Microsoft's Big Gamble on Halo Infinite - The Escapist Show

[Nick Calandra]

Jack and I discussed my conflicted feelings on Halo (one of my favorite franchises) this week on The Escapist Show. Curious to see what actual fans (no, I don't care if you hate it) think 343 needs to do with Infinite to win back the fans of old that didn't like Halo 5's campaign, or the game in general.

 

[BrawlMan]

While I am glad to see fan of this franchise glow positively, I could never really get in to the series. I've done the single player for 1-3, but that is about it. They should have ended the franchise on the 3rd game and Reach. For a 4th game, the main focus could have been on a different character. 5 tried to do this, but failed in so many areas. For me, there is not much this franchise can offer, but I see fans have a different opinion.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I think Microsoft needs to stop banking on the same tired ass IP's and put money into allowing developers to create something new. Halo Inifinite sounds like it'll just be another Destiny-like with a Halo skin, which might help it be more successful than Anthem, but it certainly wont be enough to make people flock to the Xbox One X Series X Box.

Not when Playstation is still standing on top with another big pile of exclusive IP's. I mean it's really fucking sad, and Microsoft should just give up.

Sony on PS5 alone has:
A Cat game
A Souls game
A Spiderman game
A Bug eating game
A Cartoon Mascot
A Racing Game
A Robot Hunting game
A God Game
A Furry High school game
A Spirit Girl game
and more!

Microsoft has:
Another Halo
And a Crazy lady game.


Like seriously, what the fuck are they doing? Whoever is in charge of the Xbox Brand and the business model should be fucking fired because they're not doing anything.

 

[Mr Rotch]

Microsoft's finally getting their act together with all the first party studios they acquired. Hopefully we start seeing more exclusives in the next year or two.

As for Halo, I'm hesitant on it. So far I don't think 343 has had a good story when it comes to their games, which is the main reason why I used to play Halo games. Multiplayer can be fun for me, but I got burnt out of multiplayer at the end of the 360 gen. I reeeeeally don't want them to turn Halo into a Destiny-like looter shooter. I just want a straightforward (good) story that I can beat in 10-15 hours.

As for multiplayer, I do wish they would return to a more classic arena-style gameplay. I don't like the new additions they added in Halo 5 (sprint bash, ground slam, dodging etc). Sprinting and mounting are ok for the most part, but the series needs to go back to its roots and focus on tight levels that focus on power weapons.

 

[Nick Calandra]

I think Microsoft needs to stop banking on the same tired ass IP's and put money into allowing developers to create something new. Halo Inifinite sounds like it'll just be another Destiny-like with a Halo skin, which might help it be more successful than Anthem, but it certainly wont be enough to make people flock to the Xbox One X Series X Box.

Not when Playstation is still standing on top with another big pile of exclusive IP's. I mean it's really fucking sad, and Microsoft should just give up.

Sony on PS5 alone has:
A Cat game
A Souls game
A Spiderman game
A Bug eating game
A Cartoon Mascot
A Racing Game
A Robot Hunting game
A God Game
A Furry High school game
A Spirit Girl game
and more!

Microsoft has:
Another Halo
And a Crazy lady game.


Like seriously, what the fuck are they doing? Whoever is in charge of the Xbox Brand and the business model should be fucking fired because they're not doing anything.

If you had waited till July 23rd, there probably wouldn't be a need for this comment...and Xbox has a lot in the oven cooking right now so these comments are just wasted breath at this point when everyone knows Xbox has a lot of work to do AND it's not even the talking point of this thread.

 

[ObsidianJones]

So, I am a Halo... barely casual, I guess.

I played Combat Evolved when my best friend swore to me that this was the new true way of FPS's. I cut my teeth on Doom, Quake, and I thought I'd give it a try. It was my first FPS's on console and... Yeah, I couldn't get into the experience. The controller design and gameplay was off to me. And I wasn't a walking armory with 9 different guns?

Eh. That was the one word that summed it up.

When Halo 2 came out, he told me I really had to try it. And I came over and did again. It was definitely prettier, but still, nothing that gripped me. .

I can't tell you why I decided to get Halo 3 for myself. I think it was because I moved away from PC gaming and I had a 360. And it was the new hotness. So I got it.

And I enjoyed it. Not ovely, but I had a good time. The story was easy enough to follow. But I never sat there, Gobsmacked that I missed out on all these experiences. It was ok.

Then ODST came out. To be honest, I never felt like a super soldier playing as the Chief, so I wasn't anywhere interested in playing as a human. Then 4. And I was confused. Didn't we finish the fight? I was told we did. I blew up a lot of things. And here comes 5. And like Nick, I was into the marketing. And I heard it never followed through, so interest gone.

Now, I'm not the biggest multiplayer. And that actually comes from Halo 3. I remembered matches where I connected 6 BR shots to a enemy's head (hit sparks and everything) and I was killed in 2. Haven't been a fan ever since.

This is all to say this: I don't see what this game is for a casual to the experience like me. This is for, as Nick said, for the fans. Or at least it is the hope that it will be. It feels like an attempt to reconcile with the fans. And for the rest of us, I feel like we're being left out of the conversation. And that's fine. If that's how 343 wants to go about it, I can respect it.

Hell, I hope it works out for fans and 343 alike. I just don't feel compelled with anything I've seen.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll sit here awaiting Titanfall 3 news.

... What? What do you mean? The hell is "Apex Legends?"!

 

[BrawlMan]

If you had waited till July 23rd, there probably wouldn't be a need for this comment...and Xbox has a lot in the oven cooking right now so these comments are just wasted breath at this point when everyone knows Xbox has a lot of work to do AND it's not even the talking point of this thread.

Not to derail the thread, but I can kinda see where @CriticalGaming is coming from. Microsoft has a habit of buying up these studios and not doing anything with them or barely anything at all. Culiminating in them just sitting there with their hands up the ass or being shutdown or cancelled for dumb reasons. Buying up studios ain't enough, Microsoft has to put the effort in support or fund whoever they bought. If not, history will repeat itself and the same shit is going to happen all over again. But like you said, on the 23rd (my birthday), I will give them a chance.

 

[Nick Calandra]

Not to derail the thread, but I can kinda see where @CriticalGaming is coming from. Microsoft has a habit of buying up these studios and not doing anything with them or barely anything at all. Culiminating in them just sitting there with their hands up the ass or being shutdown or cancelled for dumb reasons. Buying up studios ain't enough, Microsoft has to put the effort in support or fund whoever they bought. If not, history will repeat itself and the same shit is going to happen all over again. But like you said, on the 23rd (my birthday), I will give them a chance.

Why do people act like it's only Microsoft that this has happened to? Seems people forget how rough the early days of the PS3 were for the exclusives, and it wasn't until the tail-end of the generation that they really picked it up with the exclusives, starting with Uncharted 2. Same for Nintendo with the Wii and Wii U.

All new leadership is in place at Xbox, they have actual funding from Microsoft itself now and not just the Xbox division and we're HOPEFULLY going to see the fruits of all this labor on the 23rd. Not defending Microsoft, because their exclusive line-up for Xbox One was pretty abysmal, but it seems all the devs they're working with are happy, Microsoft is giving them the freedom to make what they want like Sony does with their first party studios and with games pass, they can take a lot of creative risks.

Whether they can deliver or not, we'll see, and for me that really starts with Halo Infinite, so I do have high hopes.

 

[BrawlMan]

Why do people act like it's only Microsoft that this has happened to? Seems people forget how rough the early days of the PS3 were for the exclusives, and it wasn't until the tail-end of the generation that they really picked it up with the exclusives, starting with Uncharted 2. Same for Nintendo with the Wii and Wii U.

I have not forgotten, it's just Microsoft is the most obvious about it. The PS3 really did not start getting get exclusives until 2009 with Uncharted 2. It took them 3 years to finally start getting good first party & third party exclusives. Barely in to the console's mid-life cycle. Hell, it's why I never got one and stuck with the 360 during 7th gen. Plus, I had a feeling most of the games I wanted would be ported to PS4.

While the Wii & Wii U suffered the problems (with the Wii U getting the worst in my opinion), the former got more than enough games to fall back on than the latter. Especially when most of the games people wanted went from the Wii U to Switch/PS4/XONE/PC. Even then Nintendo had unqiue games to fall back or usually rely on. Microsoft (until what we see on the 23rd) only have Halo, Killer Instinct (2013), Gears, and couple of one offs or supposed francises that went nowhere, failed, canceled, or shelved out a mediocre product. Aside from KI, which had different developers, all of the Rare IPs lost all of their taken. Most of that talent went on other or better games (Yooka Laylee). What's been getting them through is the backwards compatibility. Like I said before, I am willing to give them a chance.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I was a huge Halo fan in the Xbox and Xbox 360 era, and I have absolutely no enthusiasm or interest in Halo Infinite.

The Bungie Halo games were great. Good campaigns, great multiplayer, but what really set them apart for me was couch coop and splitscreen multiplayer support. Halo was one of the few series that had support for 4 people to play online on a single Xbox 360 with just a single account. It was AWESOME. My friends and I would get together constantly to play multiplayer like that. That died with the Xbox One, and is a massive reason that I didn't bother with that console at all.

Add to that the fact that Halo 3 had a perfect ending to the series that Halo 4 ruined for no good reason, and which Halo 5 continued ruining and i have no faith that Halo Infinite will have a story that justifies keeping Master Chief around after the perfect send-off that Halo 3 was.

I would have been much more interested in the continuing Halo franchise if 343 had made games like Halo Reach and ODST, spin offs within the universe rather than pointlessly resurrecting Master Chief.

This isn't going to get me buying an Xbox Series X (the Xsex). Everything that I really liked about the series is gone.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Why do people act like it's only Microsoft that this has happened to? Seems people forget how rough the early days of the PS3 were for the exclusives, and it wasn't until the tail-end of the generation that they really picked it up with the exclusives, starting with Uncharted 2. Same for Nintendo with the Wii and Wii U.

That's true for most generations. I recall the 1st AAA game I gave an 8+/10 to this gen was Dishonored 2, which came out in 2016, and it really didn't need the power of current gen. I predict the same for next-gen, there won't be anything worth playing on it for 2 years. Just about every game will release on current systems because of the install base and those versions won't be gimped like PS3/360 versions were early this gen (like Middle-earth) because the PS4/Xbone don't have a measely 256-512MBs of RAM. At least 2 of Nintendo's launch years would've looked a lot worse if they didn't delay the Zeldas (Twilight Princess and BOTW) to launch with new systems. Sony could've delayed stuff like TLOU2 and Ghosts to be launch PS5 games if they wanted those launches to look a lot better. I wanna say at least half the games that have been showed off for PS5 are already known to be releasing on PS4.

 

[Hawki]

Curious to see what actual fans (no, I don't care if you hate it) think 343 needs to do with Infinite to win back the fans of old that didn't like Halo 5's campaign, or the game in general.

Well, I might not be the best person to ask, because on one hand, I guess it's fair to say that I'm a Halo fan (certainly got enough games, books, comics, and fanfics for that). On the other, I...actually liked Halo 5. Both the singleplayer and multiplayer. And that's after I had no problem criticizing 343's decisions up to that point.

It seems in part that 343 is already trying to appeal to "the fans," given what little we know about Infinite. Most, if not all of the game will be set on a Halo ring. The game's aesthetic is designed to harken back to Bungie. It's said to be a "spiritual reboot." So, whether it works or not is another matter, but that's the path the game is on.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think Microsoft needs to stop banking on the same tired ass IP's and put money into allowing developers to create something new. Halo Inifinite sounds like it'll just be another Destiny-like with a Halo skin, which might help it be more successful than Anthem, but it certainly wont be enough to make people flock to the Xbox One X Series X Box.

Not when Playstation is still standing on top with another big pile of exclusive IP's. I mean it's really fucking sad, and Microsoft should just give up.

Sony on PS5 alone has:
A Cat game
A Souls game
A Spiderman game
A Bug eating game
A Cartoon Mascot
A Racing Game
A Robot Hunting game
A God Game
A Furry High school game
A Spirit Girl game
and more!

Microsoft has:
Another Halo
And a Crazy lady game.


Like seriously, what the fuck are they doing? Whoever is in charge of the Xbox Brand and the business model should be fucking fired because they're not doing anything.

What gets me is how many times they’ve trotted out dozens of new exclusives at E3 or wherever, saying they have more new games in development than anyone, and ultimately how many of those have we ever seen after all these years?

 

[SupahEwok]

I like Halo, but having never owned an Xbox, was relegated to playing multiplayer at friends' houses when I was growing up. I'm just getting to play through them for real now, with the Master Chief Collection on Steam.

That said, I'm not a fan of MMO in any form, and if I were a more dedicated fan, the first step to winning me back after a misstep would be a good game. And I know there are people who will defend their favorite MMOs to the death and I'm not willing to argue about it because I really don't care, but I've yet to find an MMO with actually good gameplay. Mostly it's some watered down version of regular RPG's or FPS's.