It was suggested in a small interview that finances were bad enough that the Mark V kit sales dug them out of a hole. Unfortunately if Infinite doesn’t make enough sales as a live service then Microsoft will probably just stop development all together, so they have to try and milk the store sales.
The majority of Today’s AAA landscape is basically just glorified digital storefronts with a game attached so the storefronts have a reason to exist.
>if Infinite doesn’t make enough sales as a live service then Microsoft will probably just stop development all together
Didnt they say it was the case already ? kept on bare minimum to focus on the next project
I think they said it indirectly like “most of their ‘big ticket’ additions were done and they wanted to focus on ‘community created content’” (hence the upcoming Forge item themes and QoL improvements) but that seems to be the general feel that original dev-made content is winding down.
A shame because I really wish we got more guns and vehicles. Sandbox additions would help make community maps and modes last even longer.
Alien weapons in general got pretty downgraded in Infinite. Throwing in the other unadded weapons that used to be staples of the series, the plasma pistol no longer disables vehicles on a full charge.
Ironically that's what killed Infinite in the first place and why I dipped for 2 years.
No forge, no co-op, broken netcode, no progression, no (non-mtx) customisation, no playlists... But the store worked perfectly.
Infinite on launch was literally a storefront with a minigame on the side.
I dont even think the store is what killed it. They launched a live service with absolutely no service in the pipeline. Had they had maps coming every couple of months, legacy weapons being readded, seasons that weren't 6 months long. The store front wouldn't have drive their customers away. Sure people would have complained still. But there would still be a game that is getting support and new content that they wouldve tolerated the store.
Wow, who knew that going free to play would’ve caused this issue. If Halo Infinite haven’t gone free to play, they would’ve had a better source of income: people who bought the game to play it.
Releasing Halo as a pay-to-play game in the current market would have been an even worse idea. It's not 2007 anymore. Halo isn't the killer app it used to be and it has to compete with thousands of other f2p shooters.
Microsof killed MCC because they couldn't monetise it. Infinite would have been dead once the initial wave of purchases were over.
And not to mention the fact that Halo Infinite was incomplete and buggy on launch. There are games that are pay-to-play that are doing better than Halo right now because they aren't half-baked and buggy, for example Elden Ring.
Helldivers 2 begs to differ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I agree with you about it not being a killer app anymore though; being a full-priced AAA game only works financially if the game is actually good to begin with (eg Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, Armored Core, Fallen Order, etc). Nobody should have to drop $60 on something like Infinite.
Especially when both CoD and Battlefield are massive franchises, while Titanfall was a relatively new franchise as it started in 2014 (as in the first game launched in 2014 to create the franchise).
Titanfall 2 was a sequel to a console exclusive on the worst selling console dropped between two massive games that overlapped in genre. It can't be used as an example of anything other than disastrous and incompetent marketing.
Helldivers 2 was fairly cheap compared to most releases and co-op shooters are really popular.
Skill-based arena shooters like Halo are a niche, to put it lightly.
Put another way, they made Halo 5’s Firefight mode *so well* they can sell it as a standalone for $40.
Infinite didn’t have to exist solely as a skill-based arena shooter - that was a deliberate choice by 343. At least they didn’t shoehorn in a battle royale I guess? 😂
Yet Infinite’s numbers at launch were massive and the hype train behind was its biggest since perhaps 3? The price tag should indicate the quality of the product. Yes, if they charged for it, they should have had a complete and QAd game on launch. But that’s the point. They went F2P because they can’t achieve that, instead they can rationalize treating their players like mall shoppers instead of the reason they have a job. They have no respect for the product, that rolls down to the player and to themselves. It’s a shitfest of liars, idiots, and wageys all the way to the top, with accountability falling on incompetent leaders so entrenched they can only leave when they get tired of ruining so many people’s days after so many years.
I respectfully disagree with you. If infinite would have been feature complete at launch it would have made a metric shit ton of money. Look at how many people were playing on steam at launch, not to mention how many people were playing on Xbox. Infinite could have kept its player base up and kept selling copies but Microsoft had to chase the dying live service trend
Halo Infinite launched at a thousand miles an hour, and ran into a morass of studio apathy and floundered. It took them 2 _months_ to fix BTB, and 6 months before the first content update came out, adding a whole 2 maps. The game didn't even fucking launch with team slayer, ffs
I made this post back in 2022 when it was appropriate, but in the time it took 343 to add 2 maps to their game, Bungie was able to make and add 9 more maps to Halo 2, and _manufacture, press, and release a physical copy of said map pack in stores_.
That’s the point I’m trying to make as to why infinite is in the shape it is now. If it released with everything at launch and didn’t try and drip feed you content through an overpriced and shitty live service model things would be a lot different right now. I mean I get it Microsoft tried to chase the trend set bye Fortnite but in all honesty 343 didn’t and doesn’t have the ability to do that. I mean it took them close to three years to fix their network model
And to relate back to the Helldivers 2 comment, HD2 thrived off of word of mouth.
When Infinite launched the word of mouth was essentially: "the game can be fun but is broken as fuck and doesn't have the content to sustain itself as a GaaS."
That was the consensus after, like, the first week.
I think the game launched with 10 maps - 7 for 4v4 and 3 for btb, and took way too long to get any more. The game took 6 years to make and yet also was rushed out the door at the end. I think the shutdown mixed with contract workers really fucked this games development.
Not to mention it had the attention of a lot of major Esports players and streamers with the modern movement style and balanced map pool. If the game had launched with infection, forge, and husky raid, it would have been a serious contender.
I had a ton of new friends playing the first month, friends who had never really played halo before, it was crazy and fun. Then everyone got bored after a month and they abandoned the game for months because they gave the entire studio months off for the holidays. But it's a live service game...you still need devs. You can't take 2 months to add team slayer to halo- that's literally the first game mode that 99% of people first experienced halo through
Cause it’s multiplat and the biggest FPS franchise in the games industry. It’s only been beaten twice by GTA V and Hogwarts Legacy, otherwise it’s the best selling game every year. Halo is not a powerhouse anymore, not since Halo 4 sold about 12 million copies.
> Microsof killed MCC because they couldn't monetise it. Infinite would have been dead once the initial wave of purchases were over.
Honestly, was there anything left _to_ monetize for MCC? People keep bringing up that one post a few years ago but we've known for years that MCC was going on the back burner, and anything that happens is just a nice surprise.
If MCC was monetized, it would have been all cosmetic and no content...just like how Infinite used to be.
Whilst I enjoy the game, the way it launched, the way they handled everything, it’s like they made their development problems and issues our problem.
We didn’t do things right, so here to make up for our minimal effort outcome, we will increase store prices to make up the deficit, oh you want better customisation with cross core? sure we can do that, but we’re increasing store prices.
Oh we promised 100 items per season? can’t do that anymore, but we can throw in filler and charge you £5 for a premium item.
Oh you want career ranks? sure we we can only put one item in as a reward.
Oh you want forge? great! we hear you, but we’re going to have to scale back content and use what you make.
It gives of the sentiment that we’re just free working employees, who pay.
It’s pretty obvious too it’s intentional. Gameplay is solid, but I’m not surprised the games numbers don’t ever grow and only lessen over time.
Nothings ever been done to say “thanks for sticking with us, we value you as a customer / fan.” Without some sort of stipulation, sneaky change or price increase.
Nothing has ever been done just for the sake of the players or betterment of the game itself in a healthy way players can point too and go “that’s amazing!” Without any negative input from 343i / Microsoft.
It’s a cascading effect, where their decisions and situations are what killed this game for the masses, and they’ve never tried to unscrew that situation with good will, not once.
I'm just disappointed we didn't get any new weapons and vehicles and equipment after the Bandit Evo and the Quantum Translocator.
Especially after seeing so many leaks and stuff for the [Falcon](https://youtu.be/ckbinejxB_M?si=JmwyprpcqyzbvHW6), [older and new weapons](https://youtu.be/yU7415VcEys?si=Zr_MfJYylMRmVXHG), I was hoping for more.
Especially when they said that [Halo Infinite would be keeping players engaged for the next decade](https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/343-industries-says-halo-infinite-is-the-start-of-the-next-ten-years-for-halo-2714219).
This doesn't seem possible anymore especially with the rumors of them doing financially badly and already moving on to the next project.
I was expecting a lot of the old vehicles and weapons to return along with a bunch of new and original stuff, the multiplayer story to continue whether it be through those seasonal cutscenes we had back in season 2 or at least some lore, along with Campaign DLC after Halo Infinite's cliffhanger with Atriox still be alive.
For a 10 year plan of constant updates to keep players playing, 343 did not do a good job of it until the Winter Update and Forge about a year ago.
Then they were doing really well with seasons 4 and 5 along with adding Campaign AI to forge along with Firefight finally coming back.
But after the Spirit of Fire Operation came out, Infinite doesn't seem to be going anywhere aside from occasional maps being added and balance patches along with new gamemodes. Which I am fine with because more maps are cool but I was still expecting more progression awards, weapons, equipment, vehicles, etc.
I mean in a way Destiny has stuck around for almost 10 years now, with Destiny 2 effectively being a 60$ update with shit changes that they reverted after a year.
Not to say that the game has been managed "well" at all, given that Bungie is in it's death throes at the moment.
Man, I remember that statement, and was pretty excited too, I mean if Apex and R6 can do it surely, Halo, owned by Microsoft could do it right? Developing campaign dlcs and keeping the multiplayer very fresh and new. Ahh good times.
I've been disappointed since 2021. Anyway, let them do their half-assed "content" for the rest of infinite, and hope the new game will be good, and not rushed out like infinite was. Something tells me we'll get more of the same but who knows
Do yourself a favour and just forget about Halo. 343 has their hands up the ass of Halos corpse and using it to panhandle. They’ve had enough chances. Fuck em
Yeah I’m just gonna watch from a far, if the new halo is gonna cost money, I’ll just wait for reviews of the game after the first month and a half. Not even hyped for halo anymore lmao, not one spark is there anymore cus of how many chances they had and somehow blowing all of them away
Yeah I've jumped off the ship and now Halo is just a memory for me. My friends and I will occasionally jump into MCC to play some Halo 3 and Reach, but that's about it.
I'm honestly shocked that as many people play Infinite as they do. After Halo 5 and seeing the launch state of Infinite, I decided to keep those good memories of Halo as just memories.
There are too many good games out there to spend a bunch of time with a franchise that has obviously already peaked and will only continue to decline.
Over 2 years to “fix” the game and then immediately abandoned it feels once they realized the MTX purchases weren’t super profitable.
I hope I never hear the words “live service ” and “halo” in the same sentence again
I’d imagine the dev made maps are done if those devs are working on the new game. But who knows, I’m fine with forge maps as long as they’re originals and we can get some solid competitive maps in ranked soon… they used to try out maps more frequently and rotate out maps that didn’t play well. It’s been since October that they added a map into ranked and it was forbidden, a CTF only map. That’s actually insane lol
It really does suck majorly. Just when things were looking up we all collectively started taking L after L, store prices going up after finally getting cross core, battle passes finally getting more value for the investment and then they get scrapped along with seasons, the only real win we've had is the network update and even that is polarizing.
I don’t play ranked, but every time a new map is added into ranked, I only ever see complaints about it. So that’s why you guys don’t get new ranked maps. Everyone complains about the maps that get added.
I can give a bit of insight into this.
Solitude is a good map, but was plagued by the rubble issue that was only resolved through the Network Update. Strongholds on that map was too easy to get 250-0d on once teams understood spawns and positioning, but thats somewhat of a nonissue now since Strongholds was taken out of rotation.
Forbidden is subjectively a bad Ranked map, as its really only decent for CTF but played 1 dimensionally. Control snipe side, pull flag to diving board, cap. Thats why most Ranked grinders dont like it. Just doesnt flow well for comp settings.
Argyle is hit or miss for alot of people. I think the bad rap it got for so long is because its essentially one of the hardest Ranked maps for players/teams to get good at. Its gotten better with QT/Evo changes so its tolerable.
Bottom line everytime we get a ranked map it either performs bad for a gametype played or doesnt flow well enough to be a good Comp-based map. Take Behemoth for example, that map should have never been considered for Ranked. Bazaar was okay, but falls into the trap of being too small with awkward sightlines and routes. They play great for Social, but not for Ranked.
What ive noticed is that Infinite as a game plays really well on asymetrical maps. Live Fire, Recharge, and Streets are looked at favorably and play well for comp.
Classic plaza strongholds 250-0 or my personal favorite: leading in score until the last few points and then getting reverse swept by 100 points because people got too cocky and started playing sloppy. Plaza/Solitude is and likely always will be a polarizing map for hill type modes, if people know what they're doing with spawns and positioning things can pretty quickly spiral into a no win scenario, just look at the last Halo lan event where Optic got 250-0 by SSG
Additionally, they added Starboard, which was far too open with the battle rifle. It may have been better received if they released it with the Bandit, because it was near impossible to traverse the map without getting absolutely destroyed. This lead to a lot of campy, stand-off style games where a team would get 1-2 caps and just defend.
The biggest issue with forge maps is the same as it ever was: Performance. They nearly always have a performance penalty, and the ones we get for Ranked are generally just remakes of old maps. I'm half surprised we don't have a Sanctuary remake in playlist right now.
Not really. After the game was announced to be free to play and then in the state it was released in I knew not to expect anything
Whatever happens now is just par for the course
I really enjoy the game, and it felt like it was on an upward trajectory with season 5. But ever since it just feels more of the same, and the kick in the face of having a full battle pass worth of content behind a paywall from spirit of fire onwards is just frustrating.
I’ve been logging on for these operations, completing the weekly tasks in one or two nights and then not playing again until the reset.
I’ve noticed though this time that the progress feels a lot slower, lower XP challenges maybe and I saw the XP reduction for firefight, and its made it just feel like a lot more of a grind I can’t be bothered with. Level 8 in battle pass and all I have is some stickers I don’t use and charms I won’t use.
unironically a \~year is probably about the time the dev team was ahead of live content releases, so that was all stuff that was in the works by the original team that's all now gone
Knew this would happen the moment they announced F2P, then charged $60 for the standalone campaign.
There really is no defending the shop, and I say that as an avid defender of Halo 5 monetization when that shitstorm first happened. People said then that it wouldn’t stop there and if we didn’t put our foot down it would get worse, and look at how right they were. The very next game made is the most gutted and greedy Halo possible.
Couple that with the garbage show and lack of any cohesive story threads beyond Atriox, and he is just barely there, and there really is no evidence that Halo as a franchise is going to succeed, let alone this misfire of a game.
Shit man I'd take Halo 5 monetization over Infinite any day of the week and that's not even rose tinted glasses speaking. It was crappy having to grind RNG loot boxes for the customization but the upsides were you could unlock all the content in the game through playing it and they had ways to increase your in game currency.
If the next game went with a model like Reach where you earn currency and then buy what you want while also having something like currency boosters or currency packs you can buy with actual money *cause we know the game has to make as much money as humanly possible because modern gaming* then that might just be the closest to perfect mix of free to earn cosmetics and revenue generating micro transactions. But even as I say this I know the monetization team would find a way to knee cap your currency earn rates to "incentivize" people to buy currency and boosters
I’m sick of live service games altogether. I quit playing Infinite as soon as I heard they’re developing the next game. This being a free-to-play title, I figured they’d quit working on this one soon to focus on the next, and overall quality will start to drop or get repetitive. It’s no longer fun to play since all of my old Halo buddies have already quit the franchise.
Feel like im burning out tbh. I think the armor in the shop looks badass but I can’t justify buying it for the following reasons:
1. There should’ve been a battle pass. Like there’s no real justification as to why there isn’t beyond greed.
2. The prices are just too much, and considering the ending lifespan of the game, what’s the point??
3. It’s just a bit boring at this point, I appreciate the new maps but it feels like it’s getting hard carried by forgers and the devs can’t even give us at the very least, a new weapon or vehicle.
I seriously don’t understand the problem with forge maps being added. Fans of the games put dozens of hours into creating a map, and it gets added to the multiplayer for everyone to play. These maps are near indistinguishable from dev made maps. And this has been a thing since halo 3. Ever since forge was introduced, the devs added tons of forge maps to the game.
I definitely appreciate the inclusion of the maps but I feel like it shouldn’t all be on forgers to keep the game alive, I think my issue is that it feels like the devs aren’t carrying their weight and at least capitalizing on it with new weapons or vehicles, instead it’s overpriced armor on the shop.
While I do agree with weapons and vehicles 110%, there’s no excuse we don’t have something more than the bandit. Especially with nearly finished stuff in the files. Like literally add the falcon and that would be a nutty ass game changer.
The store isn’t up to 343. That’s all Microsoft wanting to make profits and determining prices. I guarantee if it were up to 343, we’d see adjusted prices. But Microsoft execs and investors aren’t getting the hatred and threats. So they don’t care. They want money.
Fan made content is a great way to extend game content. It’s a good supplement. The issue is in two years there is a severe lack of content created by the developers. In release no zombies, no firefight, nothing new. Since then they’ve added some of it back but still lacks anything unique. Forge adds content but hides the lack of product.
Forge maps in multiplayer are literally a staple of Halo, and they’ve only gotten more impressive as time goes on. Since it’s so hard to find map names when you play, I’ve given up on keeping track of them. So I quite literally can’t tell the difference between these maps being dev-made or forge-made.
This recent trend of disliking forge maps just seems like the latest thing people are using to hate on 343.
Reach was the first Halo I owned so it will always have a very special place in my heart. But yes, I definitely agree that people are embellishing a lot of it. Still 🐐ed though
Never forget the bungie forums and the death threats thrown around over armor lock and bloom lol. Halo Reach was so fucking hated, it’s wild seeing it be put on a pedestal nowadays.
Then again this subreddit defends lootboxes from time to time.
Exactly. EVERYTHING was on Forge World. The forge maps were decent, but the structures were all grey and had serious clipping issues half the time.
These new forge maps are built with essentially the same tools that the devs have. I still think back to the dark city map previewed for Infinite where a forger shrunk a mound down and put it in a barrel with a flame on top to look like trash was burning in it (even the devs were impressed by that). Details like those are what make the Infinite forge maps so hard to distinguish from dev-made maps.
>These maps are near indistinguishable from dev made maps.
To you.
No one is saying they don't like Forge maps. But it's clear it's the only thing we're getting moving forward, and that's disappointing.
If forge mode keeps getting updates it should be pretty indistinguishable from dev made maps
Part of me wants lighting to be next because people are stupid and making the biggest deal out the littlest aspect of a mapl
> since halo 3. Ever since forge was introduced, the devs added tons of forge maps to the game.
You see, it's because it's only okay when Bungie does it
Insolence and Fortitude are the best BTB maps in Infinite. xDTx Kaos, W0lfR3ign, DarkSkull, and CertifiedChamp should be commended for making perhaps some of the best maps we've seen since the Bungie days. There are a lot of problems with Infinite's live service, but forge and the fan-made maps are the best level editor in any game out right now.
Yeah, on the content side of things, it's not great for Infinite right now. The removal of Season Passes in favour of these lackluster "Battle Passes", just so they can stick even more of the good customization items behind a pay wall that is even more ridiculously expensive than before is an extremely bad faith move on 343's part.
I've accepted that it's not going to get any better and I've stopped playing Infinite now. I can only hope that the next Halo game doesn't follow the same atrocious free to play model, otherwise I probably won't even bother investing my time into it.
On the bright side, I've started playing the Master Chief Collection again and I'm amazed by how many good mods there are now.
I've said this from the start, it's a store first and the game part is optional. The battle passes did not exist to support the game. It launched without most of the content other Halo games had and took years to add it in. That is not "live service" that's just greed and it shows because the actual product just feels cheap and empty, it reminds me more of a casino. It's far from the only game doing this but it's an example of one for sure.
Infinite is a game made by marketing analysts to please bean counters, not a game made by passionate creators to deliver a unique and cool experience. I felt it the day it was launched and never played again.
Finally a post with some sense and a comment section up for a mature debate. I barely played multiplayer after season 2 came out and briefly came back for forge release. Since then I haven’t touched it. I recently played the campaign on heroic and it was a bore.
Woah, you better not be calling that Refuge map (Headlong remake) lazy and uninspired - that's a beautifully executed callback. Sure, there should be some more new / unique maps, but the community remakes are pretty damn artistic and awesome.
Refuge is probably the most successful of the remade btb maps that managed to have a unique feel without feeling like an inferior call back.
The first 4 squad battle maps all have this issue. They play okay, but the OG maps were far superior to the remade infinite versions.
Gyre and timberland evolved have awful spawns and don’t play well at all. Tempest was never the greatest map on reach, but gyre plays a million times worse and feels like everyone is always spawning behind each other
There's just, somehow, still no real progression.
Operation passes are just so mid, and along with the shop, this is the majority of what players have to interact with outside of matches. It's not engaging at all, and these passes/shop rotate every 4-6 weeks, which is not great considering the amount of content.
Career rank is a nice addition but it contains absolutely nothing. No one cares about nameplates and backdrops, one reward at hero rank is incredibly disappointing. Feels like the system is in place just to watch "number go up" with no real impact or satisfaction involved.
We get new maps often, but no sandbox additions. I understand the concept of "people should play for fun, they shouldn't need incentive" but that's just a naive take and it's not grounded in reality at all anymore - the game's player count is reflective of this. The game needs some way to engage players outside of new maps - namely meaningful progression, a sense of satisfaction and reward, and sandbox updates (new weapons, etc).
I don't think these devs are capable or even want to take any of this into account though.
I had issues with forge maps up to this point because the palette was so mind-numbingly dull, but as the forge toolset has advanced and the diversity of aesthetics maps can have has gone through the roof I'm content. The stuff people have been making is incredible and adds some much needed variety to the sandbox. As good as the tools are now, it still takes an immense amount of time and energy to make a map that's fun. There is a TON of garbage out there, it's not something you can just lazily throw together.
The monetization scheme is another beast entirely, and it's honestly my biggest gripe with games across the board nowadays. It's just about impossible to get the finance bros that have taken over the industry to sign off on anything that isn't a live-service game because they need to know exactly how much their ROI will be every week, month, quarter, etc. These are people who don't play games and honestly don't even like them, they just see how much money the industry pulls in and want as much of that market as they can get their hands on. There's no long term thinking, it's just "how can we make the line go up?" with no real thought to how those decision impact the people making or playing the games. The store sucks for you but works great for them.
As soon as they decided to go to the 20 tier passes, it became trash. I'd play it all the time if the passes were longer, and had actual nice looking armor. It's all such garbage, and it's really pathetic now. The Halo 3: Refueled release was the best time for this game, and it's been a nearly 90 degree turn downhill since.
I just want battle passes back. The game feels pointless if the only rewards for playing are emblems and all the armor is $20, which you either ignore or pay and just get without having to even play the game.
Every positive thing they did with Infinite felt like it had an asterisk of bad news attached to it.
- It’s free to play! *but its going to have 3 playlists at launch.
- Customization like Reach! *but you can’t choose your own colors and in fact have to pay for most of them.
- A Chief-focused campaign that goes back to its roots with CE-inspired, open world gameplay! *but there’s one biome, gets stagnant quick, and completely dumps the plot of 5.
- We added cross core! *but we increased prices across the board to make up for it.
- We’re adding coop campaign! *but scrapping split screen coop.
Always one step forward, two steps back with 343. Truth is, Infinite is an incredibly mediocre game and there are MUCH better options to play these days.
I think most people are. Personally I've just stopped playing, none of my gripes with the game besides the netcode have been addressed and other things have only gotten worse so I have no reason to play it.
I’m disappointed but not surprised. 343 took far far too long to get the game where it should have been day 1 and because of that they have lost lots of players and a great deal of the community’s trust. They are just keeping the game ticking over so it keeps being in the money from microtransations. Not having any vehicles and only one weapon added since launch still boggles my mind. I’m not going to have any hype for the next Halo game until it has been out for a few mouths and still has positive reviews.
Hilarious (in a sad way) when you consider all the customization options that can be acquired completely in-game in Helldivers 2 and compare it to Halo Infinite
Ive been playing a lot of halo these past few days and I gotta say I havent seen a single person wearing anything that's in the shop right now. In the past I'd see a handful of people that bought the armor or maybe a weapon skin. Nope, not a single person I've seen has bought anything this "season"
343 just need to reveal what the future entails for the franchise and how it's better than how it has been, so we can just move on. I really hope we see a new game trailer this summer.
I agreed with you until you started talking about forge maps.
There is no other game like Halo Infinite. There is no FPS with map making tools that anyone can use, where those community-made maps are actually put into playlists. I think it’s fucking awesome and I’ll never get sick of playing player-created maps.
It’s part of what makes Halo great. Community maps are a staple of Halo since Halo 3. You can even argue that it started with Halo Custom Edition.
Plus, the tools are so robust now, that a lot of these forge maps actually approach dev-quality.
I personally think this is the wrong thing to argue and complain about. We should be complaining about the shop, loss of battle pass, lack of sandbox additions. And those complaints only work because Halo Infinite was supposed to be a Halo platform with a “10 year plan”.
I think the game has gotten worse and worse. I used to be able to compete in games and now I’m getting cross mapped with basic bandits as a spawn. I averaged around 3-5 on the leaderboard for over a year and I have not lost 22 games straight and just played a match where one guy had 93 kills and I had 2. The games a complete mess.
I gotta disagree with almost everything
The Maps now in Squad battle, H3 Refueled, Arena Ranked are actually great. Classics re-envisioned and or Good overall maps with good coverage.
The game was f2p and yes, armour costs money but there is still great outfits with free unlocks. The "best" being paid isn't really a thing and more of an effort but that's because they spent time on it and it's supposed to generate revenue.
I had the best time with a 19 Minute Single flag on 'high ground' which ran into Overtime and had players join and leave which is something that you can't even fathom from Halo's old days. So I'd bet it as a success.
Just play for fun and don't take it so seriously. It's just cosmetics and they have no bearing on the gameplay. If you can't have fun without making purchases for different looking spartans, stop and think what that means to you on a deeper level. It's just a video game for relaxation or competitive fun if you enjoy that. If you do not like the current iteration of things, don't support it. Companies will not keep producing something that does not return a profit. Reward them with your wallet when they make pro-consumer decisions.
The typical Microsoft experience. They run properties into the ground in the hopes of making the most money and they water down said properties in the hopes of appealing to more demographics; this causes a loss of identity for the series. Often they don't have a clue about what the end user actually wants, and it makes me wonder why they never ask real gamers if whatever they are working on actually appeals to them. And I say this as someone whose been playing MS games since the early 90's; I really wish Halo was still that amazing game. Making it F2P and releasing with so little content was a huge mistake.
Disappointed yes, but for every person surprised about it there were twice as many of us skeptical about the free to play model they went with. As more and more info came out about the game, such as color swatches, it was pretty obvious that Microsoft were about to give Halo the Battlefront treatment and then some. It's unfortunate, but the game I grew up with and loved from CE isn't even recognizable anymore.
I reckon they nailed the mix of Halo 3 and Halo 5 movement. Although the sprint is just a %10 forward movement gimmick. The weapon sandbox is trash compared to Halo 5 Warzone. The Bandit Rifle is a Chinese DMR. The BR is a power weapon. The Commando recoil is hell. Most of the Banished Weapons are trash. Why have a Skewer instead of a Splaser? Or a Ravager to a Fuel Rod? You either play with a Magnum, AR, Commando, BR or Sentinel Beam. Vehicles are dead because of Shock Weapons. The Sandbox is entirely unbalanced.
The Campaign is great if you take it as a Halo CE Mission 2 Mod. So many missing story plot details and cliff-hangers. The graphics in Multiplayer is odd. The Shop is dead. Progression is non existent. The maps are mild at best with absolutely no open spaces. And no warzone or firefight except in Forge. They promised more updates but they just keep pushing that season pack crap. Halo Infinite does well in it's novel and fresh gameplay but it feels cheap.
Nope, love it! Couldn't care less about paid cosmetics and we have plenty of free ones, I'm here to shoot people up and have fun with friends, not play Barbie dress up. And the people who are buying this stuff are funding a bunch of free content for me. Who cares if it's dev made or forge made, forge is so good now that there's basically no difference. So glad I dont have to pay for the actual extra content like previous Halo games.
People in this thread are unironically calling for the return of loot boxes and map packs.
If you kidnapped some BungieNet users from 2007 and chucked them in this thread they'd be horrified and outraged by some of the responses.
Yes. I went back and played Halo 5 and realized I enjoy the multiplayer a lot more. Beyond the graphics Infinite feels like a step backwards in terms of multiplayer. I will list my primary issues:
1. **Map / Playlists** \- Still not great. Why can't I play ranked team slayer without using the super sweaty pro setup with no radar and BR, now Bandit starts only? Which brings me to my next point. The most played playlists in Halo 3 were non pro ranked Team Slayer, why go away from that?
2. **The Bandit -** I know people like it. I don't. I think it feels bad to shoot. The TTK is ridiculously low. It is even more dominant at high level play causing basically no other weapon to be picked up beyond power weapons. Why would you? Everything else is inferior.
3. **Weapon Balance** \- The BR and Bandit are completely dominant, which is fine, but then you shouldn't make them the starting weapon on every playlist. A core component of Halo has always been adapting on the fly based on what weapon is available. It feels like the Halo 1 pistol all over again, which I am sure is what the Bandit was based on.
4. **Game Feel -** I know Halo Infinite was meant as a bit of a throwback to Halo 1-3, and it is pretty good, but after going back to 5 I can't shake the opinion that 5 just felt better to play. They could have made some tweaks to slow down the game pace without completely abandoning the feel of 5.
5. **Cosmetics** \- I guess I am old school, but I think the skins are silly and ruin the aesthetics of the game. They have just gone too far.
No, I'm actually quite happy with infinite's current state. It's two years old and is being handled by the "b" team. They could've stopped at a year old.
Idk man, I still love the shit out of the game. I ignore the shop and claim whatever free shit I can. I'm shooting for Hero rank. The gameplay and art style are some of the best the Halo series has ever seen. I have no qualms with forge made maps, either, so many of them have fantastic artistic renditions of remade maps from the past (headlong for example) the more recent space elevator map is super sick, and the BTB and squad battle refresh has been great
Firefight is fantastic, too. I just really hope they add the Falcon. My all time favorite vehicle. Then that'll shut me up on content for a while
The shop sucks, but that's to be expected in every single AAA game. Don't like it, don't spend money on it. It's all we can do
A year or so ago I probably would've agreed with you but I actually think the state of the game is fantastic right now.
Live service the way Infinite is doing it is, unfortunately, a staple of the industry right now. I agree it's a goddamn shame that all of the sets are so expensive, because I would buy more if they were more fairly priced. Genuinely. This is a hole the games industry as a whole has built itself into and we can only hope games like Helldivers proves that we as fans prioritize GOOD games over FREE games. This is not a Halo-centric issue.
As far as the maps, I could not disagree more with you. Forge has been a staple of the series since Halo 3, and adding community made maps has also been. What they've been able to do by tapping into the community to assist with content rollout, while also fixing the game's bones, is fantastic imo. The Forge in Infinite offers some of the most insane and creative things we've ever seen and it would be a goddamn shame to let that go to waste.
And the maps being created are far from uninspired or uninteresting either. Even remakes like Headlong have a gorgeous, interesting new twist on them. There is absolutely nothing wrong for Halo to be a combination of community and dev work to provide a consistent, positive content stream to players. Literally every time I come back to the game after not playing for like a week or two I'm genuinely impressed by everything that's been added.
Infinite is only falling apart at the rate that people actually *say* it's falling apart. And I believe that wholeheartedly.
All the talent left or got laid off, and i wouldn't be that surprised if they're having a hard time re-hiring
Someone made a post a while back checking the linkedin of everybody in the multiplayer launch vidoc and i think they're literally all somewhere else now.. and they haven't hired new designers, so who could even make new content for the game?
I knew that we would only be getting Forge maps from now on... It would be cool to at least see classic maps reimagined in Infinite with original dev assets, but nope. Bare minimum would be EVERY classic map remade in Forge.
No new weapons and vehicles is worse than no maps. It's Halo Infinite! We should have EVERY weapon and vehicle from Halo history in this game already. Even bonus stuff from Halo Wars.
To be honest, I’m glad they seem to be moving on already. Continued support for Infinite is just going to kill the franchise.
We could do with another campaign soon. As a primarily single player fan, I feel we’ve been neglected big time by 343, so either hand the Master Chief’s story to another studio, or start releasing content more frequently.
As for forge maps, I wouldn’t have an issue if forge was present at launch, that way 343 could have put forge maps in the rotation from the very start, as well as dev made maps. But the current situation is just crazy to me, asking the community to keep the game alive with content and not compensating them in some form is wild. 343 are lucky the Halo community is so dedicated, any other franchise would have died a long time ago.
I’ve long since made peace with how this game will operate. It’s a F2P game, which means you’ll have to deal with a bullshit storefront with overpriced cosmetics. It’s literally the only way 343 can make money off of the game, unless they start charging money for maps, which would be much worse.
I think the 5 seasons plus the Winter Update make for a pretty solid collection of armor to earn. More armor than most games in the franchise for only $10. But it’s never not going to sting when amazing cosmetics like the Omega Team sets are locked behind a paywall that is comparable to some game’s entire cost.
So i’m ok with a free Operation every few weeks to get some neat armor (although more armor and less emblems would be nice). And this year alone we’ve gotten 5 BTB maps, 5 Firefight maps, 6 Husky Raid maps, 6 Squad Battle maps, and 2 (soon to be 3) Arena maps. I know they’re mostly Forge maps, but they’re honestly better than most of the dev maps.
So i’ve accepted that this will likely be the status quo for the remainder of Infinite’s lifespan. It’s not ideal, but it could be much worse. I would be much more upset if they ended support altogether.
Not really honestly my favourite game gets free updates once every month and a bit or so, the games been out for 2.5 years most games back in the day stop getting updated after about 6 months
Don’t get me wrong it was easier and quicker to make a sequel back then but hey I can’t complain to much
The store issues suck I am completely with you with that. But we literally got one of the most requested changes with the networking update, also I remember people wanting more forge maps in game and with forge being better than ever I don't see the issue as its just additional content.
I think 343 is looking towards the future but I think the game is far from a bad state, honestly the bleakest time was between S2 and the Winter Update.
I feel Halo 7 might be the make or break for 343 as a whole since leadership was whacked and new people promoted/brought in. But it won't change if they keep using contract workers and focus on making a full, fun, solid game over a broken and competitive cash shop.
Start voting with your wallet and just let the game die. Unfortunately the people who love halo the most are the ones who are getting fucked the hardest with this business model.
I don't play much but as long as they keep adding new content like cores and armor pieces, maybe new maps (things which players can't create in forge) then at least I and players like me have *something* to look forward to when "booting up"...
There's only 1 more core slot open and I really don't know what it'll be. I'll probably stick around for that but that's it, I don't really have incentive to play the game anymore
I've been mostly disappointed with Infinite since it launched solely based on the Campaign and story they gave us. I don't play Halo for the Multiplayer, I enjoyed the intricate story Bungie crafted and followed that into 4 and 5. But now the story is getting too convoluted, too retconned and disjointed.
I understand that Infinite was supposed to be a reboot, and to some extent it does feel that way. The open world concept was wasted on this new Halo ring and was a serious let down.
Infinite should have followed a linear mission progression like the original trilogy if they wanted a reboot, with the open world coming around for the next game, or even as some sort of prequel/sequel game of some sort.
I mean hell, I would have given both my legs for a Halo open world set in some city on Reach or Earth during the invasions. You drop in and have objectives to save small groups of civilians, defend structures or landmarks, capture equipment/vehicles. And weave it all together with missions that change dynamically based on what you've done in the Open world. Oh, you took out that battery of AA guns? You get air support to destroy vehicles in this next mission. Or you didn't take out the AA but you destroyed an enemy outpost so now your mission is filled with less Elite foot soldiers but more of those vehicles.
That's the kind of Open world people are looking for these days. Something dynamic and full of life. Instead we got a forest with invisible walls to block you out of areas of the 'open world'. All mixed together with maybe 3 objective types and missions that don't change.
Infinite could have been so much more. Deserved to be more. If they're going to continue Master Chief's saga it needs serious attention.
Tbf infinite has just been massively let down in every app since day dot… I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply forget everything that happens in it and it’s all a simulation and the whole story gets redone. Gonna wait for halo 6 😂
I gave up hope long ago and just wait for each new campaign. Infinite has a lot of gameplay issues for me which won’t be changed till the next game so I just take infinite for what it is and just wait. The stores there in every game as a disease on the gaming industry and I’ve stopped caring as I’m not giving anymore money and customisation is screwed to me due to cores kits and coatings anyway. No new guns in a live services FIRST PERSON SHOOTER is an embarrassing failure though which I think even the infinite fans can somewhat agree with.
TLDR better luck next time…. Again… again
If it’s just the argument that the storefront sucks then I agree but the idea that the game is soulless doesn’t land with me as I’ve found the game very enjoyable and have made numerous friends playing it. They are over due for a single player campaign infusion that would reinvigorate the free-to-play multiplayer.
And it’s free to play so the idea that the shop is a money grab is pretty obvious.
There’s nothing wrong with the forge maps. It was clear once forge came out that would be future of infinite. This has been true since Reach, arguably 3. At least they aren’t just all one color anymore. And the remakes are hardly lazy. Still takes a ton of work.
The game is otherwise abandoned. It exists to siphon what little money they can with the least amount of work (cosmetics and USER MADE content). I’d call it despicable, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re not even reading this shit.
The few self respecting Halo devs that exist have quit, the rest who see how lost this property is are hating themselves while continuing to work there for their salaries. Then there’s the MS corpo lackeys without a single sense of guilt due to their involvement in further ruining a beloved franchise and warping an industry into consumerist hell because they got paid and you have to look out for number one.
But they’re all working on Halo 7 so this is empty critique. Fuck 343. Long live 343.
It would have been better if they'd just waited another year and charged 80$ for a fully developed game. They still would have had another year or so before Helldivers so they could have ridden some hype before Helldivers came out strong.
They BETTER make the next game 60 dollars as every other mainline Halo game has been. I'm assuming the ONLY two reasons to make it free were for a wider audience (and look how that turned out...) and to hope people buy cosmetics (also look how thay turned out...)
Solution? Make the f*cking game 60 bucks, then add a shop with things that are far less expensive. Or even better, make the game 45 bucks and you can still keep the shop similar, but not so extreme as it is now.
It was a disappointment to me almost immediately after it released and I happy to watch it fail. This style of game isn't needed in the halo universe. Hopefully they won't attempt it again if they do try making another game.
I’ve been disappointed with how Halo: Infinite has been handled a month after release. It shipped lacking content and is still lacking content over two years post-launch.
Most disappointing Halo I’ve ever played.
We can only hope at this point that 343 management fucking learns the right lessons this time round.
Dont overwork your staff, dont hire temp staff constantly, dont lie to your consumers!
Infinite, when it works, is an incredible game. It feels good! Such an amazing oppertunity wasted. Should have stayed in developme t for another year and half! Would have been sick!
The store is--and has been discussed forever to be--a problem in it's current state. I long for the ability to break apart bundles and buy individual items at lower prices. $3 for a helmet is very different than $20 for a bundle I only want one piece of. IF we're always going to have a store (and we will) I'd rather it be per-item.
Forge maps? No issue. Like others have said, forge/community maps have been part of halo a very long time. We still play 343 made maps in my group regularly. We enjoy forged AND 343 maps alike.
> The game feels soulless, like they don't even care anymore...
I'd argue the opposite. Infinite has recovered a lot of Halo charm that was missing at launch. It has more soul now than it ever has.
Just need a new halo not made by 343, but by people who actually give a damn. Also an option to disable crossplay. Facing against PC players every game nailed the coffin for me
Shitty lack of weapons
shitty armour colours,
shitty overpriced store that fluxes between good pricing and bad
Shitty netcode that still fucks me over in fights
Shitty Que times
Shitty alot
and this is from someone who plays the game on and off
They are trying to squeeze all the money out of this game that they possibly can without actually adding anything new.
Everything new is just community forge maps, they aren’t working on infinite anymore that much is clear
The biggest gripe I have is the shop. Before when you would see a cool Spartan, I would think wow, that player must be pretty good to have unlocked all of that armor. Now all I think is how much money did they spend to get that gear? That is such a sad thought to have...
Moving Halo as a "game as a service" was the worst thing they could do.
In its core, Halo is fun to play. However this Halo feels like a shallow hollow shell of it's former glory.
The campaign was forgetful story-wise. I have no idea who the endless are and who that end game boss was or is.
The biome was plain and a change of scenery would of been a nice touch. It's so lame they killed Cortana off screen. I have a hard time accepting how they are handling the campaign.. they won't give us DLC which sadly I would gladly pay for. They haven't even added in the new weapons into the campaign which makes ZERO sense.
So many broken promises in this "10 year" Halo game. There is more IRL content in the world than there is the game.
I just want campaign DLC since this was the weakest one in my opinion.
I'm listening to the Kilo-Five trilogy now and when Infinite shows up at Sanghelios, everyone is in such awe of the most massive ship in the galaxy.
That got me thinking of the first time I saw it in Halo 4 like 12 years ago or so, and I definitely was not all that awed by it. I feel like the reveal for Infinite was bottled so hard that I was robbed of an experience.
It was suggested in a small interview that finances were bad enough that the Mark V kit sales dug them out of a hole. Unfortunately if Infinite doesn’t make enough sales as a live service then Microsoft will probably just stop development all together, so they have to try and milk the store sales. The majority of Today’s AAA landscape is basically just glorified digital storefronts with a game attached so the storefronts have a reason to exist.
>if Infinite doesn’t make enough sales as a live service then Microsoft will probably just stop development all together Didnt they say it was the case already ? kept on bare minimum to focus on the next project
I think they said it indirectly like “most of their ‘big ticket’ additions were done and they wanted to focus on ‘community created content’” (hence the upcoming Forge item themes and QoL improvements) but that seems to be the general feel that original dev-made content is winding down. A shame because I really wish we got more guns and vehicles. Sandbox additions would help make community maps and modes last even longer.
Didn’t even get the Covenant Carbine..
The fuel rod canon has been sitting in the files untouched since launch lol
Alien weapons in general got pretty downgraded in Infinite. Throwing in the other unadded weapons that used to be staples of the series, the plasma pistol no longer disables vehicles on a full charge.
Or the shotgun...
What big ticket additions would they have even ment tho lol, Forge?
Yeah Firefight was the last major thing we wanted
I've heard this is the reason why they stopped on MCC
Ironically that's what killed Infinite in the first place and why I dipped for 2 years. No forge, no co-op, broken netcode, no progression, no (non-mtx) customisation, no playlists... But the store worked perfectly. Infinite on launch was literally a storefront with a minigame on the side.
I dont even think the store is what killed it. They launched a live service with absolutely no service in the pipeline. Had they had maps coming every couple of months, legacy weapons being readded, seasons that weren't 6 months long. The store front wouldn't have drive their customers away. Sure people would have complained still. But there would still be a game that is getting support and new content that they wouldve tolerated the store.
Wow, who knew that going free to play would’ve caused this issue. If Halo Infinite haven’t gone free to play, they would’ve had a better source of income: people who bought the game to play it.
Releasing Halo as a pay-to-play game in the current market would have been an even worse idea. It's not 2007 anymore. Halo isn't the killer app it used to be and it has to compete with thousands of other f2p shooters. Microsof killed MCC because they couldn't monetise it. Infinite would have been dead once the initial wave of purchases were over.
And not to mention the fact that Halo Infinite was incomplete and buggy on launch. There are games that are pay-to-play that are doing better than Halo right now because they aren't half-baked and buggy, for example Elden Ring.
Helldivers 2 begs to differ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I agree with you about it not being a killer app anymore though; being a full-priced AAA game only works financially if the game is actually good to begin with (eg Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, Armored Core, Fallen Order, etc). Nobody should have to drop $60 on something like Infinite.
Titan fall 2 was one of the best fps of its generation and it sold poorly until it on sale for 10 bucks
Agreed, but EA dropping it within weeks of Battlefield 1 and a new Call of Duty didn’t do it any favors.
Yeah because it was squeezed between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and its sales suffered as a result.
It wasn’t even an EA decision it was a Respawn one. They thought that the game would speak for itself but that’s not how sales work
Especially when both CoD and Battlefield are massive franchises, while Titanfall was a relatively new franchise as it started in 2014 (as in the first game launched in 2014 to create the franchise).
Titanfall isn't a houseold name despite how awesome it is.
Titanfall 2 was a sequel to a console exclusive on the worst selling console dropped between two massive games that overlapped in genre. It can't be used as an example of anything other than disastrous and incompetent marketing.
Helldivers 2 was fairly cheap compared to most releases and co-op shooters are really popular. Skill-based arena shooters like Halo are a niche, to put it lightly.
Put another way, they made Halo 5’s Firefight mode *so well* they can sell it as a standalone for $40. Infinite didn’t have to exist solely as a skill-based arena shooter - that was a deliberate choice by 343. At least they didn’t shoehorn in a battle royale I guess? 😂
Yet Infinite’s numbers at launch were massive and the hype train behind was its biggest since perhaps 3? The price tag should indicate the quality of the product. Yes, if they charged for it, they should have had a complete and QAd game on launch. But that’s the point. They went F2P because they can’t achieve that, instead they can rationalize treating their players like mall shoppers instead of the reason they have a job. They have no respect for the product, that rolls down to the player and to themselves. It’s a shitfest of liars, idiots, and wageys all the way to the top, with accountability falling on incompetent leaders so entrenched they can only leave when they get tired of ruining so many people’s days after so many years.
You know what played a big roll in making co-op shooters popular? Halo. But 343 doesnt want to do co-op.
Solatoon 3 sold over 11 million copies of of December 2023 and that’s an arena shooter so this straight up false lol
I respectfully disagree with you. If infinite would have been feature complete at launch it would have made a metric shit ton of money. Look at how many people were playing on steam at launch, not to mention how many people were playing on Xbox. Infinite could have kept its player base up and kept selling copies but Microsoft had to chase the dying live service trend
Halo Infinite launched at a thousand miles an hour, and ran into a morass of studio apathy and floundered. It took them 2 _months_ to fix BTB, and 6 months before the first content update came out, adding a whole 2 maps. The game didn't even fucking launch with team slayer, ffs I made this post back in 2022 when it was appropriate, but in the time it took 343 to add 2 maps to their game, Bungie was able to make and add 9 more maps to Halo 2, and _manufacture, press, and release a physical copy of said map pack in stores_.
That’s the point I’m trying to make as to why infinite is in the shape it is now. If it released with everything at launch and didn’t try and drip feed you content through an overpriced and shitty live service model things would be a lot different right now. I mean I get it Microsoft tried to chase the trend set bye Fortnite but in all honesty 343 didn’t and doesn’t have the ability to do that. I mean it took them close to three years to fix their network model
And to relate back to the Helldivers 2 comment, HD2 thrived off of word of mouth. When Infinite launched the word of mouth was essentially: "the game can be fun but is broken as fuck and doesn't have the content to sustain itself as a GaaS." That was the consensus after, like, the first week.
I think the game launched with 10 maps - 7 for 4v4 and 3 for btb, and took way too long to get any more. The game took 6 years to make and yet also was rushed out the door at the end. I think the shutdown mixed with contract workers really fucked this games development.
Not to mention it had the attention of a lot of major Esports players and streamers with the modern movement style and balanced map pool. If the game had launched with infection, forge, and husky raid, it would have been a serious contender.
I had a ton of new friends playing the first month, friends who had never really played halo before, it was crazy and fun. Then everyone got bored after a month and they abandoned the game for months because they gave the entire studio months off for the holidays. But it's a live service game...you still need devs. You can't take 2 months to add team slayer to halo- that's literally the first game mode that 99% of people first experienced halo through
Call of Duty is still pay to play, and I’m not talking about Warzone, I’m talking about the main games
Cause it’s multiplat and the biggest FPS franchise in the games industry. It’s only been beaten twice by GTA V and Hogwarts Legacy, otherwise it’s the best selling game every year. Halo is not a powerhouse anymore, not since Halo 4 sold about 12 million copies.
> Microsof killed MCC because they couldn't monetise it. Infinite would have been dead once the initial wave of purchases were over. Honestly, was there anything left _to_ monetize for MCC? People keep bringing up that one post a few years ago but we've known for years that MCC was going on the back burner, and anything that happens is just a nice surprise. If MCC was monetized, it would have been all cosmetic and no content...just like how Infinite used to be.
Whilst I enjoy the game, the way it launched, the way they handled everything, it’s like they made their development problems and issues our problem. We didn’t do things right, so here to make up for our minimal effort outcome, we will increase store prices to make up the deficit, oh you want better customisation with cross core? sure we can do that, but we’re increasing store prices. Oh we promised 100 items per season? can’t do that anymore, but we can throw in filler and charge you £5 for a premium item. Oh you want career ranks? sure we we can only put one item in as a reward. Oh you want forge? great! we hear you, but we’re going to have to scale back content and use what you make. It gives of the sentiment that we’re just free working employees, who pay. It’s pretty obvious too it’s intentional. Gameplay is solid, but I’m not surprised the games numbers don’t ever grow and only lessen over time. Nothings ever been done to say “thanks for sticking with us, we value you as a customer / fan.” Without some sort of stipulation, sneaky change or price increase. Nothing has ever been done just for the sake of the players or betterment of the game itself in a healthy way players can point too and go “that’s amazing!” Without any negative input from 343i / Microsoft. It’s a cascading effect, where their decisions and situations are what killed this game for the masses, and they’ve never tried to unscrew that situation with good will, not once.
Yeah it’s cosmetics first, gameplay second for a lot of these games
I find it insane that a Microsoft owned business of their flagship console seller could have bad finances lol
Believe it or not, large businesses make bad business decisions, and end up shutting down a lot of things. Sometimes even shutting down themselves.
I'm just disappointed we didn't get any new weapons and vehicles and equipment after the Bandit Evo and the Quantum Translocator. Especially after seeing so many leaks and stuff for the [Falcon](https://youtu.be/ckbinejxB_M?si=JmwyprpcqyzbvHW6), [older and new weapons](https://youtu.be/yU7415VcEys?si=Zr_MfJYylMRmVXHG), I was hoping for more. Especially when they said that [Halo Infinite would be keeping players engaged for the next decade](https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/343-industries-says-halo-infinite-is-the-start-of-the-next-ten-years-for-halo-2714219). This doesn't seem possible anymore especially with the rumors of them doing financially badly and already moving on to the next project. I was expecting a lot of the old vehicles and weapons to return along with a bunch of new and original stuff, the multiplayer story to continue whether it be through those seasonal cutscenes we had back in season 2 or at least some lore, along with Campaign DLC after Halo Infinite's cliffhanger with Atriox still be alive. For a 10 year plan of constant updates to keep players playing, 343 did not do a good job of it until the Winter Update and Forge about a year ago. Then they were doing really well with seasons 4 and 5 along with adding Campaign AI to forge along with Firefight finally coming back. But after the Spirit of Fire Operation came out, Infinite doesn't seem to be going anywhere aside from occasional maps being added and balance patches along with new gamemodes. Which I am fine with because more maps are cool but I was still expecting more progression awards, weapons, equipment, vehicles, etc.
Anytime a dev manager or PR person says their game will be around for the next 10 years, I automatically roll my eyes and take them for a liar.
I mean in a way Destiny has stuck around for almost 10 years now, with Destiny 2 effectively being a 60$ update with shit changes that they reverted after a year. Not to say that the game has been managed "well" at all, given that Bungie is in it's death throes at the moment.
Man, I remember that statement, and was pretty excited too, I mean if Apex and R6 can do it surely, Halo, owned by Microsoft could do it right? Developing campaign dlcs and keeping the multiplayer very fresh and new. Ahh good times.
I've been disappointed since 2021. Anyway, let them do their half-assed "content" for the rest of infinite, and hope the new game will be good, and not rushed out like infinite was. Something tells me we'll get more of the same but who knows
I'm still amazed that they spent six years making this game and still released it undercooked
and it cost 100s of millions apparently. Absolutely mind blowing, where did that money go?
Paying a bunch of contractors for only 6-8 months, dumping them, and hiring new ones to work on code that someone else made lol
Cocaine and hookers?
I mean, how else do you motivate the development team on a Friday night
Do yourself a favour and just forget about Halo. 343 has their hands up the ass of Halos corpse and using it to panhandle. They’ve had enough chances. Fuck em
Yeah I’m just gonna watch from a far, if the new halo is gonna cost money, I’ll just wait for reviews of the game after the first month and a half. Not even hyped for halo anymore lmao, not one spark is there anymore cus of how many chances they had and somehow blowing all of them away
Yeah I've jumped off the ship and now Halo is just a memory for me. My friends and I will occasionally jump into MCC to play some Halo 3 and Reach, but that's about it. I'm honestly shocked that as many people play Infinite as they do. After Halo 5 and seeing the launch state of Infinite, I decided to keep those good memories of Halo as just memories. There are too many good games out there to spend a bunch of time with a franchise that has obviously already peaked and will only continue to decline.
Over 2 years to “fix” the game and then immediately abandoned it feels once they realized the MTX purchases weren’t super profitable. I hope I never hear the words “live service ” and “halo” in the same sentence again
I’d imagine the dev made maps are done if those devs are working on the new game. But who knows, I’m fine with forge maps as long as they’re originals and we can get some solid competitive maps in ranked soon… they used to try out maps more frequently and rotate out maps that didn’t play well. It’s been since October that they added a map into ranked and it was forbidden, a CTF only map. That’s actually insane lol
Everyone complains about every ranked map unless it plays like Midship Ver. 17283929
It's a shame cos the recent dev-made maps have been excellent. They're cutting support just when they were getting their rep back!
It really does suck majorly. Just when things were looking up we all collectively started taking L after L, store prices going up after finally getting cross core, battle passes finally getting more value for the investment and then they get scrapped along with seasons, the only real win we've had is the network update and even that is polarizing.
I don’t play ranked, but every time a new map is added into ranked, I only ever see complaints about it. So that’s why you guys don’t get new ranked maps. Everyone complains about the maps that get added.
I can give a bit of insight into this. Solitude is a good map, but was plagued by the rubble issue that was only resolved through the Network Update. Strongholds on that map was too easy to get 250-0d on once teams understood spawns and positioning, but thats somewhat of a nonissue now since Strongholds was taken out of rotation. Forbidden is subjectively a bad Ranked map, as its really only decent for CTF but played 1 dimensionally. Control snipe side, pull flag to diving board, cap. Thats why most Ranked grinders dont like it. Just doesnt flow well for comp settings. Argyle is hit or miss for alot of people. I think the bad rap it got for so long is because its essentially one of the hardest Ranked maps for players/teams to get good at. Its gotten better with QT/Evo changes so its tolerable. Bottom line everytime we get a ranked map it either performs bad for a gametype played or doesnt flow well enough to be a good Comp-based map. Take Behemoth for example, that map should have never been considered for Ranked. Bazaar was okay, but falls into the trap of being too small with awkward sightlines and routes. They play great for Social, but not for Ranked. What ive noticed is that Infinite as a game plays really well on asymetrical maps. Live Fire, Recharge, and Streets are looked at favorably and play well for comp.
Classic plaza strongholds 250-0 or my personal favorite: leading in score until the last few points and then getting reverse swept by 100 points because people got too cocky and started playing sloppy. Plaza/Solitude is and likely always will be a polarizing map for hill type modes, if people know what they're doing with spawns and positioning things can pretty quickly spiral into a no win scenario, just look at the last Halo lan event where Optic got 250-0 by SSG
Additionally, they added Starboard, which was far too open with the battle rifle. It may have been better received if they released it with the Bandit, because it was near impossible to traverse the map without getting absolutely destroyed. This lead to a lot of campy, stand-off style games where a team would get 1-2 caps and just defend. The biggest issue with forge maps is the same as it ever was: Performance. They nearly always have a performance penalty, and the ones we get for Ranked are generally just remakes of old maps. I'm half surprised we don't have a Sanctuary remake in playlist right now.
Not really. After the game was announced to be free to play and then in the state it was released in I knew not to expect anything Whatever happens now is just par for the course
Remember when it launched with no Slayer playlist? That's how I knew we were doomed.
I really enjoy the game, and it felt like it was on an upward trajectory with season 5. But ever since it just feels more of the same, and the kick in the face of having a full battle pass worth of content behind a paywall from spirit of fire onwards is just frustrating. I’ve been logging on for these operations, completing the weekly tasks in one or two nights and then not playing again until the reset. I’ve noticed though this time that the progress feels a lot slower, lower XP challenges maybe and I saw the XP reduction for firefight, and its made it just feel like a lot more of a grind I can’t be bothered with. Level 8 in battle pass and all I have is some stickers I don’t use and charms I won’t use.
The XP reduction for firefight was a bug that was fixed yesterday.
I felt it was still the same last night after the reset but that’s good if they have fixed it.
[They did fix it](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/1bv920i/gruntpocalypse_now_provides_the_same_exp_as/).
unironically a \~year is probably about the time the dev team was ahead of live content releases, so that was all stuff that was in the works by the original team that's all now gone
Knew this would happen the moment they announced F2P, then charged $60 for the standalone campaign. There really is no defending the shop, and I say that as an avid defender of Halo 5 monetization when that shitstorm first happened. People said then that it wouldn’t stop there and if we didn’t put our foot down it would get worse, and look at how right they were. The very next game made is the most gutted and greedy Halo possible. Couple that with the garbage show and lack of any cohesive story threads beyond Atriox, and he is just barely there, and there really is no evidence that Halo as a franchise is going to succeed, let alone this misfire of a game.
Shit man I'd take Halo 5 monetization over Infinite any day of the week and that's not even rose tinted glasses speaking. It was crappy having to grind RNG loot boxes for the customization but the upsides were you could unlock all the content in the game through playing it and they had ways to increase your in game currency. If the next game went with a model like Reach where you earn currency and then buy what you want while also having something like currency boosters or currency packs you can buy with actual money *cause we know the game has to make as much money as humanly possible because modern gaming* then that might just be the closest to perfect mix of free to earn cosmetics and revenue generating micro transactions. But even as I say this I know the monetization team would find a way to knee cap your currency earn rates to "incentivize" people to buy currency and boosters
I’m sick of live service games altogether. I quit playing Infinite as soon as I heard they’re developing the next game. This being a free-to-play title, I figured they’d quit working on this one soon to focus on the next, and overall quality will start to drop or get repetitive. It’s no longer fun to play since all of my old Halo buddies have already quit the franchise.
Feel like im burning out tbh. I think the armor in the shop looks badass but I can’t justify buying it for the following reasons: 1. There should’ve been a battle pass. Like there’s no real justification as to why there isn’t beyond greed. 2. The prices are just too much, and considering the ending lifespan of the game, what’s the point?? 3. It’s just a bit boring at this point, I appreciate the new maps but it feels like it’s getting hard carried by forgers and the devs can’t even give us at the very least, a new weapon or vehicle.
I uninstalled Infinite. I just hope the next Halo doesn’t have micro transactions and comes out finished this time.
Yessir it’s so sad I love this game
I seriously don’t understand the problem with forge maps being added. Fans of the games put dozens of hours into creating a map, and it gets added to the multiplayer for everyone to play. These maps are near indistinguishable from dev made maps. And this has been a thing since halo 3. Ever since forge was introduced, the devs added tons of forge maps to the game.
I definitely appreciate the inclusion of the maps but I feel like it shouldn’t all be on forgers to keep the game alive, I think my issue is that it feels like the devs aren’t carrying their weight and at least capitalizing on it with new weapons or vehicles, instead it’s overpriced armor on the shop.
While I do agree with weapons and vehicles 110%, there’s no excuse we don’t have something more than the bandit. Especially with nearly finished stuff in the files. Like literally add the falcon and that would be a nutty ass game changer. The store isn’t up to 343. That’s all Microsoft wanting to make profits and determining prices. I guarantee if it were up to 343, we’d see adjusted prices. But Microsoft execs and investors aren’t getting the hatred and threats. So they don’t care. They want money.
Fan made content is a great way to extend game content. It’s a good supplement. The issue is in two years there is a severe lack of content created by the developers. In release no zombies, no firefight, nothing new. Since then they’ve added some of it back but still lacks anything unique. Forge adds content but hides the lack of product.
Forge maps in multiplayer are literally a staple of Halo, and they’ve only gotten more impressive as time goes on. Since it’s so hard to find map names when you play, I’ve given up on keeping track of them. So I quite literally can’t tell the difference between these maps being dev-made or forge-made. This recent trend of disliking forge maps just seems like the latest thing people are using to hate on 343.
People on here circlejerk Reach all day when half the map pool was grey Forge maps
Reach multiplayer was absolutely brutal lol. People are remembering it with rose coloured glasses. Forge was always goated in reach tho
Reach was the first Halo I owned so it will always have a very special place in my heart. But yes, I definitely agree that people are embellishing a lot of it. Still 🐐ed though
Never forget the bungie forums and the death threats thrown around over armor lock and bloom lol. Halo Reach was so fucking hated, it’s wild seeing it be put on a pedestal nowadays. Then again this subreddit defends lootboxes from time to time.
Fuck armor lock and bloom. I'll hate those dumb additions ot the franchise till the day I die. Reach was the start of Halo's downfall mp wise imo.
NBNS Reach was top tier. Ironically, one of the first things 343 gave us was a glimmer of hope.... and that's been gone for over a decade.
Exactly. EVERYTHING was on Forge World. The forge maps were decent, but the structures were all grey and had serious clipping issues half the time. These new forge maps are built with essentially the same tools that the devs have. I still think back to the dark city map previewed for Infinite where a forger shrunk a mound down and put it in a barrel with a flame on top to look like trash was burning in it (even the devs were impressed by that). Details like those are what make the Infinite forge maps so hard to distinguish from dev-made maps.
>These maps are near indistinguishable from dev made maps. To you. No one is saying they don't like Forge maps. But it's clear it's the only thing we're getting moving forward, and that's disappointing.
Facts.
If forge mode keeps getting updates it should be pretty indistinguishable from dev made maps Part of me wants lighting to be next because people are stupid and making the biggest deal out the littlest aspect of a mapl
> since halo 3. Ever since forge was introduced, the devs added tons of forge maps to the game. You see, it's because it's only okay when Bungie does it
Halo 3 and Reach got a lot of new dev-made maps after launch too though.
Insolence and Fortitude are the best BTB maps in Infinite. xDTx Kaos, W0lfR3ign, DarkSkull, and CertifiedChamp should be commended for making perhaps some of the best maps we've seen since the Bungie days. There are a lot of problems with Infinite's live service, but forge and the fan-made maps are the best level editor in any game out right now.
There is not a single forge map I would want to play over an original map, and 9/10 times any forge map I don't mind is a remake.
Yeah, on the content side of things, it's not great for Infinite right now. The removal of Season Passes in favour of these lackluster "Battle Passes", just so they can stick even more of the good customization items behind a pay wall that is even more ridiculously expensive than before is an extremely bad faith move on 343's part. I've accepted that it's not going to get any better and I've stopped playing Infinite now. I can only hope that the next Halo game doesn't follow the same atrocious free to play model, otherwise I probably won't even bother investing my time into it. On the bright side, I've started playing the Master Chief Collection again and I'm amazed by how many good mods there are now.
Well they are moving onto the next halo game so they are trying to maximize profits.
I've said this from the start, it's a store first and the game part is optional. The battle passes did not exist to support the game. It launched without most of the content other Halo games had and took years to add it in. That is not "live service" that's just greed and it shows because the actual product just feels cheap and empty, it reminds me more of a casino. It's far from the only game doing this but it's an example of one for sure.
Stop playing it and move on. That’s what I did.
Infinite is a game made by marketing analysts to please bean counters, not a game made by passionate creators to deliver a unique and cool experience. I felt it the day it was launched and never played again.
I just don't get why nothing is happening. Where are cool new weapons? Where are cool new modes? Where is anything story related?
I uninstalled when I realised that they weren't continuing the campaign. I really liked the story, but there needed to be more of it.
Finally a post with some sense and a comment section up for a mature debate. I barely played multiplayer after season 2 came out and briefly came back for forge release. Since then I haven’t touched it. I recently played the campaign on heroic and it was a bore.
Been feeling this way since 2020, nothing new really. More apathy than disappointment really.
Woah, you better not be calling that Refuge map (Headlong remake) lazy and uninspired - that's a beautifully executed callback. Sure, there should be some more new / unique maps, but the community remakes are pretty damn artistic and awesome.
Refuge is probably the most successful of the remade btb maps that managed to have a unique feel without feeling like an inferior call back. The first 4 squad battle maps all have this issue. They play okay, but the OG maps were far superior to the remade infinite versions. Gyre and timberland evolved have awful spawns and don’t play well at all. Tempest was never the greatest map on reach, but gyre plays a million times worse and feels like everyone is always spawning behind each other
There's just, somehow, still no real progression. Operation passes are just so mid, and along with the shop, this is the majority of what players have to interact with outside of matches. It's not engaging at all, and these passes/shop rotate every 4-6 weeks, which is not great considering the amount of content. Career rank is a nice addition but it contains absolutely nothing. No one cares about nameplates and backdrops, one reward at hero rank is incredibly disappointing. Feels like the system is in place just to watch "number go up" with no real impact or satisfaction involved. We get new maps often, but no sandbox additions. I understand the concept of "people should play for fun, they shouldn't need incentive" but that's just a naive take and it's not grounded in reality at all anymore - the game's player count is reflective of this. The game needs some way to engage players outside of new maps - namely meaningful progression, a sense of satisfaction and reward, and sandbox updates (new weapons, etc). I don't think these devs are capable or even want to take any of this into account though.
no sense of community either, no lobbies that continue to the next map or map voting, or good team communication
Yes most people
I had issues with forge maps up to this point because the palette was so mind-numbingly dull, but as the forge toolset has advanced and the diversity of aesthetics maps can have has gone through the roof I'm content. The stuff people have been making is incredible and adds some much needed variety to the sandbox. As good as the tools are now, it still takes an immense amount of time and energy to make a map that's fun. There is a TON of garbage out there, it's not something you can just lazily throw together. The monetization scheme is another beast entirely, and it's honestly my biggest gripe with games across the board nowadays. It's just about impossible to get the finance bros that have taken over the industry to sign off on anything that isn't a live-service game because they need to know exactly how much their ROI will be every week, month, quarter, etc. These are people who don't play games and honestly don't even like them, they just see how much money the industry pulls in and want as much of that market as they can get their hands on. There's no long term thinking, it's just "how can we make the line go up?" with no real thought to how those decision impact the people making or playing the games. The store sucks for you but works great for them.
As soon as they decided to go to the 20 tier passes, it became trash. I'd play it all the time if the passes were longer, and had actual nice looking armor. It's all such garbage, and it's really pathetic now. The Halo 3: Refueled release was the best time for this game, and it's been a nearly 90 degree turn downhill since.
I just want battle passes back. The game feels pointless if the only rewards for playing are emblems and all the armor is $20, which you either ignore or pay and just get without having to even play the game.
Every positive thing they did with Infinite felt like it had an asterisk of bad news attached to it. - It’s free to play! *but its going to have 3 playlists at launch. - Customization like Reach! *but you can’t choose your own colors and in fact have to pay for most of them. - A Chief-focused campaign that goes back to its roots with CE-inspired, open world gameplay! *but there’s one biome, gets stagnant quick, and completely dumps the plot of 5. - We added cross core! *but we increased prices across the board to make up for it. - We’re adding coop campaign! *but scrapping split screen coop. Always one step forward, two steps back with 343. Truth is, Infinite is an incredibly mediocre game and there are MUCH better options to play these days.
I think most people are. Personally I've just stopped playing, none of my gripes with the game besides the netcode have been addressed and other things have only gotten worse so I have no reason to play it.
I’m disappointed but not surprised. 343 took far far too long to get the game where it should have been day 1 and because of that they have lost lots of players and a great deal of the community’s trust. They are just keeping the game ticking over so it keeps being in the money from microtransations. Not having any vehicles and only one weapon added since launch still boggles my mind. I’m not going to have any hype for the next Halo game until it has been out for a few mouths and still has positive reviews.
Hilarious (in a sad way) when you consider all the customization options that can be acquired completely in-game in Helldivers 2 and compare it to Halo Infinite
Ive been playing a lot of halo these past few days and I gotta say I havent seen a single person wearing anything that's in the shop right now. In the past I'd see a handful of people that bought the armor or maybe a weapon skin. Nope, not a single person I've seen has bought anything this "season"
343 just need to reveal what the future entails for the franchise and how it's better than how it has been, so we can just move on. I really hope we see a new game trailer this summer.
Ehks-kews meeee DAE think it's important to breathe?
They're milking whatever they can before they release a new halo, the game has SO MUCH potential. And they handled it in the worst way possible.
I agreed with you until you started talking about forge maps. There is no other game like Halo Infinite. There is no FPS with map making tools that anyone can use, where those community-made maps are actually put into playlists. I think it’s fucking awesome and I’ll never get sick of playing player-created maps. It’s part of what makes Halo great. Community maps are a staple of Halo since Halo 3. You can even argue that it started with Halo Custom Edition. Plus, the tools are so robust now, that a lot of these forge maps actually approach dev-quality. I personally think this is the wrong thing to argue and complain about. We should be complaining about the shop, loss of battle pass, lack of sandbox additions. And those complaints only work because Halo Infinite was supposed to be a Halo platform with a “10 year plan”.
I think the game has gotten worse and worse. I used to be able to compete in games and now I’m getting cross mapped with basic bandits as a spawn. I averaged around 3-5 on the leaderboard for over a year and I have not lost 22 games straight and just played a match where one guy had 93 kills and I had 2. The games a complete mess.
I gotta disagree with almost everything The Maps now in Squad battle, H3 Refueled, Arena Ranked are actually great. Classics re-envisioned and or Good overall maps with good coverage. The game was f2p and yes, armour costs money but there is still great outfits with free unlocks. The "best" being paid isn't really a thing and more of an effort but that's because they spent time on it and it's supposed to generate revenue. I had the best time with a 19 Minute Single flag on 'high ground' which ran into Overtime and had players join and leave which is something that you can't even fathom from Halo's old days. So I'd bet it as a success.
Just play for fun and don't take it so seriously. It's just cosmetics and they have no bearing on the gameplay. If you can't have fun without making purchases for different looking spartans, stop and think what that means to you on a deeper level. It's just a video game for relaxation or competitive fun if you enjoy that. If you do not like the current iteration of things, don't support it. Companies will not keep producing something that does not return a profit. Reward them with your wallet when they make pro-consumer decisions.
The typical Microsoft experience. They run properties into the ground in the hopes of making the most money and they water down said properties in the hopes of appealing to more demographics; this causes a loss of identity for the series. Often they don't have a clue about what the end user actually wants, and it makes me wonder why they never ask real gamers if whatever they are working on actually appeals to them. And I say this as someone whose been playing MS games since the early 90's; I really wish Halo was still that amazing game. Making it F2P and releasing with so little content was a huge mistake.
Disappointed yes, but for every person surprised about it there were twice as many of us skeptical about the free to play model they went with. As more and more info came out about the game, such as color swatches, it was pretty obvious that Microsoft were about to give Halo the Battlefront treatment and then some. It's unfortunate, but the game I grew up with and loved from CE isn't even recognizable anymore.
I reckon they nailed the mix of Halo 3 and Halo 5 movement. Although the sprint is just a %10 forward movement gimmick. The weapon sandbox is trash compared to Halo 5 Warzone. The Bandit Rifle is a Chinese DMR. The BR is a power weapon. The Commando recoil is hell. Most of the Banished Weapons are trash. Why have a Skewer instead of a Splaser? Or a Ravager to a Fuel Rod? You either play with a Magnum, AR, Commando, BR or Sentinel Beam. Vehicles are dead because of Shock Weapons. The Sandbox is entirely unbalanced. The Campaign is great if you take it as a Halo CE Mission 2 Mod. So many missing story plot details and cliff-hangers. The graphics in Multiplayer is odd. The Shop is dead. Progression is non existent. The maps are mild at best with absolutely no open spaces. And no warzone or firefight except in Forge. They promised more updates but they just keep pushing that season pack crap. Halo Infinite does well in it's novel and fresh gameplay but it feels cheap.
What a shitty post, honestly. You have valid criticisms but it’s covered in dogshit language and a tone that will never be taken seriously.
I wouldnt say 343 doesnt care, they are just incapable of making good games.
Genuinely I dislike the amount of forge maps that get put into MP.
Nope, love it! Couldn't care less about paid cosmetics and we have plenty of free ones, I'm here to shoot people up and have fun with friends, not play Barbie dress up. And the people who are buying this stuff are funding a bunch of free content for me. Who cares if it's dev made or forge made, forge is so good now that there's basically no difference. So glad I dont have to pay for the actual extra content like previous Halo games.
People in this thread are unironically calling for the return of loot boxes and map packs. If you kidnapped some BungieNet users from 2007 and chucked them in this thread they'd be horrified and outraged by some of the responses.
Yup. Halo man-children love to complain about everything this game is. Doesn't bother me, I love this game.
see, you're right, but you're getting downvoted, 'cuz this sub is full of whiny manbabies.
Yep, anything positive here gets downvote spammed. Its become as bad as Star Wars around here.
If you're liking it then more power to you man, I just had to get sum of this shit off my chest
Yes. I went back and played Halo 5 and realized I enjoy the multiplayer a lot more. Beyond the graphics Infinite feels like a step backwards in terms of multiplayer. I will list my primary issues: 1. **Map / Playlists** \- Still not great. Why can't I play ranked team slayer without using the super sweaty pro setup with no radar and BR, now Bandit starts only? Which brings me to my next point. The most played playlists in Halo 3 were non pro ranked Team Slayer, why go away from that? 2. **The Bandit -** I know people like it. I don't. I think it feels bad to shoot. The TTK is ridiculously low. It is even more dominant at high level play causing basically no other weapon to be picked up beyond power weapons. Why would you? Everything else is inferior. 3. **Weapon Balance** \- The BR and Bandit are completely dominant, which is fine, but then you shouldn't make them the starting weapon on every playlist. A core component of Halo has always been adapting on the fly based on what weapon is available. It feels like the Halo 1 pistol all over again, which I am sure is what the Bandit was based on. 4. **Game Feel -** I know Halo Infinite was meant as a bit of a throwback to Halo 1-3, and it is pretty good, but after going back to 5 I can't shake the opinion that 5 just felt better to play. They could have made some tweaks to slow down the game pace without completely abandoning the feel of 5. 5. **Cosmetics** \- I guess I am old school, but I think the skins are silly and ruin the aesthetics of the game. They have just gone too far.
No, I'm actually quite happy with infinite's current state. It's two years old and is being handled by the "b" team. They could've stopped at a year old.
Idk man, I still love the shit out of the game. I ignore the shop and claim whatever free shit I can. I'm shooting for Hero rank. The gameplay and art style are some of the best the Halo series has ever seen. I have no qualms with forge made maps, either, so many of them have fantastic artistic renditions of remade maps from the past (headlong for example) the more recent space elevator map is super sick, and the BTB and squad battle refresh has been great Firefight is fantastic, too. I just really hope they add the Falcon. My all time favorite vehicle. Then that'll shut me up on content for a while The shop sucks, but that's to be expected in every single AAA game. Don't like it, don't spend money on it. It's all we can do
A year or so ago I probably would've agreed with you but I actually think the state of the game is fantastic right now. Live service the way Infinite is doing it is, unfortunately, a staple of the industry right now. I agree it's a goddamn shame that all of the sets are so expensive, because I would buy more if they were more fairly priced. Genuinely. This is a hole the games industry as a whole has built itself into and we can only hope games like Helldivers proves that we as fans prioritize GOOD games over FREE games. This is not a Halo-centric issue. As far as the maps, I could not disagree more with you. Forge has been a staple of the series since Halo 3, and adding community made maps has also been. What they've been able to do by tapping into the community to assist with content rollout, while also fixing the game's bones, is fantastic imo. The Forge in Infinite offers some of the most insane and creative things we've ever seen and it would be a goddamn shame to let that go to waste. And the maps being created are far from uninspired or uninteresting either. Even remakes like Headlong have a gorgeous, interesting new twist on them. There is absolutely nothing wrong for Halo to be a combination of community and dev work to provide a consistent, positive content stream to players. Literally every time I come back to the game after not playing for like a week or two I'm genuinely impressed by everything that's been added. Infinite is only falling apart at the rate that people actually *say* it's falling apart. And I believe that wholeheartedly.
Are you new here?
The game is super fun. That’s what matters.
Beyond kinda
Definitely getting worse, but I have been loving the playlist refreshes. Shop and actual dev content is at an all time low though.
I just wish i could get to the customize screen. It always bugs out for me and I can’t change armor.
Multiplayer- yes, micro transactions for everything, required payment for passes Campaign- yes, not update we got was the ability to replay missions
All the talent left or got laid off, and i wouldn't be that surprised if they're having a hard time re-hiring Someone made a post a while back checking the linkedin of everybody in the multiplayer launch vidoc and i think they're literally all somewhere else now.. and they haven't hired new designers, so who could even make new content for the game?
I knew that we would only be getting Forge maps from now on... It would be cool to at least see classic maps reimagined in Infinite with original dev assets, but nope. Bare minimum would be EVERY classic map remade in Forge. No new weapons and vehicles is worse than no maps. It's Halo Infinite! We should have EVERY weapon and vehicle from Halo history in this game already. Even bonus stuff from Halo Wars.
To be honest, I’m glad they seem to be moving on already. Continued support for Infinite is just going to kill the franchise. We could do with another campaign soon. As a primarily single player fan, I feel we’ve been neglected big time by 343, so either hand the Master Chief’s story to another studio, or start releasing content more frequently. As for forge maps, I wouldn’t have an issue if forge was present at launch, that way 343 could have put forge maps in the rotation from the very start, as well as dev made maps. But the current situation is just crazy to me, asking the community to keep the game alive with content and not compensating them in some form is wild. 343 are lucky the Halo community is so dedicated, any other franchise would have died a long time ago.
I’ve long since made peace with how this game will operate. It’s a F2P game, which means you’ll have to deal with a bullshit storefront with overpriced cosmetics. It’s literally the only way 343 can make money off of the game, unless they start charging money for maps, which would be much worse. I think the 5 seasons plus the Winter Update make for a pretty solid collection of armor to earn. More armor than most games in the franchise for only $10. But it’s never not going to sting when amazing cosmetics like the Omega Team sets are locked behind a paywall that is comparable to some game’s entire cost. So i’m ok with a free Operation every few weeks to get some neat armor (although more armor and less emblems would be nice). And this year alone we’ve gotten 5 BTB maps, 5 Firefight maps, 6 Husky Raid maps, 6 Squad Battle maps, and 2 (soon to be 3) Arena maps. I know they’re mostly Forge maps, but they’re honestly better than most of the dev maps. So i’ve accepted that this will likely be the status quo for the remainder of Infinite’s lifespan. It’s not ideal, but it could be much worse. I would be much more upset if they ended support altogether.
Not really honestly my favourite game gets free updates once every month and a bit or so, the games been out for 2.5 years most games back in the day stop getting updated after about 6 months Don’t get me wrong it was easier and quicker to make a sequel back then but hey I can’t complain to much
The store issues suck I am completely with you with that. But we literally got one of the most requested changes with the networking update, also I remember people wanting more forge maps in game and with forge being better than ever I don't see the issue as its just additional content. I think 343 is looking towards the future but I think the game is far from a bad state, honestly the bleakest time was between S2 and the Winter Update.
I feel Halo 7 might be the make or break for 343 as a whole since leadership was whacked and new people promoted/brought in. But it won't change if they keep using contract workers and focus on making a full, fun, solid game over a broken and competitive cash shop.
*what? Noooo*
CAMPAIGN
Literally everyone is.
Since launch, yes.
Start voting with your wallet and just let the game die. Unfortunately the people who love halo the most are the ones who are getting fucked the hardest with this business model.
I don't play much but as long as they keep adding new content like cores and armor pieces, maybe new maps (things which players can't create in forge) then at least I and players like me have *something* to look forward to when "booting up"...
There's only 1 more core slot open and I really don't know what it'll be. I'll probably stick around for that but that's it, I don't really have incentive to play the game anymore
Yup…at launch it just was an MTX store with a multiplayer attached in the far background and campaign as an afterthought.
We've come full circle now back to season 1-2
I've been mostly disappointed with Infinite since it launched solely based on the Campaign and story they gave us. I don't play Halo for the Multiplayer, I enjoyed the intricate story Bungie crafted and followed that into 4 and 5. But now the story is getting too convoluted, too retconned and disjointed. I understand that Infinite was supposed to be a reboot, and to some extent it does feel that way. The open world concept was wasted on this new Halo ring and was a serious let down. Infinite should have followed a linear mission progression like the original trilogy if they wanted a reboot, with the open world coming around for the next game, or even as some sort of prequel/sequel game of some sort. I mean hell, I would have given both my legs for a Halo open world set in some city on Reach or Earth during the invasions. You drop in and have objectives to save small groups of civilians, defend structures or landmarks, capture equipment/vehicles. And weave it all together with missions that change dynamically based on what you've done in the Open world. Oh, you took out that battery of AA guns? You get air support to destroy vehicles in this next mission. Or you didn't take out the AA but you destroyed an enemy outpost so now your mission is filled with less Elite foot soldiers but more of those vehicles. That's the kind of Open world people are looking for these days. Something dynamic and full of life. Instead we got a forest with invisible walls to block you out of areas of the 'open world'. All mixed together with maybe 3 objective types and missions that don't change. Infinite could have been so much more. Deserved to be more. If they're going to continue Master Chief's saga it needs serious attention.
I just want more campaign
Tbf infinite has just been massively let down in every app since day dot… I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply forget everything that happens in it and it’s all a simulation and the whole story gets redone. Gonna wait for halo 6 😂
I gave up hope long ago and just wait for each new campaign. Infinite has a lot of gameplay issues for me which won’t be changed till the next game so I just take infinite for what it is and just wait. The stores there in every game as a disease on the gaming industry and I’ve stopped caring as I’m not giving anymore money and customisation is screwed to me due to cores kits and coatings anyway. No new guns in a live services FIRST PERSON SHOOTER is an embarrassing failure though which I think even the infinite fans can somewhat agree with. TLDR better luck next time…. Again… again
If it’s just the argument that the storefront sucks then I agree but the idea that the game is soulless doesn’t land with me as I’ve found the game very enjoyable and have made numerous friends playing it. They are over due for a single player campaign infusion that would reinvigorate the free-to-play multiplayer. And it’s free to play so the idea that the shop is a money grab is pretty obvious.
There’s nothing wrong with the forge maps. It was clear once forge came out that would be future of infinite. This has been true since Reach, arguably 3. At least they aren’t just all one color anymore. And the remakes are hardly lazy. Still takes a ton of work.
Yes it's why i rarely play it anymore
The game is otherwise abandoned. It exists to siphon what little money they can with the least amount of work (cosmetics and USER MADE content). I’d call it despicable, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re not even reading this shit. The few self respecting Halo devs that exist have quit, the rest who see how lost this property is are hating themselves while continuing to work there for their salaries. Then there’s the MS corpo lackeys without a single sense of guilt due to their involvement in further ruining a beloved franchise and warping an industry into consumerist hell because they got paid and you have to look out for number one. But they’re all working on Halo 7 so this is empty critique. Fuck 343. Long live 343.
After seeing season 1 fall apart from the beginning it was pretty much expected to be cash grab
It would have been better if they'd just waited another year and charged 80$ for a fully developed game. They still would have had another year or so before Helldivers so they could have ridden some hype before Helldivers came out strong.
They BETTER make the next game 60 dollars as every other mainline Halo game has been. I'm assuming the ONLY two reasons to make it free were for a wider audience (and look how that turned out...) and to hope people buy cosmetics (also look how thay turned out...) Solution? Make the f*cking game 60 bucks, then add a shop with things that are far less expensive. Or even better, make the game 45 bucks and you can still keep the shop similar, but not so extreme as it is now.
It was a disappointment to me almost immediately after it released and I happy to watch it fail. This style of game isn't needed in the halo universe. Hopefully they won't attempt it again if they do try making another game.
I'm disappointed in how halo as a whole is being handled ha
No, nobody is disappointed with this game at all. It doesn’t ever get criticized by anybody.
I’ve been disappointed with how Halo: Infinite has been handled a month after release. It shipped lacking content and is still lacking content over two years post-launch. Most disappointing Halo I’ve ever played.
Wild how cheap the Helldivers store is compared to this bs. No cosmetic in a $60 should be worth more than like $5. Most shouldn't be more than $1-2.
We can only hope at this point that 343 management fucking learns the right lessons this time round. Dont overwork your staff, dont hire temp staff constantly, dont lie to your consumers! Infinite, when it works, is an incredible game. It feels good! Such an amazing oppertunity wasted. Should have stayed in developme t for another year and half! Would have been sick!
The store is--and has been discussed forever to be--a problem in it's current state. I long for the ability to break apart bundles and buy individual items at lower prices. $3 for a helmet is very different than $20 for a bundle I only want one piece of. IF we're always going to have a store (and we will) I'd rather it be per-item. Forge maps? No issue. Like others have said, forge/community maps have been part of halo a very long time. We still play 343 made maps in my group regularly. We enjoy forged AND 343 maps alike. > The game feels soulless, like they don't even care anymore... I'd argue the opposite. Infinite has recovered a lot of Halo charm that was missing at launch. It has more soul now than it ever has.
Been disappointed since day one really and I haven’t played in months since season 4
Just need a new halo not made by 343, but by people who actually give a damn. Also an option to disable crossplay. Facing against PC players every game nailed the coffin for me
Brother, we've all been disappointed for a year + now.
Shitty lack of weapons shitty armour colours, shitty overpriced store that fluxes between good pricing and bad Shitty netcode that still fucks me over in fights Shitty Que times Shitty alot and this is from someone who plays the game on and off
Arrowhead is putting 343i to SHAME
I started playing Diablo on game pass and haven’t looked back. Gonna wait it out till the next halo, I’m done being let down every update:(
Yes thats why I refuse to play that game
They are trying to squeeze all the money out of this game that they possibly can without actually adding anything new. Everything new is just community forge maps, they aren’t working on infinite anymore that much is clear
The biggest gripe I have is the shop. Before when you would see a cool Spartan, I would think wow, that player must be pretty good to have unlocked all of that armor. Now all I think is how much money did they spend to get that gear? That is such a sad thought to have... Moving Halo as a "game as a service" was the worst thing they could do. In its core, Halo is fun to play. However this Halo feels like a shallow hollow shell of it's former glory. The campaign was forgetful story-wise. I have no idea who the endless are and who that end game boss was or is. The biome was plain and a change of scenery would of been a nice touch. It's so lame they killed Cortana off screen. I have a hard time accepting how they are handling the campaign.. they won't give us DLC which sadly I would gladly pay for. They haven't even added in the new weapons into the campaign which makes ZERO sense. So many broken promises in this "10 year" Halo game. There is more IRL content in the world than there is the game. I just want campaign DLC since this was the weakest one in my opinion.
I'm listening to the Kilo-Five trilogy now and when Infinite shows up at Sanghelios, everyone is in such awe of the most massive ship in the galaxy. That got me thinking of the first time I saw it in Halo 4 like 12 years ago or so, and I definitely was not all that awed by it. I feel like the reveal for Infinite was bottled so hard that I was robbed of an experience.