This is sad. I was a Halo fanatic. I read every book. I owned a three foot metal energy sword for god’s sake. Watching 343 waffle on what the hell to do on the game side has been frustrating. They had plenty of bright spots in their games (I actually liked warzone in halo 5…) but they lacked vision and conviction in the storytelling that I think really contributed to the fan exodus.
I hope they can turn things around with their new name and new leadership, but I’m not holding my breath.
They don’t have it. They keep trying to escalate in a setting that already has the strongest opponent you can have without going entirely off the rails and they refuse to commit to anything.
Yeah, Halo 3 wrote them into a corner.
Still, they could have creatively ‘reset’ the scope. Focus on a frontier story, a prequel, some kind of cataclysm, probably reset a lot of characters. Even if they lost the silent-chief ‘feel’ of the trilogy, the tone change would have been excused (like Reach to an extent).
Infinite tried this, I guess, but they hauled over too much baggage from previous games and lore.
Honestly, if I were in charge of Halo I’m not sure what I’d do now… As I’m sure ‘make Halo Infinite multiplayer only, kill any semblance of story there, f that wierd stuff in the novels and start over with a narrower setting’ would get shot down.
3 didn’t write then into a corner, it just set up a landmark they refuse to acknowledge. they could have an entire universe of stories about units trying to survive the wars humanity has endured without needing some galaxy ending threat. Reach (the planet) was one variation of millions of similar stories humanity has in Halo and the game exploring it was one of the best, just do more of that!
Practically though, Microsoft wanted the Chief (and Cortana I guess) because that’s what sells. So that was kinda the constraint.
They could have sent him on a space boat somewhere more remote though. Basically infinite without Halo 4/5 and a way more intimate plot.
I owned a three foot metal energy sword for god’s sake.
As someone who works in metal fabrication, thank you for the idea!
Microsoft has been weird with this game. They hyped it up as launch title, game for 10 years, when it was far from ready. They released it a year later, with decent multiplayer and single player, but slowed down right after season 1. They woke up and got Forge working and then slept again. Even the recent showcase had the usual ESO and FO76 updates but nothing about Halo Infinte. Now they are teasing something new for next year, without even asking users to consider playing Halo Infinte in the interim time.
Even Forza Motorsport plan seems to be similar. Hyped game as ‘platform’, meh launch, even meh support, no mention in their showcase.
Forza Motorsport
Yeah, it seems weird to me.
It looks like they have the framework for a more elaborate multiplayer/matchmaking system and… just didn’t really use it?
I am not even touching FM now because the 10-minute races are so awful (and they got rid of all the 20 minute ones).
