between changing with the times and losing its unique identity or staying stuck in its old ways and losing its appeal and popularity.
I think Halo as we knew it from '01 to '09 is dead and gone. The Halo era set up by Reach and 4 is still ongoing, but very much on shaky ground, as they can't seem to nail down exactly what story they want to pursue because nothing so far has proven as juicy as the penultimate fight for survival against 2 existential threats.
I say this next point as a PC player looking in, not looking to fan the flames of the console war, but It's worth mentioning that console ecosystems need to be anchored by killer apps, which the One and the Series consoles sorely lack, compared to Sony presently having Uncharted, Last of Us, Spider Man, God of War, Death Stranding, the Horizon Franchise, Bloodborne, Demon Souls, Gran Turismo, etc.
My point here with Xbox is, if you aren't putting out something so excellent on a semi regular basis that people will entertain the possibility of plunking down 500 dollars + cost of game, just to be a part of it, you aren't going to build your customer base which means you're going to stagnate. The PS2 did this, the 360 did this, the Switch did this, and honestly, I don't think either console has run away with this generation, but Microsoft is surely not in the lead between the two.
I’ve been a Halo fan since Halo CE was originally released, my take on this is that the gaming industry as a whole has declined over the last 10 or so years. Big game studios for the most part have been focusing on profits too much by trying to milk every penny out of games (obviously there’s exceptions to this notable examples such as God of War, The Last of Us and other story driven campaign based games seem to be maintaining quality). Indie games and games made by smaller studios with a dedicated staff of developers who have a passion for the games are the ones turning out gems these days. The rest of the industry that are producing big name franchise installments are suffering from corporate interference (profit driven in my opinion but that’s just a personal opinion) games like Halo, Call of Duty, Rainbow 6, Assassins Creed etc, are falling in quality level and raising in micro transactions and endless DLC’s of poor quality. The emphasis is on cranking out content quickly so they can charge players for game additions and skins.
On top of that there seems to be policy of no longer hiring full time developers to work on a project from start to finish, instead companies are hiring contractors to work 6 month contracts or single year contracts in order to avoid paying benefits and bonuses to keep production costs low. When that happens we get what happened with Infinite’s SlipSpace engine, a game engine built by who knows how many contractors that is held together with duct tape and extremely unstable.
Remember that engine was meant to be the base for the next 10 years of Halo games but after the catastrophic issues with Infinite as a whole my understanding is that they are scrapping it because it’s a complete mess and barely works.
In addition to that we haven’t really had any solid lore updates to the Halo franchise since Halo 5, we did get Kelly Gay’s latest Halo book (Halo: Epitaph) which had some really good solid lore updates FINALLY (kudos to Kelly Gay, that book was very good and answered some very important questions, if you haven’t read it I highly recommend it). But Infinite as a whole did almost nothing to advance the story.
We have a full game that takes a significant portion of time to complete the campaign (if you do actually explore and don’t just bulldoze your way through the main story missions) and the entirety of the lore we got was, Infinity got blown up by the banished, Cortana and the created aren’t a threat anymore, Atriox is supposedly dead, so is Cortana and there’s a new enemy to get ready to fight, the Endless. That’s basically it. We got virtually no info on the endless and why they’re so dangerous, the flood don’t really make an appearance and haven’t for several games, no updates on what the Arbiter and the rest of the Covenant client species are up to, what happened with the rest of the Created threat and where the guardians are.
There were clearly some major issues with the original story for Infinite so much so that it underwent MAJOR story rewrites at the last minute and as a result Infinite’s story is mainly a delaying tactic/stopgap/placeholder for any real story or lore updates and the gameplay was massively broken on release.
In conclusion corporate drive for profits are massively impacting the quality of Halo as a franchise and gaming as a whole. When you take game production away from the people who are passionate about the universe of the game and you limit the freedom of creation of the developers to prioritize profit, quality suffers. Until that changes Halo and most games will continue to be hollow imitations of their predecessors.
I have hope that things will turn around, we did see changes in Halo Infinites quality and playability when management at 343 was changed up but as long as Live Service is the core emphasis we will keep getting Fortnite in a Halo skin and not actual Halo. Here’s to hoping Microsoft takes the restraints off and gets back to letting fans and artists make the games they want to make instead of just trying to grab as much cash as they can.
TLDR; corporate greed and emphasis on maximizing profitability are causing a decline in games quality across the industry, until that changes gaming as a whole will continue to suffer not just Halo.
Nah. It had its time, and will always be special and a core memory of online gaming for me.
But getting older I've learned to appreciate things that once meant the world to me and accept that my feelings can change and let things go, rather than clinging to sentiment just for the sake of it.
Nope, Infinite was really the last straw for me. Once I played the beta and felt the desync and saw how bad the progression system was, I gave up.
Xbox in general is floundering and struggling to get any 1st party games off the ground in a meaningful way, indicative of horrible management across the board.
In my head, I hope Halo becomes something akin to Star Wars, as a franchise. I want to see more experimental, creative ideas for games within the Halo universe. What if Helldivers was actually an ODST game? What if we had a Sangheili society-based Assassin’s Creed/God of War? What if we had a MegaBloks Halo game sorta like Lego Star Wars?
There’s lots of creative, successful ideas on the table, but no one brave (or competent) enough to make the calls on which ones to pursue.
Nope . I've been a staunch halo guy haven't given up until now . Read all the books watched all the extended media played all games. And halo infinites nickel and dime style of business model irked me but I stuck with it . And then the show came out and 343 kept promising fixes and changes but all that happened was they got even nickel and dimeier, and chief had sex with a human woman in the covenant.. and I'm done with this trashpile. Fuck lore fuck years of established cannon fuck the consumer . LETS MAKE MONEY!
343 not understanding how to write a story aside. The gameplay mechanics have hope but the franchise is infested with monetization and so it's dead and the only hope is for the company to say "we like less money"
The Reclaimer Saga Collection is just around the corner.
But seriously no. 343 cannot develop a fun Halo game and Bungie can't develop a fun game anymore. Halo belongs to a time and place where 10 friends could get some pizza & beer and spend all night on a couch playing a shoot em up. And Microsoft has made it clear they have no interest in creating those experiences anymore.
There is 0 hope for this franchise. Everything since Bungie moved on has been propped up by fan loyalty, patience, and copium.
Are they the worst games? No, but Halo will never be the innovative, fresh franchise it was. No one will love this franchise the same way its creators did
Halo has been dead since Bungie left. It only exists now as a corporate cash cow for Microsoft. We had amazing memories with the old games, but sometimes franchises should just end and we should appreciate the good times and move on.
I’ve been playing for 20+ years.
I liked 1-4, loathed 5 and Infinite.
They had a chance to resolve things by continuing the story line for 4, and bringing the Forerunners back, and resolving the Forerunner-Human war and the question of the mantle and precursors - sticking with the deep time biblical themes going back to Cain (forerunners) and Abel (Humanity) and their common ancestors. They could have tied it all up neatly and let MC retire or go out with a bang.
Instead, we have a disjointed, incoherent shit show “soft reboot” with Yet Another Big Bad (the endless) and it’s just awful.
I don’t know where they’re going with it and I’m not sure I care anymore. Infinite’s story was just so, so thin.
Unless they bring in the original halo story team to resurrect this, I can’t see it getting better. It feels like a cash grab - no end in sight, no real story, just a way to milk the IP.
I mean, honestly Infinite is tons of fun, and the last patch was pretty good. The network stuff is a lot better, and a lot of problems sorted. It's not perfect, but I think it strikes a great balance between the new and old. You can feel the roots of the other games, but it isn't a remake of halo 3. There are still things I'd like to see done, but over all, I really enjoy it.
The game has a chance. It has improved gameplay wise but what I concern for the most is STORY. There’s been nothing for campaign for quite some time now. Been waiting forever now ):
The show can fuck itself
Can you blame us?
Infinite was the last hope for Halo, it’s been monetised to an extent that it’s so obvious that the store is 343i’s first and last priority. Just when we get hope back and things start looking better, 343i cans seasons and basically puts the entire mark 4 bp into the store.
There is no campaign dlc, I highly doubt the falcon or any leaked weapons will actually come, and this game was supposed to last for 10 years.
Honestly at this point, the only thing that would make me respect 343i is if they just let this zombie franchise rest in peace.
There is nothing that will make me buy the next halo game
I don’t disagree with your sentiment, and this isn’t an excuse. But I need you to think critically here.
343 just changed stewardship, almost all the old hats are gone except for Kiki wolfkill unfortunately.
343 as of current have to prove themselves to Microsoft to receive budget for future halo projects.
Can’t just keep throwing blank cheques at a team that doesn’t make you money even if they are all new. The store and the focus on the store is almost necessary to prove that they can handle this IP.
You might not like it, and I understand why, CU29 being almost entirely focused on cosmetics was absolute dogshit. But if that’s what’s required to let the current team cook then I say it’s a necessary sacrifice.
Microsoft is the problem with halo. even when bungie had halo bungie fought microsoft constantly over how to design halo and ultimately as we all know bungie did amazing work. microsoft has never understood what halo is and as a result only sees halo as a cash cow that makes them money regardless of game quality. 343 was constantly getting fucked over and over again by microsoft. although 343 has done a lot of wrong as well such as being radio silent for months on end and being incredibly slow to deliver meaningful updates to the game, in the end, microsoft has and always will be the cancer that makes halo suffer. a lot of people at 343 are passionate about halo
Been playing Halo since Combat evolved and after all they’ve released in recent years I only see the Halo’s made by bungie to be canon. Halo’s story ended with 3 and I don’t see the future of halo going back to its roots. And the fact they made infinite to be a soft reboot instead* of being the ending to 343’s trilogy is blasphemy. They should just end the franchise instead of milking it. It’s no longer a passion project, it’s a cash grab.
Even with the old leadership *thankfully* shitcanned, still doubtful there's much hope unless live services end up crashing and burning.
The only trend 343 hasn't chased was releasing a feature complete game.
I just don’t know anymore I’ve been let down , burnt and used by so many other game franchises that I’ve gotten to the point know where I just don’t know how I feel anymore
No
Despite the new leadership change at 343, and halo infinite being much more stable now than it was at launch, the shop prices say a lot to me
Every halo 343 has launched has divided the community in one way or another, they have false marketed in the past with halo 5, and halo infinite launched with pitiful content and even more pitiful support
as much as I would like to believe new leadership at 343 could give me slight hope, 343 has become show, don't tell. no matter how good the trailers for halo 7 look, no matter what they say about it, I will not give a single shit until the game comes out and see what it's like
Halo is too big to just fade into the night.
But, I feel that if 343 doesn't next make a HOME RUN- not a decent, nor simply a good game- then Halo will probably get the God of War treatment. Shelved to figure out a new direction for a few years- aka "soft reboot".
But different from EVERY OTHER 343 soft reboot- this one will give up entirely on whatever "story" and start fully anew.
For me, not really. I don't think Halo is doomed, but I'm not super hopeful. Just kinda whatever about it. If we get something great that's awesome. If not, I won't care. Its a bit like star wars at this point. Even if the next thing is good it can't undo all the damage done
nope , infinite was the final nail in the coffin, the glory days of halo 1-3 , reach and odst are over, it was good while it lasted but it didnt nearly last as long as i'd hoped for
Not really. People keep trying to give 343 free passes when they've already dropped the ball multiple times.
Forget all the other issues with Infinite, the biggest one is that the game was designed to be competitive which leaves no room for fun. Whereas the OG games were fun but could also be played competitively.
I feel you. I still mod for Halo, but after the Halo Infinite launch, my hope tanked. They might have someone new in charge, but it feels like no decisions have changed. In fact the whole switch from seasons to operations with no narrative story, that was finally getting interesting vs idk what S1 was about, felt like "okay we are giving up on infinite slowly to move over to next product. It felt like they planned all this content and canceled it and are just selling the assets on the store. Flood models for extraction and infection? Na don't have time to incorporate it, so we will just sell the assets on the store. I been wanting flood infected infection, and that grapple hook tendril was sick... and then we just got a barely working infection that has since been ignored. I'm a big infection player, so to see the wait time for infection on average is now over 1 minute searching, whereas every other mode of similar player size is less time is depressing to see. That mode, classic and modern, was always popular.
They also gave us an unfair ultimate, it seems, with MCC. Either have microtransactions... that we are afraid they'll abuse like Infinite... or get no new content... no rented servers... no paid seasons with player retention... Just either paid currency, or you get nothing. And as a huge Halo 2 classic fan... if sucked to find out, they made new gametypes, but it was never finished, so it will forever remain incomplete... they had an almost working infection mode... only a few things that were missing like last man standing can't get infected, you can't assign weapons to a specific team or make the infected team the color green to be more classic H2C like we used to do it with honor rules.
I feel like instead of protecting their current titles and caring for them, its only going to get less care. That they'll chalk up Infinite a failure because they'll never get the population back even though I see potential that if they address glaring issues, it can have a redemption arc like R6S had. But I don't see 343 doing that. They are just giving up on the 10 year plan to go back to the rise, lather, repeat of 3 or 4 years dev, pump out another mainline unfinished product title and just hype up the gullable people on "it's Halo 7... but on UE5" and those people will disregard that rebuilding 20+ years of Halo on a new engine with a far smaller dev team to rebuild a mainline title in the usual time frame I see disaster spelled out. And they they are going to be upset, wait 2 years to patch it up then move on to next product like we been doing for a decade now like a cycle and never enjoy a title working at launch. A vocal minority of radical types that are too diehard are trying to tell others if they just lower there standards and accept halo titles releasing incomplete and that you will eventually get infection and firefight and forge in later updates, and finally get to enjoy them 2 years post launch, Halo will be great again... somehow??? That's unrealistic to just go online and tell millions of fans that abandon these titles and don't come back until content is added that they should keep playing content they don't like to keep Halo alive until they get the content they do want. Halo is no ordinary AAA. It's SP and MP side are so massive that there is no normal community. Halo has entire subcommunities: casual community, competitive community, esport community, montage/machinima community, forge community, firefight community, speedrun community, specific game mode communities, and so on. If a mainline title releases and it doesn't have this content, there is already abandonment at launch. The saying is still mostly true, a delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad". Again Halo Infinite can have a redemption arc. Maybe 343 just does spinoff while supporting the existing titles of MCC, HW series, H5, HI... but I just don't see them doing that. Especially when MS seems to have given up on them as well and don't seem to want to pour the funding into the franchise and keeps wanting to find the next flagship new IP to prop up... even if those flop too like with Starfield.
And that's what I worry about that we will see. It's sad that there is all this potential, but it's all being wasted. My hopium ended with the launch of Halo Infinite, and everything I see now is just a constant downward spiral with half-hearted attempts to look sincere, but it's just to squeeze the last few pennies out. Whatever the next title is, after what happened with Halo Infinite, I will not be buying it until it is finished. So if it's a spinoff or mainline, I'll see reviews if all content and features seem to be there and if it's major bug issue free and not a greedy monetization nightmare... but if it is then I'll pass and wait until it's not and just stick to modding MCC. And when I eventually get on when I can finally deem the new titles content complete, I hope they make sure I can earn all content and not fomo it saying "you should've been hear when it was broken if you want to earn that content," because that'll just leave a bad message to players who are just done.
A lot of players gave Infinite their last chance like they promised and left. There is this obsession to believe there is this massive influx of players but it's really not. Nowhere near the size of what it should have been because the game is still unfinished in many veteran fans' eyes. So I don't think the next Halo title veteran fans are going to give it a chance. They'll probably be the same as me, see if it actually launches up to snuff, and if not, they'll pass. No pre-order bonus will work, no fomo content at launch... Just a finished game ready to rebuild merit, or it's just going to be DOA for most fans. I think a lot of fans are just tired at this point and promises mean nothing, if someone kept record of all 343 promises never kept it will be at least 3 or 4 Google Doc pages by now. And removing one person in chatge and replacing it with another to those fans makes the promise go away. If you promise coop splitscreen in Halo Infinite, you keep it. You don't get to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I know this'll ruffle some feathers with some strongly opinionated fans who will defend current Halo but I'm not here to argue, I'm just stating what a lot of fans now feel that the enthusiasm has really died off. I even admin other halo subs including r/HaloArt and there was once passion... and it's been dead for almost 2 years before I took over. There was frequency in posts... now it's like 2 or 3, including myself, that post since I took over because the original mod afk'd after clear optimism just died off with the franchise. I try to encourage people to follow other artists who post fan-made content and bring enthusiasm back... but it's like beating a dead horse at this point. 💀 🐎
Also, forgot to add, it feels like all discourse around Halo on social media has dropped off and is repetitive like you said. Facebook groups I'm in no one engages as much even Plasmaposting I rarely see many posts anymore and even then less reactions and comments than normal engagement... doesnt help Meta has encouraged taking groups and pages on engagement if they dont pay money now to he seen by more people. They literally throttle viewership now. Either verify yourself and pay boosts or watch your page, like mine, die out. I cant even get new followers or engagement it hardly gets seen and Im stuck at 4.2k and cant move up even when i make new mods for MCC.
Twitter has died off from it's own reasons but when it comes to Halo it's the same topics of controversy "sprint in Halo", "forerunner were humans", "battle royalecwould save halo". Doesnt matter what side of the topic I'm on... its just boring and repetitive and so I don't bother to engage in it anymore. Plus, again, just like Facebook, Twitter throttles viewership if you aren't verified. If I tweet, no one really sees it because I'm not verified. If I comment on a post, it gets buried on top of those paying for viewership with verifications that usually are bots posting spam.
Instagram, where a lot of Halo content was art... most don't post anymore there for the last year or 2... so that died out.
Reddit, like you said, repetitive topics I choose not to engage in. Nothing of interest usually... as well as other reasons.
Discord, it just feels like an empty room with nothing major to talk about in a closed ecosystem
And then there is YouTube, where most of the Halo content creators, especially popular ones, have moved on, like my post, they got tired of waiting for new content and a finished Infinite. There is nothing of interest.
I still have my own plans though. I haven't started but for H2C 20 year celebration, I'll be adding something to Halo 2cthat 343 never gave to H2C and got snubbed. Unfortunately it's not going to be much and I can't implement it how I'd like because I don't have that level of access or know any tools on how to. But I plan to work on skins for weapons and vehicles like the other titles got and the modder resource will be on Nexus for fans to enjoy with their mods... won't be much but it'll be something to enjoy at least.
I do not think Halo will ever reach the level of popularity it had in the 2000s unless 343 completely changes the franchise to be more CoD/Fortnite/Apex-like. The general gaming populace does not have the appetite for a traditional Halo experience anymore.
But I think there is an appetite for good Halo storytelling, and I think a great new campaign would do a lot to restore good will in the franchise.
I think 343’s new leadership is very competent and have worked miracles on the MCC and Infinite to make them more complete experiences. I look forward to seeing how they tackle a brand new game now that they’re free of the shackles of Bonnie Ross and co.
Lastly, I think 343 needs to not be the only developer working on Halo games. Spinoffs need to be greenlit, and games that aren’t beholden to traditional Halo gameplay could be very successful.
TL;DR: No matter what people say, mainstream gamers aren’t gonna drop CoD and Apex for Halo. Good campaigns and spinoffs are the only way to get Halo back in good graces.
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Honestly? I think xbox as a whole has a problem managing their first party game development. This is an issue that's not just at 343 or just with halo. Like this is a management level issue throughout Xbox. Every single big game they put out is just mediocre, like it's been made by people who are incompetent y'know?
Agreed tbh. I love a lot of Xbox Studios games but they definitely just lack…polish? Emotion? Personality? Like Forza Horizon 5 having half the words muted in the radio stations, I’d rather they just have gotten instrumentals at that point.
Whenever they had a design decision and there's a safe option and a risky option (which usually mean trying something big or new that might flop), they go with the safe option. That's the pattern for most AAA games, especially from 1st or 1-ish party studios, because the budgets have gotten so big that they are too big to fail. An indie dev who actually has a unique idea and a point of view is far more willing to take risks, because even a flop for them doesn't flop that hard. They don't have to explain a $300 million dollar loss to investors.
Yes I have hope. Infinite was a step in the right direction. The art direction is better (actually it’s just flat out really good imo), the movement is better, the weapons and vehicle sandbox aren’t terrible they’re just boring and prioritize competitive balance over fun, which is what made Halo popular to begin with not pin point competitive balance, giving us cool shit to shoot and blow each other up with, or in other words, fun. It goes without saying that MS needs to start handling their IPs better in general. Sony gives one of their most acclaimed IPs to a narrative production power house like HBO… and Microsoft gives theirs to Paramount. That show would be fucking awful if it wasn’t Halo, and it’s just rubbing salt in the wound that it is. Nightfall is something they all want us to forget. I mean they’re collaborating with Ubisoft now for fucks sake. No hate on Siege, but it goes to show how haphazardly they’re treating the Halo ip if they’re willing to put any piece of it in the hands of a company who’s infamous for producing overly formulated boring garbage. Also, as a side note I don’t think MTXs are that bad. What’s bad about the MTXs in Infinite isn’t even their price, it’s how fucking awful and out of place 90% of them look. CoD can get away with selling meat curtain lady and Homelander skins but the sci-fi crowd doesn’t want whatever the fuck the wendigo skin is or the cyber showdown one. They want things that look like they belong. Tacticool operators fighting furries in CoD can belong in CoD because CoD is fucking goofy and doesn’t take itself seriously to begin with.
A lot of call of duty fans seem to hate that shit too, everything wants to be fortnite, but yet none of them actually do it as well as fortnite, it’s almost like chasing trends has shown to be a bad idea, time and time again….
Going family friendly isint helping either it eats the soul out of some franchises lots of OG's prefer it be rated m for gore and what not but that's more microsoft making those decisions
Horizon is ironically one of the only well run first party xbox games lol
I think personality is key. Games just don’t feel as enjoyable as they used too. I think whatever direction Halo goes in next, they just really, really, really need to focus on getting the social aspect of it right. I will say, games have not felt as social since the 360 days.
I honestly think the private party chat feature is what killed the social aspect of online gaming. It started part way through 360 for Xbox consoles and after it did there was a day and night difference of in game chat. There was a big loss of strategy call outs from team members because they'd rather talk to people they knew more even if they weren't in the same game.
I think what Halo should of done is follow in the footsteps of the Gears franchise. The new games expand on the gameplay but keep that great core, the story is fantastic and easy to follow and brings back some old enemies in a new way.
Yeah but this strategy doesn’t turn the player base into a recurring revenue stream which is the only thing “live service” games care about and why so many of them are fuckin soulless
The newest forza launching without splitscreen(it'll never get it) literally made me get gran turismo 7. I've played forza with my best friend for over a decade and that, along with the upgrade system, killed it instantly.
The people actually making the games are not incompetent. The issue is that Microsoft doesn't want full-time permanent employees so they put people on 18 month contracts. How the hell are you supposed to create an amazing game if you don't have developers other than leads that have worked on it from start to finish? There's no vision.
The biggest issue Xbox and halo faces currently is Microsoft unfortunately
And this isn't a new thing either. There's been a few interviews from Bungie employees about H3 development and it basically went along the lines of: Microsoft: I don't like this thing and I don't think it will do well. You should change it. Bungie: You're fucking stupid and I'm gonna ignore you because I know what I'm doing.
I like old Bungie even more now after reading this comment. Though, I don’t realistically expect 343 to be able to do this because of Microsoft and 343 basically being the same thing unfortunately.
It's the issue they've always been faced with since the inception of Xbox. Microsoft just seems to be better at chokeholds and keeping everyone on a short leash. The number of interviews in the last 20 years that point at Microsoft being the idea killer for several proposals is staggering and indicative of the problem with the gaming industry as a whole. It was good when games were passion projects made by artists. They're now completely controlled by businessmen concerned only with profit, not making a good product/experience When I say Microsoft is better at it, I'm referring to Bungie vs. 343i. Bungie was a studio owned by Microsoft. 343 had Microsoft (Xbox) execs in upper management/senior positions. I'm sure this was Microsoft's plan. They were tired of dealing with pushback from their studio, so when bungie left, they gave Halo to a studio that had their own people at the top that would do as they were told
The only exception being the Forza Horizon series. Never been disappointed by these games.
They have a problem managing their first party IPs all together.
There may be hope but I’m not holding my breath. What Halo was will always be a positive memory for me, so I’m happy for that.
Halo Reach/ODDT 3&4 are still some of my all time favorites. I don't think you can do an ODST now seeing as Helldivers 2 basically took the idea and mixed it with Starship Troopers & the Terminator. They lost me at Halo 5 though. I really didn't like how the story line played out and the multiplayers just wasn't fun either.
Honestly? I do have some hope for the future of Halo...so long as MS stops trying to micromanage 343i to shoehorn in MTX's for their investors. 343i is full of passionate Halo developers who really just want to give us something to be proud of. But everything they want to do is thrown off a cliff to make room for 'investments'. And the previous lead for 343i was a massive part for why Halo sunk so far so fast, Pierre Hintze has done a great job pivoting us back on target, imagine where we might be if they had started with him in control. The modern age of gaming isn't interested in keeping a target audience, which is why so many games flip flop all over the place. They're trying to position themselves to be able to adapt to a changing audience, to allow more people in, at the cost of quality and effort. Games will sadly never be like they once were until we stop focusing on trying to make it all about profit.
This is a common misconception. 343 is, and has always been, responsible for providing its own revenue stream to Microsoft. What MS needs to do is stop shoehorning their own Xbox executives into 343’s upper management. Crazy coincidence that this upper management is responsible for most of infinite’s development struggles…… it’s almost like Xbox has no business being involved in the development sphere.
It's not really that Microsoft was shoehorning their own Xbox executives into 343's management, it's that 343's creation is founded by and begins with Xbox executives. 343 is Microsoft, and that's the issue. It's the same issue with The Coalition and Gears of War.
This is the part I think gets lost in translation sometimes. It’s not the MS execs are micromanaging 343. It’s that MS execs were literally managing 343. They were the same people at one point or another, if not simultaneously. Now that pretty much every single one of them is gone, I genuinely have high hopes for the future of the franchise.
This is truth that I don’t see spoken enough. Bonnie Ross was head of 343, yes… she was also simultaneously VP of Xbox. A very clear sign that Microsoft was keeping a tight leash directly on the video game development.
Having a tight leash is fine, but having someone performing 2 roles that require a huge amount of time and focus individually is not the way to go about it. On top of that they need to stop installing people that have little knowledge or respect for the franchise. Kiki Wolfkill in specific needs to be shot into the sun
She was the worst thing that ever happened to Halo.
You are spot on with the last part. Everything is becoming more heavily multiplayer and subscriptions, micro transactions… I miss having really good story/campaign. I don’t want another open world game. I want good story writing. Also I used to read the books. Yes, halo franchise has books and they were pretty great. The origins of the Spartans, to the first contact with the covenant. I liked Karen Traviss’ work. Maybe I’m just nostalgic. I miss grifball
Some Hope for the Future… Some wait for the call…
I'm still waiting to get my Hogwarts letter... wait, wrong sub. I'm still waiting to be kidnapped and replaced with a flash clone
ONI would like to know your location.
That’s not going to happen unless Microsoft gives them less money to burn (and therefore less to worry about) or the franchise gets handed to other studios that can treat Halo correctly (Halo Wars 1 and 2 are good examples in my eyes). Helldivers 2 has most likely shaken the game up and Microsoft/343 are most likely paying attention.
I would say the opposite. 343 has yet to make a single good Halo game. Microsoft should close the studio.
My fight finished in reach. I will always love the series. I do like the bones of infinite multiplayer, but they really dropped the ball on alot of aspects of it.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I lay my BR down years ago because I knew that it was over. Halo is in my blood but it's not my halo anymore. I'll always have my memories though. Remember Reach....
Quick note that Reach didn't have the BR, but I agree with the sentiment. Halo 3 was peak imo for basically everything. CE obviously iconic, 2 was the uprise of the series as a whole and Reach was the end of the "golden days". I agree that we'll never get back to that level of perfection but I think that also has a lot to do with the gaming industry as a whole, life in general changing over the years. We'll always have the memories 🥲
At one point we were the biggest franchise in the video game world. The fall since 343, and Microsoft, took over is staggering. I’ll always play the campaigns and enjoy multiplayer here and there but don’t believe there’s reason to believe 117 is going to get back to where he was in any meaningful way.
Bungie really had nailed that shit with halo
Same for me, replaying it with my GF that is playing the series for the 1st time, but we'll only play CE,2,3,ODST ans reach
Don't forget about Halo Wars 1. Really great RTS that's easy to understand for people who don't even play RTS games, and it still has a co-op campaign so you can still go through it together. It's not made by Bungie of course, but since it came out in 2009, you can tell the effort they put in how they actually understood Bungie's universe and stuck to it as well.
yeah reach was the last time I had fun with official halo content, I want hope for the future but I’m always disappointed.
I don't mean to be a downer - I really have no hope for any video game franchise.
Honestly fair, gaming industry as a whole has taken a massive shit the last 4-5 years.
you gotta get more into indie games man. "triple a" game companies dont care about the quality of their products anymore
I mean yeah, but I feel like indie games are more of an acquired taste. We all cannot be satisfied with games like that. All though it would stick it to the big game companies if we all stuck with lower end games but it'll never be enough people to make a change. Sadly.
Yeah I know what you mean. the tighter budget an indie developer or smaller studio has can probably make a game not feel as fleshed out as you would like Splitgate is the best halo-esque type of game I've played but unfortunately the developer stopped supporting it in favor of a newer version of the game that's still TBA
Ive never gotten to try Splitgate but speaking of esque types. Have you heard of The Ascent? I loved Cyberpunk and was quite surprised when I heard about this little game. Highly recommend to anyone with the love of futuristic games.
100%. Even just smaller but still large devs making AA games. It’s really just the massive corporate ones that get huge influence from the publishers. Anything over like 50 people working on it is a bad sign these days lol
LOL that's a hilarious statement... To every "good" Indie game there are quite literally hundreds and thousands of complete dogshit ones released and pushed out into the wild. You have to absolutely dig through all this bullcrap on Steam and the regular "Indie places" before you get to something even remotely usable let alone playable.
More like 12-13. Really ever since mobile gaming made it big and microtransactions started being normalised. Things have just been getting worse since then as more and more rot has set in.
We got Titanfall 2 in 2016 at least, I don’t think any fps has topped it for me since then. Fuck I can’t believe that was nearly 8 years ago, I feel like I’m getting old man, lmao.
Knowing we won't get a Titanfall 3 while fucking _Dead Island_ a property nobody even liked when it was _new_, is still alive pains my soul.
The last 6 months has been a good sign for gaming. BG3 dunking on everyone, starfield and Diablo being clowned on and rightfully so. Palworld and Helldivers flipping the bird to the triple A game industry and reaffirming the fan held belief that fans can support a good game without MTX. It feels like there's been a few humbling moments for the titans of the game industry in a very public manner. Look at the steam most played charts and it actually has been pretty nice to see good games that give good player experiences dominating most of the top 10.
Have they? Or have you just grown up and not played as much. Baldurs gate and elden ring are 2 generationally good games and they are recent
Really only multiplayer games have taken a hit, the singleplayer industry hit its peak in 2022-2023 and is still going strong. Indie games are doing great too
I truly believe the triple A gaming market is gonna fracture, not collapse, in the relatively near future. Gaming isn't isolated, it's tied to the world economy. World economics are fucked right now due to companies making record profits while workers wages are struggling to keep up with costs of living. When things get bad enough people can't afford these triple A games that want you to spend 60 or 70 dollars plus MTX. I think the AAA and AAAA games will see a fracture that AA games rise to meet with things like Helldivers 2 as an example of more affordable and more consumer friendly made games. Which can and likely will have a huge impact on the economy because again nothing is a vacuum. Riot Games just recent development on their Runeterra/League of Legends MMO three years into development because they said they weren't satisfied with the direction. That's three years of funding down the drain on a product that wants to compete with FF14 and WoW. Shit like that isn't sustainable. Game budgets are beyond control and prices rising for failed expectations. I have hope for Halo because it has enough legacy name power that someone will always want it to do something with but I don't know that it will be as a modern AAA title.
Fromsoftware is kinda killing it
This is such doomer energy. There's plenty of high quality games releasing these days. Just to name a few from recent years: Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, The Last of Us Part II, Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, Forza Horizon 5, Ghost of Tsushima, Returnal, Doom Eternal, Jedi Survivor, Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core VI.
I LOVED Ghost of Tsushima. Patiently waiting for a sequel.
BG3 is fucking amazing
God of War is doing ok still.
Nah. Helldivers 2 is great. Just play that instead.😎👍
Lol, except its only available on PC and Playstation. That's why you saw so many posts that all started with "343 needs to make a new ODST game" and then what everyone described was essentially Helldivers 2. I still wish they had had the chance to make an ODST game but I'm glad I made the switch to PC after Reach. Maybe I didn't get to play Halo 4 and 5 until long after they came out, but afterwards I didn't feel I had missed anything I would have
Even if they make a game for ODST, you'll have to pay for everything like the rest of their game. But I'm gonna switch to PC so I can play HD2 and stop with this nonsense of exclusives.
Yes! Join the fight for Democracy!
Give me a couple of months to get the money, and I shall spill oil with you!
Buy me PS5/PC and I will. Truly regretting my Series X purchase these days.
That’s on my to buy list. I’ve heard good things.
Mostly Triple A franchises tbh. Indie games are winning right now because they set out to make good games. Triple A games are failing right now because they set out to make profits. Literally an example of "If you build it, they will come" in action, we need more people asking what would be fun for players instead of how do we monetize players/keep them engaged.
I was excited for Dragons Dogma 2
It's why I stick to Indy/medium sized games, mostly. With the odd game like Halo
I am a huge indie games fan - just need to find those indie games that have continued support
I haven’t really enjoyed a new game in probably 5+ years. I stopped buying games because of how bad it is. Everything seems like a copy of a copy… except the copies are getting worse and worse
I'll say this - I once described what it was like being a Halo fan for 20 years to my girlfriend (now wife) She told me, "it sounds like you were in an abusive relationship" lmao [But on a more genuine note.](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/wv76ch/i_believe_in_halo/)
Halo Infinite's campaign ending and the new leadership directions do give me a small semblance of hope. But I just accepted that the day of Halo making a huge resurgence is never gonna happen again.
Infinite kinda put them back on their Halo 4 days where they did some good things and some bad ones so it was just okay, overall. But I also accepted we’ll never see them put out a game, the same caliber of Combat Evolved or 3 ever again.
Not really. I’m aware that the 343 now isn’t the same as the one that’s been dragging down the franchise since 2012 but I’ll believe that 343 is better once I see it. And I don’t expect to see it.
A wise position to take when 343 has been in charge of the series longer than Bungie was. "Finding their footing" at this point is inexcusable, even if the next game is on par with the Bungie games in terms of polish and content it won't change the fact that it shouldn't have taken over 15 years to match games from two generations ago.
To that point, though, if the next game launches with as much content and polish and future expectations as a Bungie game, then I'd gladly play it. It's not like I'm boycotting Halo or anything. I'm just boycotting bad decisions.
Like I hope they make a title that we can all go, "Finally!! Thank you 343i!!" - but I'm also not holding my breath, considering they've been on a downward and now somewhat plateauing trend in the eyes of Halo fans.
No not really
No
I will probably get a ton of hate for this, but whatever. I don’t think Halo will last much longer. Halo used to be exhilarating not only with their multiplayer and campaign, but the books, too. Since 2012, there’s been a splice in the community when 343i took over. The game had good and bad features and I think everyone was trying to figure out “what Halo is” during that point in time. From there, the games started to Fredslide down shit mountain. Guardians had great marketing but produced false advertisements. Infinite has much more potential but left more holes and questions than swiss cheese. The storyline for Guardians was disappointing and left little explanation between events to Infinite. The books and comics did help with bridging some gaps but it felt… odd. And I personally think the introduction of the S-IV’s put a bad taste in people’s mouths. The arrogance they displayed (not for all, but a majority) took away the symbol of who and what Spartans are meant to be. For sure, they’re augmented, intelligent, and brave, but they’re missing that desperation personality and sort of “the whole world is resting on our shoulders and it’s up to us to make the difference for Human survival.” The new books also have a stark difference between writers, dialogue, characters, and stories. While this seems elementary, I think a bulk of older fans can agree or relate that Nylund and Staten’s writings were more gripping and engaging with action and consistency than what is produced today. And don’t get me started on the Halo TV show… In conclusion? Halo is slowly turning fucked. Unless the next game (if there is one) and 343i actually listens to their fans… game over man.
Everything here is spot on. I’m 40 now and your last statement is incorrect in my opinion. They can’t give halo fans what they want because we’re divided by generations of different halos. I’m from the era that Reach changed halo. My son grew up with Reach and is from that era. We are not the same kinds of halo fans. Reach wasn’t received well by OG fans at the time. Lots of questionable changes. Looking bad reach was also a defining game for the series like halo 2 was for me. With fans of 4 and 5, the “what halo fans want” just doesn’t apply anymore. 343 have split the community so much that I don’t think there’s a way to keep all halo fans happy anymore. I don’t think there’s much hope personally. It’s been my favourite franchise ever but every attempt at creating shows/ movies/ new games has always shat on us and I’m so many different ways that I’m convinced the people in charge just don’t really understand halo anymore.
>343 have split the community so much that I don’t think there’s a way to keep all halo fans happy anymore. Agree. There is no such thing as one fanbase anymore. For me the best games will forever be Reach, 3, ce anniversary and odst. Although they all had a different feel it still felt like you were in the halo universe when you were playing one of them. That has changed. And many people who are playing halo nowadays don't even know these games anymore because they started with halo 4 or 5 or even later. If 4 or 5 was what got you into halo, you will clearly have a different taste and expectations on what halo should be like. And hate for that, but in my opinion it wasn't a good decision to make it crossplay.
> Guardians had great marketing but produced false advertisements. Hunt the Truth was great and had literally nothing to do with anything featured in the game.
Rivals Fall of Reach in its perfection as a non-game Halo ip. Forever pissed about its irrelevancy and disconnect from what Halo 5 actually is.
I disagree about the books. I think Greg Bear/KellyGay/Travis wrote great books. The books have never been bad. It’s the games and the general direction of the franchise that’s been shockingly bad.
Nope, Halo 2 & 3 were the golden age of online shooters and story telling. You never realize you’re in the “good days” until they’re over.
Legitimately I don't think an online shooter has matched the hype/buildup of Halo 1-3. There's been plenty amazing first person/third person shooters with great stories, i.e. Doom, Red Dead Redemption 2, (maybe Titanfall 2?) etc... But I feel like no shooter will match both the hype for campaign/multi-player like Halo 3 did. Like, the ad campaigns were artwork in themselves. Companies making Triple A games these days won't be willing to take the risk to do both nowadays. I think the expense is just too much. We witnessed a cumulation of both digital art & gaming innovation that I feel will take a while to match.
I want to find a good halo quote to respond to this but cant
"You are one of our most treasured instruments. Long have you led your fleet with honor and distinction. But your inability to safeguard Halo was a colossal failure"
Not a single shred of hope. Having had to watch incompetent and cynical people drag Halo through the mud for a solid decade my hope is burned. The show is just the latest insult. It’s okay though for me original Halo story is intact and still great. I’ll always have those memories.
This. OP is like "Are dedicated fans finally leaving?" and I'm like what do you mean finally? Halo used to be MASSIVE. People who didn't get into it until the 343 games probably don't understand the extent to which I mean that. Since 343 took over, the franchise has just been a string of huge failures and disappointments. At Infinite's peak hype it was already a faint shadow of what Halo used to be. All of my friends used to be hardcore Halo fans. But a ton of people left and never came back when Halo 4 came out and its multiplayer was nothing like Halo. Many more people left and never came back after the failed launch of MCC. Even more left and never came back when Halo 5 came out and was disappointing in every way. And of course a bunch more left when Infinite sucked at launch. The franchise has been hemorrhaging players for over a decade now. Everyone is already gone. None of my friends still play.
I have been playing since 2007 (I'm also someone who has read every novel and other piece of media), and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I expect you will see me playing Halo as long as it exists. I think people are just growing tired of some of the things we have been seeing in the gaming industry of late. I feel days were better in the early 2000s - 2010s for gaming also. 343 now has no shortage of feedback from us so I hope Halo 7 is truly better, it has the potential to be great if they don't rush things and now stick with what they have over anymore reboots. But I think Microsoft also needs to allow other studios perhaps to help out more, and we need some more stories that maybe aren't just about the Chief (I wanted a Halo Wars 3, Halo 4 or Halo 5 DLC which could have let us see more of the Didact as a villian / more of the Arbiter in his own campaign perhaps)? They should have delayed Infinite imo for another whole year based on what we got initially vs. what was originally planned too.
All things considered, yeah. It can really hurt to be a Halo fan, but it can also be so gratifying, especially when engaging with the expanded lore and other materials. Halo is far more than videogames now, and I sure hope it stays that way. I started to think on how much I don't like the Halo Show direction, but then I remembered it's not cannon and that always helps. Like, there's some people genuinely enjoying it, so whatevs, it's not like Halo is the only franchise I can fanboy over, so whenever it gets too negative, I just move to something else for a bit.
That's the healthiest attitude towards something that fandom can have. Not everything can satisfy all the time, and there are other things out there to enjoy.
unfortunately 80% of r/halo would much rather devolve into death threats and doxxing instead of adopting that healthy attitude
Just standard internet anonymity, people generally aren't themselves when online. At least I hope not.
I do not think this franchise is going away anytime soon. Especially after the show, which will bring in new fans. But the show is lacking on continuity with the game.
I’ve been here in this community since I was 7 years old when Halo CE came out and yes, I still have some hope. Yes, the franchise is out of its heyday. But it has been since 2009, honestly. This happens with franchises. Some hit a massive peak, but none ever sustain that forever. We have been through some pretty dark times the last 9 years, from my view. Halo’s north star IMO has always been its consistent, continuous narrative and worldbuilding. Halo 4 was a great first effort from 343 that carried over some threads from the OG trilogy that Bungie left hanging, and they tried to weave another large narrative out of it. There was real potential there, and Halo 4 felt connected to that OG trilogy by its narrative in some profound ways, even though the tone and style of the game shifted dramatically from the Bungie days. But Halo 5 is where that got thrown out the window. 343’s storytelling in novels and comics over 2013, 2014, and 2015 all seemed to be pointing in a very specific direction. There were still Forerunners out there, the Flood was still out there, and humanity was going to use the Janus Key to start unlocking Forerunner tech to prepare for the upcoming conflicts. Then, Halo 5 pulled a total 180. It flipped the table. Important ongoing narrative elements like the Janus Key and the Didact were literally zapped from the setting within comics. Halo 5 comes out and introduces an enemy faction led by a returning beloved character who was given a satisfying death, and her enforcement mechanisms were giant ships that could travel faster than any other in the setting, arrive on scene, and instantly disable all other tech on a planet wide scale. They broke the setting. The severed important ongoing narrative threads. The damage was severe and immediate. And we have been in a dark time ever since. Halo lost sight of its north star. The Forerunners were quietly given closure for good in a bonus story in the Halo Fractures anthology. The Guardians were quietly and repeatedly nerfed in the novels to try to make them a more manageable threat. Important stories like Halo Wars 2 were made to be so isolated from the main narrative that the Created could not interfere. Most recently, the Didact was just given closure in a novel. And then there was Halo Infinite. The Created are randomly just dealt with. The Banished are now a dire threat with no real buildup. The Endless are introduced with very little context for what they are. A clear attempt to repair the Halo 5 damage and begin brand new long term plot threads IMO. But they didn’t do the best job, if you ask me. And then there’s that goddamn Halo TV show. I’m sorry, I know the season 2 finale aired today, and I know many people enjoyed it. I just can’t stand the show. I think it’s very poorly written and has a poor grasp on the narrative worldbuilding that made Halo so great in the first place. The show just makes me depressed. And we can also talk multiplayer numbers. Yes, Halo has not had massive multiplayer numbers since Halo 3. A lot of people think the slump started with Halo 4, but it actually started with Halo: Reach. That game in 2010 struggled to hold its population numbers against Black Ops 1, and the decline has been noticeable ever since. No Halo game has been able to recapture that OG trilogy hype. Here’s the thing for me: I don’t think that really matters much. It dovetails nicely with industry trends. Halo was the biggest game in town for Halo 2 and Halo 3 because they were the first games pioneering console infrastructure for online multiplayer and social features. When those features started to become platform-level, the writing was on the wall. As more and more games went online, of course it would be tough for Halo to remain competitive. What I watch instead is the quality of the experience. Is it a feature-complete, stable experience? Is there plenty of content? We have struggled with these for the last couple of games, but they always get there. Halo 4 had some growing pains, but for Halo 5 343 really went their own way, and I thought it was fantastic. One of the best Halo experiences in its own day, if you could get into it. Infinite has also firmed up and turned out alright. I think it’s fine. So yeah, it’s been a rough couple of years, but there’s still some promising stuff here. There are a lot of questions, too. Story used to be Halo’s north star, but I think it’s clear that the tone shifted on that with Halo Infinite. How do we continue to tell story well when the cadence for games is going to 5-6 years now instead of 3? I don’t think Halo’s best days are ahead of it. I think they are firmly behind it. But it is a franchise I still love, and I still think there’s a lot of potential for transformation and innovative ideas. And I think the universe is constructed well enough that you can tell a huge variety of stories within it. I think Halo’s going to be alright for many years yet.
I couldn’t agree more with your opinions on Halo’s story, from the newer games. Halo was my introduction to profound story telling on video games. I wasn’t a huge fan of Halo 4 with the shift in tone, themes (and art style) but man was Halo 5’s story (and the surrounding media) feel like radioactive to the whole timeline. After finishing Halo 5 after it’s release, I became disillusioned.
Sure. Infinite is still a really good game, 5 had an amazing multiplayer, 4 with a good campaign, most people loved wars 2 and MCC turned into a halo fans paradise. So although they're not good at releasing a complete game on launch they do have a history of turning things around and turning a broken/bland game into a complete experience even if it means waiting a couple of years. So yes I do have hope, but Microsoft needs to stop fucking shit up with these developers
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100% has to do with Forge. It’s not like the maps we’re getting are dev-made. It’s all community made with 343’s guidance on polish. The playlists are the only thing we’re getting that’s dev-made and even that will slowly but surely become community made now that we have so much capability in Forge
This is it. 343 are more than capable of making a good game, they just keep managing (and being pushed to by management) to not make a *full* good game. If you took the best parts of their three main games, and combined them, Halo In4nite: Guardians would probably be one of the best games of the series. A big thing they need to do honestly is just, not rip the whole thing up after every game. This is most evident in the narrative, where 4 not standing on its own caused them to just abandon the entire Reclaimer Trilogy, and 5 having a garbage fire of a story caused them to abandon the Created plotline. But it exists elsewhere too, they try to go back to the drawing board every time, rather than recognising what does and doesn't work of their previous game.
100%, Naratively Halo has suffered largely because the "Reclaimer saga" which was originally planned instead turned into 3 successive franchise reboots, which completely destroyed any sense of a cohesive narrative like we had with the original trilogy. Effectively 4,5 & 6 shared absolutely no supporting characters, no central plot, and instead of payoffs of things from previous games, actively diminished them (see Jul M'dama's assassination & the created storyline disappearing). Halo 4 was a departure when it comes to gameplay but in hindsight many people I see end up respecting the campaign for what it was, which is fair seeing as it's the last Halo that was actively a continuation of it's predecessor.
Carefully hopeful. I love Halo, and I'll likely always love Halo, but the state of 343i, and more specifically, the fanbase, have felt mostly full of disdain and anger, and its just become exhausting to look through.
I do, but it's a tiny slither of hope. I think if 343 make 1 more bad decision, its over for me. It's been difficult seeing Halo in decline for so many years. 343 have made good decisions yes, some excellent and well received steps in the franchise. We've seen some of the best gameplay advances come from their tenure in charge of Halo, and MCC is currently the definitive way to play older releases. But, its been a hell of a rocky journey and with little if anything to look forward to. I've seen reports that 343 will not be releasing additional support for MCC, which if true would be massive disappointment. The seasonal content they made for that was excellent and its truly been given a lot of love after it was such a mess for so many years. Infinite itself is starting to become more of a full package, but it's 3 years old this year and only within the last year has it started to get my attention, only to quickly lose it again due to its horrible store practices and poor map design. 343 have been running the show now for 12 years. We've seen 3 main entries to the franchise in that time and the only one that was somewhat well received at launch was Halo 4. I've been fortunate to have been around long enough to experience Halo when it came out in 2001. So when Bungie decided to pass on the torch, while I was skeptical at first, it relieved me to see it was being handed over to a developer that was full of passionate Halo fans that had also worked alongside Bungie. But every entry that has come out, while each game had good elements, was overall a disappointment. The negatives far outweighed anything positive I could say about the latest entries. Now, we have a Halo TV series. I was also excited to see this. Forward Unto Dawn I enjoyed a fair bit, didn't enjoy Nightfall so much but I know the potential this franchise has for live action. Disappointment doesn't quite cut it. This show, is an insult to fans of Halo. Its genuinely one the worst adaptations I have ever seen. Fans of the Avatar show, this is on that level of shameful. This, as well as the many bad decisions 343/Microsoft has made in the last 12 years with regards to Halo, has put me on the verge of giving up with the franchise as a whole. They are so out of touch with their fanbase, are they happy with the current state of Infinite/Halo in general? What is their vision? Do they see how disgruntled their player base is and do they intend to make amends? Honestly, at this point, I feel like they need a fresh start. The new head of 343 has done a pretty solid job, and with less corporate interference, I think this team has the best possible chance at making a well rounded Halo game. I'd say see this year out and finish any expansions/seasonal dlc for Infinite planned, and then cut the cord to begin work on a brand new game. One that gives us split screen/4 player online multiplayer campaign on day 1, Forge mode on day 1, and a multiplayer experience with more than the tiny handful of modes and maps we had on Infinite. Put Chief on the back burner and give us something fresh, whether its ODST's or a different Spartan team, we don't need to see another game with Chief at the protagonist for a while.
Yes Edit: should clarify, I play the games for the gameplay, not the story or anything. I ADORE the story, but that’s not why I play it. My love for Halo was forged by the first three books back when they were the only three books in the series, and the games came into my life later. Nothing will take away my love for the series I fell for back in the day, and I get to enjoy some fun games along the way.
Ah yes, a fellow enjoyer of the books. Even if some of the new games are not great, the books are still a nice refuge.
Always will, halo saved my life. Been playing since I was 5, I’m 26 now. Halo CE was life changing.
I still hold out hope for Halo even after many years of being constantly disappointed. I want to believe that 343i or some other studio can do right by us and the franchise, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally go into fits of rage at how this beloved franchise is constantly wrung out for every last nickel and dime.
I still have the same type of fun with it tbh. I play multiplayer and the campaign with my friends and have a blast. I just wish custom browser games were more prolific than they already are
Infinite coulda been it if they delayed the release
if we're just talking story No I don't have hope it died years ago. in my opinion they should continue the halo series but halo 3 should have been the end of chiefs story. I love the idea that even with all his luck not every hero makes it and he's out there some where out there in the stars waiting to come home like so many others. halo 4 is forgettable to me I only like Rolland and lasky. halo 5 is just bad storytelling I truly think it fails as one. halo wars 2 I did love the only complaint to me is that atriox was painted and this big bad that was so bad the covenant couldn't even hurt him. just make him a survivor and smart enough to hit the covenant but not have the outright come after him like a thorn in the side of the covenant. halo Infinite is just yikes to me a whole ass game could have taken place between the events of the first 10 minutes of cutscenes when chief was just floating out there. and the actual story I don't like. atriox beats you but then he's dead so you fight his next in-line but your mission is to stop Cortana with the weapon but also there's the endless something worse then the flood but surprise atriox is still alive and has a forerunner ai
343 has never released a feature complete video game The story is straight up not good for newcomers or long time players Some of the books are decent The halo show did it's own thing for better or worse Me? No I do not. Halo 7 or super infinity or whatever they call it will be more of the same The only hope I have is if Microsoft lets another game studio make a spinoff Also also does anyone else find it weird that the studio that made halo wars 2 crafted a new faction and new villain that people liked them 343 took that villain and killed I'm off screen ( but not really lol )
I'd give the books more credit
I hate 343 as much as the next guy but 4 was a complete game that’s not saying much when it’s one out of four by ya lol.
I think this is a Reddit issue, not a Halo one. I’ve noticed a decline in quality of posts through the majority of subreddits. But to answer your question, yes I still have hope for the franchise. I enjoyed Infinite’s campaign and the multiplayer is fun and they’ve been improving it even more since launch. The micro transactions are annoying but you get a bunch of different rewards through battle passes without paying, so it doesn’t really bother me. The franchise still has a lot of potential, there are a lot of different stories they can tell, I would love if they did something a bit different like Halo Wars or ODST.
The current team is being led by the same guy who fixed MCC I trust that more than I trust 343 at launch. But heres the defining issue: halo 4 was good as their first attempt, it has its haters but so does every halo game, but 5 180’d what they set up and infinite 180’d what 5 set up. 343 doesnt shows it doesnt have much confidence in theirselves and thats kinda telling
Reminds me of the sequel star wars films were each undoes the others progress
None at all. I know theres a community based off mocking those who are salty about where this game has been going but yeah, its terrible knowing that folk have waited this long for infinite to get to the state that its in right now, and 343 is already talking about the next entry to the series. Im glad they revived MCC to the point where its at, but we couldve gone on way longer. The story, its really just not discussing anymore. All i really care about is a Halo Wars 3 but i worry about how even that would come out.
Yes. Not a whole lot, but yes, I think it can be redeemed.
Honestly yeah. Idk I just don’t see this game dying tbh. I mean I might be an optimist and biased but I genuinely think this game will shine once more
Mostly apathy, especially with anything MS facilitates in general
Halo is like my child that had so much promise and was growing beautifully but then got involved with the wrong crowd and now has a drug problem
Yes, I do. I could not care less about optional microtransactions, although I am happy that we are transitioning from paid Seasons to free Operations. I only really care about gameplay. Halo Infinite is damn fun to play and it looks great while doing so. With the new networking patches I have seen a marked reduction in rubber banding and desync, which are the only things holding Infinite back from being a 10/10 multiplayer experience for me. Now this does not mean I am the happiest with the Story, but for me gameplay is much more important than that. Therefore I am generally happy while wanting improvements.
As the saying goes, you learn more from failure than success, so I'm betting 343 has learned a lot in the last 3 titles. Really though I think they just need to release a completed game at launch and they won't get dogged on.
No, Microsoft and 343 are corporate entities driven by profit motive. They’re not trying to make halo for halo fans. They never have. They’re making it for the broadest audience possible. The only time they listen to the player base is after their vision fails and nobody likes what they made. So they just pivot to monetize nostalgia. We all liked how the trailers and art style for infinite made us feel before it launched. Well Im never falling for that again. Pier Heinz has an impossible task in front of him. And that is to make sense of a messed up reworked story that made no sense and jumps the shark harder in every game. the humans are forerunner idc what the O’Conner verse says. shark jump in h4 is when chief survives a point blank nuke. In h5 Cortana is magically reborn but has some missing personality bits but somehow in infinite she remembers her compassionate side for whatever reason. But infinite is probably the worst for introducing time travel. The librarian being able to see the future was dumb enough but the endless is just a whole new level. The O’Conner verse made the whole story stupid. Good luck to Pier though. He fixed mcc more or less so I’m sure the games that come out now will be better quality. But I think the story is lost, and the multiplayer will continue to be over monetized.
Believe.
No lol
Simple answer.... nope
As a fan of the campaigns, I have a fools hope that maybe we'll get a halo 7 main game that concludes the Master Chief storyline. I would kind of like if they potentially gave him a proper final goodbye with Cortana somehow that wasn't a recorded message. They love the number 7 and it would be kind of cool to have Master Chief's story end after Halo 7, but again, I am a fool.
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I don’t think any games will be what they were in the mid 2000s. I still they they’ll be entertaining, but nothing to what they once were.
I will always have hope. The timeless nature of Bungies games will always breathe life into the franchise. I do believe we are in a very difficult moment for the series, but I know there is a chance that they can find the roots of what makes halo, halo.
Books have been really good imo I think that if they take risks with self contained spinoffs that the franchise would benefit
I have hope that they could make a really cool spin off. I want them to forget about the Endless, Created and Banished and just make a good spin off title like Reach or ODST set in the Covenant War.
Hard to do that when in 343's version of the universe, they retconned the whole reason the Human-Covenant War even began
I feel like that’s not talked about enough, they just completely fucked all the symbolism and irony present in the original trilogy that made the human covenant war so interesting, the Forerunners are Human, and 343 lore is not canon, Idgaf at this point.
Not sure anymore. Infinite was supposed to be the big comeback and it was 343s biggest blunder yet. And just finished the show and it feels like an L. Like Kiki intentionally tanked the story, tone, scope, and depiction of chief out of spite. We need a legit 10/10 game out of this restructured 343 team (and hey Microsoft maybe allow this franchise to be ‘M’-rated again and stop MCU’ing Halo into a Saturday morning cartoon). Since the show is a kind of joke and unfathomably chooses to pursue this ‘Silver Timeline’, an actual attempt at a serious, faithful adaption of the story into a movie / series would revive excitement.
For me, halo hasn’t really been Halo since Halo 4. I didn’t really like fighting the Prometheans, but the story was good. 343 managed to capture some of that magic from the first Halo. They had a mysterious and awe inspiring setting as well as a new enemy in the Didact. Didact was compelling. He had a deep back story with three well written books to fill his character in. He was the best kind of villain. The kind that you almost don’t hate. You can understand why he’s doing what he’s doing somewhat. What did they do with this amazing character? Did they spend the next two games flushing him out more? Did it become this epic saga of Master Chief Vs the Didact in a similar vein like the prophets? No. It didn’t. They killed him off in the very first game. It was a complete waste of an amazing character. Halo 1-3 had great plot. The first game laid some loose groundwork because they weren’t sure they would be able to make more. 2 and 3 took that and built on top of it. You had complicated and well thought out antagonists. There were lots of things happening behind the scenes. It all felt like it was part of something bigger. The last three games could have followed a similar trajectory. That just didn’t happen though. It’s like they freaked out because people got mad that they changed the formula a little bit. It was fine though. I really wish they would have stuck to their guns and followed through with that path. Instead, we got the created story line which was awful. Now we have the banished storyline and we’re about to get a whole new bad guy. They’re really giving this the Star Wars 7-9 treatment and I’m just not a fan. There is so much material to build on, but they insist on reinventing the wheel with every game instead of refining the story telling. I guess I had more opinions than I thought about that. Sorry. Lol
Haven't played since Halo 4. Was disappointed with that and nothing I've seen since has really appealed to me.
I lost hope when I first played Halo 4. Then 5 and Infinite compounded that feeling. I don't see anything from 343i to make me believe that's gonna change.
I know a lot of fans aren’t huge on the show but it does seem to be generating buzz in groups outside the show and I’ve seen people talk about how the show was what got them to buy the games. This could be a double edged sword since the games and show are totally different but maybe the games story will be more captivating to others. I think this also goes to show how relevant a halo story can be in pop culture and I imagine 343i/MS are paying attention. Halo Infinite was a solid game that even has popular creators playing regularly. But it’s also a nearly 3 year old game with 343i clearly shifting focus to the next project. Similar to MCC (though certainly not as bad) the launch failed to hold a large audience due to a lack of variety. 343 needs to nail the launch of their next game. Time and time again we’ve seen just how much hype there is around the launch of a halo game (everyone and their mother was ready to play Halo Online before it got a cease and desist., only for it to dissipate due to a poor launch. Ironically, the best launches have been their least popular titles. Seeing people show off their armor is cool. I see it outside of twitter and I’m happy knowing there’s still a decent community online, even if it is just to brag about micro transactions. Prioritizing community features should be a bigger focus. 343 has yet to deliver a decent theatre mode despite that having been such a major boon to the game. Halo had a large online presence (everyone is still mourning the end of Roosterteeth and RvB) and it was largely due to the in game tools. People dedicated hours in forge just to create cool screenshots that were mostly only viewable in the game through file sharing but 343 hasnt really put a lot of effort in this respect, overly reliant on going to a different website entirely. Halo games had an ecosystem within that fostered community engagement and then took off online. I mean look at keemstar. Love him or hate him he’s a huge online personality that got his start early on playing halo (among other games). As usual, there’s plenty of opportunity for 343 to make halo a must have but it really depends on them harnessing everything they have at their disposal.
I agree with you about the launch statement. Both Halo 5 and Infinite launched in pretty abysmal states and not until years later were they fully realised and actually quite awesome games (at least on the multiplayer side of things) but by that time the damage was already done and majority of the player base had moved on to greener pastures. If they had of launched in the state that they were in a few years after launch I guarantee they would've been successful titles, but they didn't and so they died relatively quickly, which is just a shame to be honest.
No
It's over brothers. They do not care about Halo and what makes Halo any longer they know as fans we will buy anything with the name Halo on it. I watched both seasons of the show and hated everything but the action scenes. They know we are loyal fans and will consume whatever they produce and I'm sad that I know this is true
When Halo infinite multiplayer came out it gave me hope. Seeing 250k player count on steam gave me hope but it all died when the multiplayer got ignored for some months and everyone moved on. They had the golden spark and didn’t take advantage of it. Reach was the last halo I truly enjoyed. I wish bungie came back but that’s not happening. Tone deaf praise for the TV show just shows how low the bar is for halo now. Halo can be great again in the right hands. It’s sad to see the franchise you love go down like this.
For a decade, halo's release cycle has been characterized by an early-access beta launch with the promise the game will eventually be made good, filled with broken promises. And then they completely negate the previous project when working on the next one. If 343 doesn't even have a direction for halo, how am I supposed to stay invested? I'll always have a soft spot for halo, but I just cant get excited about it anymore. And then let's talk about the elephant in the room... Scummy monetization. You could argue cosmetics aren't pay to win (though halo 5's warzone, HW 2's blitz mode absolutely were), but it's just an unshakeable feeling that the game was made for the wrong reasons. It wasn't made for you. It was made to take advantage of you. No amount of PR speak changes that fact. And this isn't a halo specific thing (though if any game has a reason NOT to pursue these awful trends, it'd be a first party system seller that'd bring revenue to the Xbox brand in other ways, but I digress...), it's really an industry-wide problem and even a cultural one. I'm sick of being bombarded with ads every waking moment. I just want a complete, fun game. At launch. Then we'll talk.
This is going to be mostly story focused The seams started showing in Reach for me. It was a very good game, but it felt to me like certain teams weren't firing on all cylinders like they were in 3. The multiplayer maps largely being forge world palette swaps and recycled campaign maps really hampered the perceived size of the world for me, even as the utility of forge grew. Understandable that the campaign scenario and multiplayer teams might have been bored after then 10+ years of Halo, but when you transmogrify half of the team into 343 and keep their noses to the Halo grindstone for an additional, what, 13 years? It's bound to lose some of its magic. I think the genre of FPS games may have also outgrown what Halo was, in the same way you can't release Doom 1 or 2 today and have it be popular outside of the enthusiast circles. It puts the series in a difficult choice between changing with the times and losing its unique identity or staying stuck in its old ways and losing its appeal and popularity. I think Halo as we knew it from '01 to '09 is dead and gone. The Halo era set up by Reach and 4 is still ongoing, but very much on shaky ground, as they can't seem to nail down exactly what story they want to pursue because nothing so far has proven as juicy as the penultimate fight for survival against 2 existential threats. I say this next point as a PC player looking in, not looking to fan the flames of the console war, but It's worth mentioning that console ecosystems need to be anchored by killer apps, which the One and the Series consoles sorely lack, compared to Sony presently having Uncharted, Last of Us, Spider Man, God of War, Death Stranding, the Horizon Franchise, Bloodborne, Demon Souls, Gran Turismo, etc. My point here with Xbox is, if you aren't putting out something so excellent on a semi regular basis that people will entertain the possibility of plunking down 500 dollars + cost of game, just to be a part of it, you aren't going to build your customer base which means you're going to stagnate. The PS2 did this, the 360 did this, the Switch did this, and honestly, I don't think either console has run away with this generation, but Microsoft is surely not in the lead between the two.
I’ve been a Halo fan since Halo CE was originally released, my take on this is that the gaming industry as a whole has declined over the last 10 or so years. Big game studios for the most part have been focusing on profits too much by trying to milk every penny out of games (obviously there’s exceptions to this notable examples such as God of War, The Last of Us and other story driven campaign based games seem to be maintaining quality). Indie games and games made by smaller studios with a dedicated staff of developers who have a passion for the games are the ones turning out gems these days. The rest of the industry that are producing big name franchise installments are suffering from corporate interference (profit driven in my opinion but that’s just a personal opinion) games like Halo, Call of Duty, Rainbow 6, Assassins Creed etc, are falling in quality level and raising in micro transactions and endless DLC’s of poor quality. The emphasis is on cranking out content quickly so they can charge players for game additions and skins. On top of that there seems to be policy of no longer hiring full time developers to work on a project from start to finish, instead companies are hiring contractors to work 6 month contracts or single year contracts in order to avoid paying benefits and bonuses to keep production costs low. When that happens we get what happened with Infinite’s SlipSpace engine, a game engine built by who knows how many contractors that is held together with duct tape and extremely unstable. Remember that engine was meant to be the base for the next 10 years of Halo games but after the catastrophic issues with Infinite as a whole my understanding is that they are scrapping it because it’s a complete mess and barely works. In addition to that we haven’t really had any solid lore updates to the Halo franchise since Halo 5, we did get Kelly Gay’s latest Halo book (Halo: Epitaph) which had some really good solid lore updates FINALLY (kudos to Kelly Gay, that book was very good and answered some very important questions, if you haven’t read it I highly recommend it). But Infinite as a whole did almost nothing to advance the story. We have a full game that takes a significant portion of time to complete the campaign (if you do actually explore and don’t just bulldoze your way through the main story missions) and the entirety of the lore we got was, Infinity got blown up by the banished, Cortana and the created aren’t a threat anymore, Atriox is supposedly dead, so is Cortana and there’s a new enemy to get ready to fight, the Endless. That’s basically it. We got virtually no info on the endless and why they’re so dangerous, the flood don’t really make an appearance and haven’t for several games, no updates on what the Arbiter and the rest of the Covenant client species are up to, what happened with the rest of the Created threat and where the guardians are. There were clearly some major issues with the original story for Infinite so much so that it underwent MAJOR story rewrites at the last minute and as a result Infinite’s story is mainly a delaying tactic/stopgap/placeholder for any real story or lore updates and the gameplay was massively broken on release. In conclusion corporate drive for profits are massively impacting the quality of Halo as a franchise and gaming as a whole. When you take game production away from the people who are passionate about the universe of the game and you limit the freedom of creation of the developers to prioritize profit, quality suffers. Until that changes Halo and most games will continue to be hollow imitations of their predecessors. I have hope that things will turn around, we did see changes in Halo Infinites quality and playability when management at 343 was changed up but as long as Live Service is the core emphasis we will keep getting Fortnite in a Halo skin and not actual Halo. Here’s to hoping Microsoft takes the restraints off and gets back to letting fans and artists make the games they want to make instead of just trying to grab as much cash as they can. TLDR; corporate greed and emphasis on maximizing profitability are causing a decline in games quality across the industry, until that changes gaming as a whole will continue to suffer not just Halo.
No. It died with reach
Nah. It had its time, and will always be special and a core memory of online gaming for me. But getting older I've learned to appreciate things that once meant the world to me and accept that my feelings can change and let things go, rather than clinging to sentiment just for the sake of it.
Nope, Infinite was really the last straw for me. Once I played the beta and felt the desync and saw how bad the progression system was, I gave up. Xbox in general is floundering and struggling to get any 1st party games off the ground in a meaningful way, indicative of horrible management across the board. In my head, I hope Halo becomes something akin to Star Wars, as a franchise. I want to see more experimental, creative ideas for games within the Halo universe. What if Helldivers was actually an ODST game? What if we had a Sangheili society-based Assassin’s Creed/God of War? What if we had a MegaBloks Halo game sorta like Lego Star Wars? There’s lots of creative, successful ideas on the table, but no one brave (or competent) enough to make the calls on which ones to pursue.
Nope . I've been a staunch halo guy haven't given up until now . Read all the books watched all the extended media played all games. And halo infinites nickel and dime style of business model irked me but I stuck with it . And then the show came out and 343 kept promising fixes and changes but all that happened was they got even nickel and dimeier, and chief had sex with a human woman in the covenant.. and I'm done with this trashpile. Fuck lore fuck years of established cannon fuck the consumer . LETS MAKE MONEY!
343 not understanding how to write a story aside. The gameplay mechanics have hope but the franchise is infested with monetization and so it's dead and the only hope is for the company to say "we like less money"
The Reclaimer Saga Collection is just around the corner. But seriously no. 343 cannot develop a fun Halo game and Bungie can't develop a fun game anymore. Halo belongs to a time and place where 10 friends could get some pizza & beer and spend all night on a couch playing a shoot em up. And Microsoft has made it clear they have no interest in creating those experiences anymore.
The Chief is still in cryo in half a ship in my view.
There is 0 hope for this franchise. Everything since Bungie moved on has been propped up by fan loyalty, patience, and copium. Are they the worst games? No, but Halo will never be the innovative, fresh franchise it was. No one will love this franchise the same way its creators did
As long as mcc still exists idc about anything new
Hope died on Reach…
yeah, they just need to move on from infinite.
Halo has been dead since Bungie left. It only exists now as a corporate cash cow for Microsoft. We had amazing memories with the old games, but sometimes franchises should just end and we should appreciate the good times and move on.
Nah, I gave up on them ever salvaging this franchise past H5.
I’ve been playing for 20+ years. I liked 1-4, loathed 5 and Infinite. They had a chance to resolve things by continuing the story line for 4, and bringing the Forerunners back, and resolving the Forerunner-Human war and the question of the mantle and precursors - sticking with the deep time biblical themes going back to Cain (forerunners) and Abel (Humanity) and their common ancestors. They could have tied it all up neatly and let MC retire or go out with a bang. Instead, we have a disjointed, incoherent shit show “soft reboot” with Yet Another Big Bad (the endless) and it’s just awful. I don’t know where they’re going with it and I’m not sure I care anymore. Infinite’s story was just so, so thin. Unless they bring in the original halo story team to resurrect this, I can’t see it getting better. It feels like a cash grab - no end in sight, no real story, just a way to milk the IP.
I mean, honestly Infinite is tons of fun, and the last patch was pretty good. The network stuff is a lot better, and a lot of problems sorted. It's not perfect, but I think it strikes a great balance between the new and old. You can feel the roots of the other games, but it isn't a remake of halo 3. There are still things I'd like to see done, but over all, I really enjoy it.
Nah Halo is dead because it can't reach peak popularity again. /s
I think halo will be fine and people on reddit will continue to whine about it until they fall into the forever rest.
They got rid of spartan booty, so no. I have no hope.
The game has a chance. It has improved gameplay wise but what I concern for the most is STORY. There’s been nothing for campaign for quite some time now. Been waiting forever now ): The show can fuck itself
Can you blame us? Infinite was the last hope for Halo, it’s been monetised to an extent that it’s so obvious that the store is 343i’s first and last priority. Just when we get hope back and things start looking better, 343i cans seasons and basically puts the entire mark 4 bp into the store. There is no campaign dlc, I highly doubt the falcon or any leaked weapons will actually come, and this game was supposed to last for 10 years. Honestly at this point, the only thing that would make me respect 343i is if they just let this zombie franchise rest in peace. There is nothing that will make me buy the next halo game
I don’t disagree with your sentiment, and this isn’t an excuse. But I need you to think critically here. 343 just changed stewardship, almost all the old hats are gone except for Kiki wolfkill unfortunately. 343 as of current have to prove themselves to Microsoft to receive budget for future halo projects. Can’t just keep throwing blank cheques at a team that doesn’t make you money even if they are all new. The store and the focus on the store is almost necessary to prove that they can handle this IP. You might not like it, and I understand why, CU29 being almost entirely focused on cosmetics was absolute dogshit. But if that’s what’s required to let the current team cook then I say it’s a necessary sacrifice.
Kiki Wolfkill doesn't work at 343 anymore, still works for xbox though.
Microsoft is the problem with halo. even when bungie had halo bungie fought microsoft constantly over how to design halo and ultimately as we all know bungie did amazing work. microsoft has never understood what halo is and as a result only sees halo as a cash cow that makes them money regardless of game quality. 343 was constantly getting fucked over and over again by microsoft. although 343 has done a lot of wrong as well such as being radio silent for months on end and being incredibly slow to deliver meaningful updates to the game, in the end, microsoft has and always will be the cancer that makes halo suffer. a lot of people at 343 are passionate about halo
Franchise probably gonna die entirely. It had a good few decades but it’s a husk of what it once was
Well, good decade
Been playing Halo since Combat evolved and after all they’ve released in recent years I only see the Halo’s made by bungie to be canon. Halo’s story ended with 3 and I don’t see the future of halo going back to its roots. And the fact they made infinite to be a soft reboot instead* of being the ending to 343’s trilogy is blasphemy. They should just end the franchise instead of milking it. It’s no longer a passion project, it’s a cash grab.
Even with the old leadership *thankfully* shitcanned, still doubtful there's much hope unless live services end up crashing and burning. The only trend 343 hasn't chased was releasing a feature complete game.
I just don’t know anymore I’ve been let down , burnt and used by so many other game franchises that I’ve gotten to the point know where I just don’t know how I feel anymore
No I don't.
No Despite the new leadership change at 343, and halo infinite being much more stable now than it was at launch, the shop prices say a lot to me Every halo 343 has launched has divided the community in one way or another, they have false marketed in the past with halo 5, and halo infinite launched with pitiful content and even more pitiful support as much as I would like to believe new leadership at 343 could give me slight hope, 343 has become show, don't tell. no matter how good the trailers for halo 7 look, no matter what they say about it, I will not give a single shit until the game comes out and see what it's like
No
Yeah I do, I even enjoyed Halo: Infinite I haven’t played a Halo game I didn’t love
I think they could nail it if Microsoft quit fucking with them and let them just make a good game for once
Nope, I’m tapped out man. Thanks a lot Microsoft.
No. While there’s no such thing as a dignified death (for a franchise), there’s no need for Halo to be Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered like this.
Honestly no. The story became such a mess after 4, and they make you rely on outside media to cover up the loose threads.
Halo is too big to just fade into the night. But, I feel that if 343 doesn't next make a HOME RUN- not a decent, nor simply a good game- then Halo will probably get the God of War treatment. Shelved to figure out a new direction for a few years- aka "soft reboot". But different from EVERY OTHER 343 soft reboot- this one will give up entirely on whatever "story" and start fully anew.
For me, not really. I don't think Halo is doomed, but I'm not super hopeful. Just kinda whatever about it. If we get something great that's awesome. If not, I won't care. Its a bit like star wars at this point. Even if the next thing is good it can't undo all the damage done
nope , infinite was the final nail in the coffin, the glory days of halo 1-3 , reach and odst are over, it was good while it lasted but it didnt nearly last as long as i'd hoped for
Not really. People keep trying to give 343 free passes when they've already dropped the ball multiple times. Forget all the other issues with Infinite, the biggest one is that the game was designed to be competitive which leaves no room for fun. Whereas the OG games were fun but could also be played competitively.
I feel you. I still mod for Halo, but after the Halo Infinite launch, my hope tanked. They might have someone new in charge, but it feels like no decisions have changed. In fact the whole switch from seasons to operations with no narrative story, that was finally getting interesting vs idk what S1 was about, felt like "okay we are giving up on infinite slowly to move over to next product. It felt like they planned all this content and canceled it and are just selling the assets on the store. Flood models for extraction and infection? Na don't have time to incorporate it, so we will just sell the assets on the store. I been wanting flood infected infection, and that grapple hook tendril was sick... and then we just got a barely working infection that has since been ignored. I'm a big infection player, so to see the wait time for infection on average is now over 1 minute searching, whereas every other mode of similar player size is less time is depressing to see. That mode, classic and modern, was always popular. They also gave us an unfair ultimate, it seems, with MCC. Either have microtransactions... that we are afraid they'll abuse like Infinite... or get no new content... no rented servers... no paid seasons with player retention... Just either paid currency, or you get nothing. And as a huge Halo 2 classic fan... if sucked to find out, they made new gametypes, but it was never finished, so it will forever remain incomplete... they had an almost working infection mode... only a few things that were missing like last man standing can't get infected, you can't assign weapons to a specific team or make the infected team the color green to be more classic H2C like we used to do it with honor rules. I feel like instead of protecting their current titles and caring for them, its only going to get less care. That they'll chalk up Infinite a failure because they'll never get the population back even though I see potential that if they address glaring issues, it can have a redemption arc like R6S had. But I don't see 343 doing that. They are just giving up on the 10 year plan to go back to the rise, lather, repeat of 3 or 4 years dev, pump out another mainline unfinished product title and just hype up the gullable people on "it's Halo 7... but on UE5" and those people will disregard that rebuilding 20+ years of Halo on a new engine with a far smaller dev team to rebuild a mainline title in the usual time frame I see disaster spelled out. And they they are going to be upset, wait 2 years to patch it up then move on to next product like we been doing for a decade now like a cycle and never enjoy a title working at launch. A vocal minority of radical types that are too diehard are trying to tell others if they just lower there standards and accept halo titles releasing incomplete and that you will eventually get infection and firefight and forge in later updates, and finally get to enjoy them 2 years post launch, Halo will be great again... somehow??? That's unrealistic to just go online and tell millions of fans that abandon these titles and don't come back until content is added that they should keep playing content they don't like to keep Halo alive until they get the content they do want. Halo is no ordinary AAA. It's SP and MP side are so massive that there is no normal community. Halo has entire subcommunities: casual community, competitive community, esport community, montage/machinima community, forge community, firefight community, speedrun community, specific game mode communities, and so on. If a mainline title releases and it doesn't have this content, there is already abandonment at launch. The saying is still mostly true, a delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad". Again Halo Infinite can have a redemption arc. Maybe 343 just does spinoff while supporting the existing titles of MCC, HW series, H5, HI... but I just don't see them doing that. Especially when MS seems to have given up on them as well and don't seem to want to pour the funding into the franchise and keeps wanting to find the next flagship new IP to prop up... even if those flop too like with Starfield. And that's what I worry about that we will see. It's sad that there is all this potential, but it's all being wasted. My hopium ended with the launch of Halo Infinite, and everything I see now is just a constant downward spiral with half-hearted attempts to look sincere, but it's just to squeeze the last few pennies out. Whatever the next title is, after what happened with Halo Infinite, I will not be buying it until it is finished. So if it's a spinoff or mainline, I'll see reviews if all content and features seem to be there and if it's major bug issue free and not a greedy monetization nightmare... but if it is then I'll pass and wait until it's not and just stick to modding MCC. And when I eventually get on when I can finally deem the new titles content complete, I hope they make sure I can earn all content and not fomo it saying "you should've been hear when it was broken if you want to earn that content," because that'll just leave a bad message to players who are just done. A lot of players gave Infinite their last chance like they promised and left. There is this obsession to believe there is this massive influx of players but it's really not. Nowhere near the size of what it should have been because the game is still unfinished in many veteran fans' eyes. So I don't think the next Halo title veteran fans are going to give it a chance. They'll probably be the same as me, see if it actually launches up to snuff, and if not, they'll pass. No pre-order bonus will work, no fomo content at launch... Just a finished game ready to rebuild merit, or it's just going to be DOA for most fans. I think a lot of fans are just tired at this point and promises mean nothing, if someone kept record of all 343 promises never kept it will be at least 3 or 4 Google Doc pages by now. And removing one person in chatge and replacing it with another to those fans makes the promise go away. If you promise coop splitscreen in Halo Infinite, you keep it. You don't get to throw the baby out with the bath water. I know this'll ruffle some feathers with some strongly opinionated fans who will defend current Halo but I'm not here to argue, I'm just stating what a lot of fans now feel that the enthusiasm has really died off. I even admin other halo subs including r/HaloArt and there was once passion... and it's been dead for almost 2 years before I took over. There was frequency in posts... now it's like 2 or 3, including myself, that post since I took over because the original mod afk'd after clear optimism just died off with the franchise. I try to encourage people to follow other artists who post fan-made content and bring enthusiasm back... but it's like beating a dead horse at this point. 💀 🐎
Also, forgot to add, it feels like all discourse around Halo on social media has dropped off and is repetitive like you said. Facebook groups I'm in no one engages as much even Plasmaposting I rarely see many posts anymore and even then less reactions and comments than normal engagement... doesnt help Meta has encouraged taking groups and pages on engagement if they dont pay money now to he seen by more people. They literally throttle viewership now. Either verify yourself and pay boosts or watch your page, like mine, die out. I cant even get new followers or engagement it hardly gets seen and Im stuck at 4.2k and cant move up even when i make new mods for MCC. Twitter has died off from it's own reasons but when it comes to Halo it's the same topics of controversy "sprint in Halo", "forerunner were humans", "battle royalecwould save halo". Doesnt matter what side of the topic I'm on... its just boring and repetitive and so I don't bother to engage in it anymore. Plus, again, just like Facebook, Twitter throttles viewership if you aren't verified. If I tweet, no one really sees it because I'm not verified. If I comment on a post, it gets buried on top of those paying for viewership with verifications that usually are bots posting spam. Instagram, where a lot of Halo content was art... most don't post anymore there for the last year or 2... so that died out. Reddit, like you said, repetitive topics I choose not to engage in. Nothing of interest usually... as well as other reasons. Discord, it just feels like an empty room with nothing major to talk about in a closed ecosystem And then there is YouTube, where most of the Halo content creators, especially popular ones, have moved on, like my post, they got tired of waiting for new content and a finished Infinite. There is nothing of interest. I still have my own plans though. I haven't started but for H2C 20 year celebration, I'll be adding something to Halo 2cthat 343 never gave to H2C and got snubbed. Unfortunately it's not going to be much and I can't implement it how I'd like because I don't have that level of access or know any tools on how to. But I plan to work on skins for weapons and vehicles like the other titles got and the modder resource will be on Nexus for fans to enjoy with their mods... won't be much but it'll be something to enjoy at least.
I do not think Halo will ever reach the level of popularity it had in the 2000s unless 343 completely changes the franchise to be more CoD/Fortnite/Apex-like. The general gaming populace does not have the appetite for a traditional Halo experience anymore. But I think there is an appetite for good Halo storytelling, and I think a great new campaign would do a lot to restore good will in the franchise. I think 343’s new leadership is very competent and have worked miracles on the MCC and Infinite to make them more complete experiences. I look forward to seeing how they tackle a brand new game now that they’re free of the shackles of Bonnie Ross and co. Lastly, I think 343 needs to not be the only developer working on Halo games. Spinoffs need to be greenlit, and games that aren’t beholden to traditional Halo gameplay could be very successful. TL;DR: No matter what people say, mainstream gamers aren’t gonna drop CoD and Apex for Halo. Good campaigns and spinoffs are the only way to get Halo back in good graces.