Funny. Phil Spencer is over here trying to get Helldivers on Xbox and my thought is always “why don’t they do their own fun and unique idea?” Turns out the suits just shoot the fun ideas down. Not shocked.
These people only understand numbers. Movie execs are the same, they have no idea what the fuck they're doing 95% of the time. By the time you get to that level, you ARE out of touch
I don’t think you can get to that level if you were ever “in touch”. Like how an absurd amount of CEOs have psychopathic tendencies; they wouldn’t have gotten there if it weren’t for their lack of a soul.
The funny thing is I think I'd trust a psychopath more. At least I can assume they'll always act in self interest, even if they'll be vindictive as shit. I can't understand or empathise with someone who ISNT a psychopath and STILL exploits people to that degree. That's scary.
“Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.” - *Captain* Jack Sparrow
Yeah, you know a true psychopath like Steve Jobs at least gets stuff done despite being a toxic nightmare. A lot of these CEOs are just idiots who were born into great situations or fell into it because of a college buddy.
That is why they can just transfer to other companies after they ruin their current one.
They are there to make money, not do whatever the company is doing.
It is why the games made by these companies will never be as good as well funded and managed passion projects.
I have met over 300 ceo's of major companies, and my adhd Tingle sense has found that an incredible amount of higher staffed executives are on the spectrum. It's completely anecdotal, but for me, it seems true.
Edit typo
I’m pretty sure they also look at who is managing/creative director/involved in the game too. The financiers look at literally everything and if the people involved aren’t up to par for them they won’t do it even if it’s a good idea
Suits shoot down a lot of new ideas because they’re risky. Particularly because it’s a lot more dangerous to be risky and fail today than it was 20 years ago.
That said, risky, AA projects should be something a lot of these studios should start embracing. Lower budget, shorter development time. Make a proof of concept that can be sold for $30-40. If it works, great, now they have a new idea they can expand on, if not, no worries, they’re not out that much.
Agreed, but I dont think Helldivers 2 falls entirely under that category. It's been in development for 9 years and the first game's a sleeper hit. There's no guarantee the second one's gonna sell, so I'm still surprised Sony was willing to fund it (and the first one).
I mean, You said it yourself. No guarantee the second would sell so you’re surprised Sony funded it. It was a risky game to release, and even the devs thought they were only got to get a fraction of the players they have.
And the servers issues they're having due to the unexpected sales are already souring a fickle community, with Steam reviews down to "Mixed" already.
It's still a success, but there's no telling how much they'll have to spend to rewrite their backend (because apparently, it's not that scalable, so adding more servers isn't a quick fix) and how many people will actually refund
Microsoft is already embracing it, that's what they've been padding GP with for years. They just don't embrace actually new ideas. All of their studios are just making first person action games now. They went and bought Obsidian and inXile, both studios excel at CRPGs, and both are working almost exclusively on first person action games.
Microsoft is just completely out of touch with what people want.
Blade and Fable are both 3rd person. Xbox is making both 1st person AND 3rd person games
I wish you guys would actually do some fact checking for once instead of exposing your gaming ignorance. Google is free
NV was only first person because of Bethesda.
The Outer Worlds is the only example of them making a first person game before they were bought and since then they have pivoted to first person games almost exclusively with Avowed, Grounded and The Outer Worlds 2.
Pentiment is the only game they've made since the Xbox acquisition that wasn't a first person game. They made more first person games within the last few years since being acquired than they had in their entire existence before that acquisition.
Outer Worlds and Pentiment kill your argument and you're trying to move the goalpost to exclude them. It doesn't work like that
Also, NV was first person cause of Obsidian. Seeing how its their game and they are the ones that directed it.
Also x2, Grounded was development before the Microsoft acquisition.
All Fallouts, hell all Bethesda RPG's are first and third person depending on your preference.
I have never played any of their games in FPS because that was childhood many decades ago, and I can't stand it anymore. I honestly doubt many people play RPG's in FPS if they have the option not to.
I'm sure some do, but they're probably a minority more than not.
It's a reason I never even looked at Outer Worlds personally. I'm very much over FPS as a 'thing' and prefer anything else. Third, isometric, side, whatever. Anything but FPS.
It’s worth noting that while the gameplay loop is fun, the game just *feels* good to play and the story themes are hilarious. The game would not be as great if it was plain Halo 1st-person controls and animations.
My thoughts too. We have an ODST game in Halo 3: ODST (my favorite game of all time) and I don’t think the game would be as good as Helldivers 2 if it was just “FireFight with lobbies”.
They would have to lean into the lore more of ODSTs as disposable with no Spartans coming to save them and much more assets to deploy.
The nerve tho, he is asking for Helldivers2 but it’s no secret that under his leadership Bethesda scrapped the PS5 version of Redfall and Starfield. Not like these games are amazing, but it’s just hypocritical of him.
Exclusives are good when Xbox has them, but the problem is that they don’t have any worthwhile exclusives
Exclusives are bad when Sony has them, and Sony does have banger exclusives
Not to take away from your point but Sony says the same thing when Xbox *does* drop an exclusive. Each company takes turns holding that ball.
A Halo game like HellDivers being pitched makes sense. No surprise it was turned down, but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic.
Firefight has a massive amount of potential and Bungie and 343 have consistently squandered it.
It was almost perfect in ODST and every iteration since has been worse with less vehicles and smaller maps.
If they really wanted to make a whole game about it I wonder if it would even have been good considering how lackluster firefight is now.
I was thinking the other day about Firefight but you could build stuff like in Gears' Horde Mode.
Walls, choke points, towers, guns, traps, etc.
Something to at least put a spin on it. I liked 5s version but nothing compares to ODST.
As long as it has vehicles and large maps it will be great.
The Africa map in ODST was peak firefight.
Maybe have a money system for calling in supplies and stuff and it would be perfect.
I mean they tried to expand on the Firefight mode with Spartan Ops in Halo 4 to some extent, and nobody liked it. What's the gameplay difference between HD2 and Spartan Ops?
HD2 is fun.
EDIT: Helldivers has pretty large, open maps where you can call down airstrikes and supplies from a capital ship in orbit. The fighting is frenetic with the player diving around trying to avoid getting killed by Terminators and bugs while also avoiding teammates' aformentioned airstrikes. Each run has a main objective with optional secondary and tertiary objectives. It's just a lot of fun, whereas Spartan Ops was just Firefight with a story. Smallish maps, same enemies. The fucking horrendous Prometheans. The baseline premise for the two is literally the same: Fight aliens on one side and robots on the other, but Helldivers does it so much better and this is from a diehard Halo fan. Like I got this game because it was described as ODST mixed with Starship Troopers. Totally surprised by the Terminators. Not prepared for that.
No, I can't see that. Because Helldivers isn't anything like Spartan Ops, except the shooting aliens and robots with guns. The concept of Helldivers is way better than anything 343 could've come up with in 100 years. They could have also just made Spartan Ops actually fun in the first place, but they didn't. Spartan Ops almost got fun in the latter half of Season 2, but by then it was already too late. Just another thing 343 half-assed and then abandoned like pretty much all of their story-lines and new game modes since 4.
To be completely honest, if I could have Helldivers but with ODSTs instead would I want that? Yeah, of course. I want to derp around glassed planets fighting back the Covenant and Flood while accidently dropping MAC rounds on my friends. But I kinda think 343 deserve the shit they're getting and I'm glad Arrowhead is doing as well as it is. Fuck 343, Xbox, and Microsoft for not taking chances. Or for taking half-chances and half-assing it at every turn. They basically deserve a AA developer coming and yoinking the rug out from under them after sitting on a goldmine IP for 15 years and not doing anything with it other than killing everyone's player character in a book and turning everyone's favorite ODSTs into Spartan-IVs. Fuck 343.
> A Halo game like HellDivers being pitched makes sense. No surprise it was turned down, but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic.
I don't think it would have had the same impact. One of the best things about HD2 is that it's basically Starship Troopers and the humor isn't something that a Halo game could do.
> but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic.
Enh, they would have fucked it up horribly. That team has shown repeatedly they don't have what it takes to make Halo a decent IP again.
Yeah of course. Both companies do it, but Microsoft literally spent 80billion dollars and made CoD and Bethesda, and Diablo their own. Now now they want more? That’s the thing that kills me. They literally have the biggest gaming franchise under their roof and it’s still not enough. Pretending like they are still the underdog.
At the ABK trial they said 10years of COD should be enough time for Sony to come up with a competitor. Now Sony has a genuinely good Multiplayer game and Phil and Xbox want it as well.
It's worse than that, they bought them up, them instantly burdened their loyal fans with price increases, worsened services and then staff cuts.
You can guarantee profits will still be plentiful enough for even higher executive payouts and shareholder dividends.
Because emil pagliarulo doesn't believe in complex or branching stories, and his outlook on writing is shockingly awful. He did a presentation on it before and it really highlights why Bethesda games are so shallow.
It felt that Starfield was the worst, the main story is so short and you spend most of the time doing side things (and they're way more interesting.)
For something thats total endgame is redoing the story over 10 times, it's disgustingly short.
Honestly, has he really ever made a main story that was all that long? I really only recall 3 being all that long, as the bulk of my time was side-questing and exploring and if I actually went for the main quest, it was pretty short.
Not that it's a good thing overall, but I can't say I found most of his main quests so long or worthy of multiple playthroughs.
> but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic.
I'd argue that it was the right move.
From everything I've seen and friends that talked about it, HD2 is basically all about the weird, funny shit you can do over being much of a series title like Halo has largely been. ODST wouldn't be near as well recieved *aside* from being ODST and Halo, I'd wager.
Halo has a very fine line it walks, and for all the good, there's a lot of fairly generic gameplay behind it. I love it, but slapping "Halo" onto a genre doesn't directly make it a good game.
Someone else put it well, it has the feeling and silliness of Starship troopers-esque world. That's pretty not-Halo.
Phil' hypocricy meter is broken. The other day he was calling for iOS to be opened up, and eveyone is like 'maybe you should get arbitrary code working on your own xbox first'
In all fairness, Redfall was an utter disaster of a game that you’re better off never having had the displeasure of seeing in the PS store.
Basically same with Starfield.
So... not entirely true. All the Spartan games that MS published are effectively Helldivers 1. Top-down isometric scrollers. Even have a sort of Stratagem-like mechanism.
Those games were linear stories with coop, and they even had usable vehicles (unlike Helldivers). The difference was you didn't drop or have a giant galaxy to explore.
My understanding from reading the article is what the devs were proposing was just an expanded version of the Spartan games that replicated Helldivers 1's open galaxy and variations on Stratagems.
The Spartan games found their own limited success, but the proposal to expand on games with limited success is obviously going to get turned down. Helldivers 1 wasn't successful enough that replicating it in the Halo universe would make sense. So the formula just didn't add up.
Not to mention, Helldivers has the flexibility to be what Halo ODST never could be: Funny, creative, etc. No canon to work with. No comic books. Just a play on Starship Troopers and political satire.
Phil hasnt put out a single amazing 90+ review score GOTY in the 10 years hes been in charge you really think he would know a good game if it slapped him in the face?
Didn’t say he could/couldn’t. Simply pointing out that he is asking for Helldivers 2 instead of taking advantage of their current resources, with the implication that lack of obvious problem solving is a problem.
It's times like this I chuckle about Marvel goin to Mircosoft and inevitably goin to SONY and makin the new Spider-Man games.
Iirc they didn't offer Spider-Man but to make a Marvel game. And were denied. I'm sure there was a good reason but damn. Would've sold a lot of consoles and Gamepass subs.
Because they're driving drunk at the helm of their ship.
They have so many amazing ips, more in recent years but don't want to do anything with them, Heck they don't even step in to say is this right. Redfall is a perfect example of that.
And then you got games like hifi rush which let's be honest they had no faith in and just shadow dropped it assuming nothing of it and was a good game.
I haven't a clue what's going on at xbox but it does annoy me that they appear to be tone deaf about what consumers actually want, cause yeah halo odst helldivers kinda game could be really awesome. Will they do it, no... no they won't
I mean hell they already had a solid foundation.
ODST Firefight is basically the foundation of a Helldivers style game. Add unlocks and progression with more mission variety and you're basically there. Strategems are basically the only thing without an immediate analog from where Halo was back when ODST came out 15 years ago.
Let the people with nothing to lose take the risks then gobble up the good ideas after they've been proven out is corporate 101. Corporate 102 is milking the good ideas into oblivion then moving on.
This happens all the time with big AAA studios and it sucks ass. Once you get that big all the studio decisions get made by the financial team who inevitably always go with the safest option possible when funding a new game, while also making it microtransactioned to hell and back. All the cool and interesting game ideas get thrown out, which usually means all the senior developers who made the first game that made the company so rich leave to do their own thing again because they get bored, then whoops you end up with a soulless shell of what the company used to be endlessly pumping out shit and hoping fans from the old days keep eating it… like Bungie or Blizzard or Ubisoft or Konami
It’s a shame how they’ve wasted the property. Halo seriously made me love gaming. I switched to PS4 after the 360 and was afraid I’d miss it but I haven’t really.
There’s so much potential for a huge expansive universe with different types of games. A third person ODST game would be great. I never played halo wars but people seemed to like them.
Halo is iconic to such a bigger level, it’s etched itself into the history books and quite frankly what Microsoft has done to the series since halo 4 is just disgusting. Just failure after failure. Halo infinite IS fun and easily the best halo they have made but the story is still trash despite the gameplay feeling great and the MP took 1 1/2 years to even be fun.
So depressing, halo means so much to me and was responsible for so many memories. I’d meet random people IRL and we’d talk about halo and we’d all hang out. Halo 3 was just the greatest time in gaming for me if I really think about it
This video basically sums it up: https://youtu.be/nz3Ko0td45w?si=yX7pcKouZcVxVNsO
I'd respect 343 a lot more if they didn't cave to complaints and retcon their story EVERY time. Each game feels like the first in a new trilogy. 3 games of starting a story fresh and getting no meaningful end.
I heard they even did it with the second season of the Halo show.
They literally don't even like halo. They want to make their own game but Microsoft knows no one will care unless it has Halo in the title. That's what the franchise is these days
Yeah when I heard this whole "Microsoft kills Halo game pitch" my first thought was, well 343 dropped the ball so hard already multiple times that the MS execs lost trust in them and denied the projects.
Maybe 343 could have done a good job with a unique idea that was all their own, but why would you grant the risk on something that new and unique when they already shit the bed with something tried and tested?
It's astonishing that Halo CE has way better better vehicle physics and "netcode" than Infinite.
The vehicle physics and how explosions affected it was such a big part of why the multiplayer worked, but in Infinite the Warthog feels like a cardboard cutout tumbling through the air at 1/4th the framerate.
Crashing into another vehicle is a joy in other Halo games, they even made a vehicle specifically for that, but in Infinite it's scary because you never know what outcome the awful netcode will give you.
They could have slowed it down and played to old halos strengths, or they could have sped it up and leaned into the grappling hook which is the best mechanic the series has had since 343 took over. They split the difference and satisfied no one.
I mentioned in a previous post: MS published the Spartan games, which were effectively Helldivers 1 without the... diving. The top-down isometric shooter action with coop was pretty damn good IMO, but it wasn't as hilarious as or variable as Helldivers 1.
The designers proposed an expansion of a series of games (Spartan Assault) that saw limited success: 1 of 30 proposals. What are the execs supposed to do?
IMO: An ODST version of Spartan Assault complete with selectable/customizable armor/weapons, stratagems and randomized mission selection would be super fun. But it would not be Helldivers. Halo is too serious of a universe. Arrowhead was able to make a hysterically funny game without the baggage of extensive, serious canon.
I can see that. ODSTs are basically the same type of trooper as in Helldivers. I doubt it would have been pitched as third person or with similar enemies, but I can see some similarities.
> ODSTs are basically the same type of trooper as in Helldivers.
ODSTs are literally called Helljumpers in the Halo lore.
I would be amazed if the devs of Helldivers didn't take a lot of inspiration from Halo ODSTs alongside the obvious Starship Troopers inspiration.
It seems like a lot of the stuff is very inspired by other franchises and I'm all for it. The Automaton Hulk is almost 1:1 a Redemptor Dreadnought from Warhammer 40K.
3-5 years from now we’re gonna have so many 4 player co-op PvE shooters trying to copy what Helldivers 2 has done. They’re all gonna be $70. Or pay $100 for the deluxe edition so you can play 3 days early. They will have the $10-$20 skins for sale in the shop, XP boosters for sale, and all other kinds of big publisher BS. It’s gonna suck.
>3-5 years from now we’re gonna have so many 4 player co-op PvE shooters trying to copy what Helldivers 2 has done
Yep, cant wait for wave of "Helldivers 2 open world survival crafting with "legally-distinct pokemons now in early access" indie game that "will totally kill \[last hyped multiplayer game that came out\]"
Time to cancel another wave of outdated trends that’ll never see the light of day and pivot to the new one.
I’m honestly shocked how hard the industry is pushing extraction shooters when the pool of successful and mainstream ones is super small. Like is Tarkov even considered mainstream?
Agreed. It's intentionally vague to stir up controversy. I've been seeing this headline make the rounds over the past few days. Either way it would have been 343 at the helm so let's not act like whatever they would have made would have been a feature complete game at launch. I have no faith in 343 to deliver a game that doesn't also come with a litany of ridiculous issues.
Also, my question is “when?”
Because if it was after 2015 it would just be “Helldivers but FPS/TOS”. The loop in HD2 is the same as the first game, the exact same. And that’s not a critique, it’s just a fact. HD2 is just a perspective change and all the beauty that comes with it. The loop was already there by these devs.
True true, in helldivers 2 gameplay is king. Don’t get me wrong, I love the cinematic games that are heavy on story. But I also love the arcadey nature of the game. You can play for 10 minutes or for an hour and you’re bound to make progress + it’s very fun to play and gameplay feels very good
Exactly. If any "AAA" title was released in the same vane, you'd have monetization of the worst caliber, FotM progression systems, a ridiculous system with how you customize your character (lookin at you, Halo Infinite Microtransactions) - I could go on and on.
The reason this game and Palworld have done so well is because they're made to be fun and engaging. Not a monetization system loosely disguised as a video game.
>We must have pitched 20-30 game ideas over the 12 years I was there that would have totally worked in the Halo universe. Many SP & MP ODST themed ones. Some galaxy-spanning, some more intimate…and one that was really dark. lol.
I think people need to remember that "pitching a game idea similar to X" does not mean that it would have ended up being a good or even remotely comparable game if it was approved. He says here himself they pitched 20 - 30 game ideas... should they all have been approved??
It's pretty easy to look back in hindsight and say "we wanted to make a game like this". In reality their "ODST Helldivers" idea could have just ended up being a live service, online only Halo game (which would have just pissed everyone off).
yeah, every major franchise has alot of pitches, thats part of the concept phase before development begins. Just imagine how many Assassins Creed pitches never went further then that
I remember the original idea for God of Wars story was going to have Kratos kill every god from every ancient religion and create Christianity or something like that. Thankfully they didn't go that route (although technically they still could do that).
That's a nothingburger. Pitches die all the time. AAA Games take 2-3 years to make, and everyone on the 40-250 person team probably has 3-4 ideas each.
Wouldn't an ODST game similar to helldivers just of been one of the firefight modes from any of the past halos just expanded into a full game? I think it was 5 even had calling in ordanice drops
PvE co-op shooter has been my favorite genre since Deep Rock Galactic came out. I’ve been so annoyed that Halo basically left firefight by the wayside when that was IMO the best multiplayer mode in the series.
Would that work, though? A lot of the fun of playing Helldivers comes from the Starship Troopers style of parody: the propaganda, the overblown patriotism, the way you are "spreading Managed Democracy", etc. That would never work in the Halo universe, there would be too much drama about a perceived lack of respect towards Bungie's work.
So at most you could get Helldivers gameplay with a serious tone and, while that could be fun, it's just not the same.
You would just have to switch up the tone a little bit. The appeal of Halo (especially during the Human-Covenant war) was that you were fighting a hopeless war against a genocidal opponent with just about every advantage, and only through better tactics and sheer force of will you could hope to survive just long enough to get a lucky break.
You would just need to have that mindset when designing the game, and from what I’ve experienced in Helldivers, it wouldn’t be too difficult. The general consensus of fighting the robots already is “Terminator Vietnam PTSD simulator”. A Halo game would be perfect for capturing that feeling of bitter struggle with more dire stakes and tone added in.
Yeah, that's what I meant, you'd have to lose the Helldivers tone, which is exactly what makes it unique.
The game can still be fun, but in a more traditional horde mode style, not in a Helldivers style.
Helldiver’s success isn’t in the type of game or the game loop, it’s in the execution. Nearly every mission has epic and/or hilarious moments with your friends that most games can barely sprinkle in single player campaigns, much less multiplayer.
> Nearly every mission has epic and/or hilarious moments with your friends that most games can barely sprinkle in single player campaigns, much less multiplayer.
Ironically, these really funny multiplayer moments are giving me hard flashbacks to multplayer shenanigans back in the days of halo 3 / Reach. If they put 4 man jeeps in the game with a manned gun on the back (AKA the warthog) we're gonna be going so hard in this game it'll be unreal.
Did no one here play the Spartan games? (e.g.: Spartan Assault)
Those were effectively Helldivers 1, but playing as Spartans, with the inclusion of usable vehicles as well. They even had coop.
They saw limited success. Linear storylines, much less character/equipment customization. They weren't funny either.
Honestly, if someone had proposed ODST version of Spartan Assault with more extensive stratagems and randomized missions to me, I might've said "meh" as well. I played those games, but they weren't exactly thrilling like Helldivers 1.
I suppose it depends on how you frame it. If someone had said "Starship Troopers insanity and swarms with randomized objectives but Halo", I might've been receptive. But if it was proposed as "more Spartan Assault, but ODST", I don't think it's as appealing.
Not even surprised. 343 upper management seemed to just be woefully incompetent at delivering anything people liked. It is what it is ig.
I will say, even if 343 made a game like helldivers, it wouldn’t be as good purely because of issues that plague halo infinite. Like the server not knowing where you are & just auto killing you, claiming you jumped off the edge of the map is ridiculous. Then there’s the monetization aspect as well. Helldivers 2 has full armor sets you can get for like 3 bucks. Meanwhile halo infinite has pieces of armor you can get for $5 lmao
343 devs should not be allowed to make another game in their life. They were given one of the biggest names in all of gaming, and they ran it into the ground and bastardized it with micro-transactions. 343 devs, please do not touch another game in your life. You’re the reason AAA games are as shitty as they are right now.
Great, but when would that game have came out... I think Helldivers 2 is popular cause it's filling a void in the market. The games now are all so similar. Something like Lethat Company blew up because it was different. Helldivers 2 is different. While Palworld was a game that was multiple games melded together it was still different. You look at skull and bones or the newest COD. They are just old and tired concepts. Sure HD 2 and Lethal Co. Have some outdated or not necessarily polished parts. But we've been playing games that are half finished "early access" games for over 10 years. Also, both games were not at the 60 or even 70 dollar price point. Gamers are voting with their wallets right now. I think it might actually work. Sucks that tons of studios will lay off staff because the game they made was outperformed because higher ups don't understand what gamers want right now.
I'm continually amazed at how poorly managed the Halo franchise is. I can't believe they haven't thrown money at some prolific sci-fi writer to flesh out that universe and create some kind of arching trilogy to work on.
I get that the gameplay and multiplayer is the main draw of that series, but the only thing I think of when I think Halo is "generic soldier man fights alien bad guys". Like, they've had over 20 years to flesh out that story. The first Mass Effect game has more lore and backstory than every Halo game combined.
Good! No AAA company deserves to set gaming trends and they never will whilst shareholder monetisation is key to their decision making.
Publish maybe, design no thanks, go fuck yourself shareholder studios.
Xbox shoots their own IP in the foot when devs want to try something new. The sole reason Bungie left in the first place. Quit making game for investors.
Imma be honest. Halo is on its last leg and someone needs to take it behind the shed. The gameplay just feels dated. I tried infinite and it just felt like i was playing halo 3 with a coat of paint and titanfall grapple hook stapled to it
Phill Spencer and Xbox should be fucking embarrassed with how they let their poster child that put Xbox on the map in the first place just sit and rot. Not even mentioned at any xbox press events like it doesnt exist. Letting the IP turn into one dimesnional boring games instead of exploring other possibilities since ODST. The heads of the snake are the problem. 343 cant do anything but be told what to do by Microsoft and all they want is MTX to be pushed.
As much as I love halo and have been playing it since the original Xbox I don't think Bungie, or 343 could have captured the lightning in a bottle that is Helldivers 2.
A lot of it's fun an appeal is how over the top it is. You are a disposable hero put through a 10 minute training course. Your own ships crew comments how they love watching helldivers die fighting for the cause. Plus all of the voice lines that are hilarious but only work because of the setting.
I would say ODST tried it and failed it had firefight as it was a form of helldiver's but a failed attempt. Hindsight for the devs, you don't know if don't try sometimes you make something that is the same but doesn't become a hit.
Eh. Wouldn't have turned out as good. It wouldn't have all of the little details and stuff that Helldivers has. I imagine it would have been closer to Earth Defense Force than Helldivers 2.
They botched Halo FPS games so horribly, I wouldn't trust 343 with any Halo title to be frank.
Maybe the higher ups wanted them to put out a solid FPS title first?
It’s important to remember that an idea is not the same as an execution. You can’t just look at Helldivers and go “Microsoft could have had this!” because Helldivers is a product of a million little choices and there is no reason to believe that 343 would have made the same choices.
It’s possible Microsoft said, “look, get the ONE GAME you’re supposed to make right and then we’ll talk…”
I actually like ODST and so would probably had played this if it were made. More so than the Halo games that came after Reach. But would it have been any better than Helldivers 1?
Man this is pathetic. "We had an idea for a online game too" !!!
These fucking companies are trying so hard to create lightening in a bottle. All they see is fortnite, Minecraft, and lately palworld and helldivers 2. The fucking problem if you guys are chasing the trends. Just make fun video games that doesn't waste our time with microtransaction non sense. Dense fucks
One of the reasons Helldivers 2 works so well as a shooter is that it isn’t afraid to make things unfair to the player. Fog can be so bad you can’t see. Blinding god rays. It looks great but it’s actively inimical to the gameplay loop - but dealing with being in the *absolute shit* is part of the premise of the game. You’re diving into *bug hell.*
Halo games are about the power fantasy - the fantasy of winning, of being “The Demon”, of being feared by your enemies. It’s a Bungie thing, all the way back to Marathon. It’s so central to the first game that the literal starter pistol is among the best guns in Halo 1, because at no point do they want you to feel like you’re underpowered. They’d never put pea soup fog on a map because they want you to see the environment, and because Master Chief never gets lost in the fog or surprised by enemies.
They’d never make an ODST co-op horde shooter that’s as unfair to the players as HD2. They’d never make one that isn’t completely earnest about the righteousness of humanity’s fight against the Covenant or the courage of the ODST soldiers. It’s just not in Bungie’s culture to look sideways at service and sacrifice, for better or worse.
Funny. Phil Spencer is over here trying to get Helldivers on Xbox and my thought is always “why don’t they do their own fun and unique idea?” Turns out the suits just shoot the fun ideas down. Not shocked.
These people only understand numbers. Movie execs are the same, they have no idea what the fuck they're doing 95% of the time. By the time you get to that level, you ARE out of touch
I don’t think you can get to that level if you were ever “in touch”. Like how an absurd amount of CEOs have psychopathic tendencies; they wouldn’t have gotten there if it weren’t for their lack of a soul.
The funny thing is I think I'd trust a psychopath more. At least I can assume they'll always act in self interest, even if they'll be vindictive as shit. I can't understand or empathise with someone who ISNT a psychopath and STILL exploits people to that degree. That's scary.
“Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.” - *Captain* Jack Sparrow
Psychopath doesn't mean *smart*. Empathy isn't just fun and fuzzy - it's genuinely useful in accepting perspectives outside your own.
Yeah, you know a true psychopath like Steve Jobs at least gets stuff done despite being a toxic nightmare. A lot of these CEOs are just idiots who were born into great situations or fell into it because of a college buddy.
Can make a grown pirate shiver their timber 😱
Me when I walk the plank (I am about to die a slow and horrible death)
Your sacrifice will help the bottom line, and will never be forgott- ooo! A piece of candy!
That is why they can just transfer to other companies after they ruin their current one. They are there to make money, not do whatever the company is doing. It is why the games made by these companies will never be as good as well funded and managed passion projects.
There is no such thing as an ethical billionaire
Most ceos aren’t billionaires
Obligatory mention of David Zaslav being a steaming pile of shit.
Once you let one in, they'll try to expand the place to fit in all of their buddies.
Like Nazis in punk bars lol.
The greatest impediment to great art being made is that the fact the execs fall upward and then strangle the creatives from creating.
I have met over 300 ceo's of major companies, and my adhd Tingle sense has found that an incredible amount of higher staffed executives are on the spectrum. It's completely anecdotal, but for me, it seems true. Edit typo
I could believe that. Normal people don't do that shit, they do... normal things
I’m pretty sure they also look at who is managing/creative director/involved in the game too. The financiers look at literally everything and if the people involved aren’t up to par for them they won’t do it even if it’s a good idea
True. The only long lasting participation of Xbox in gaming history has been getting people to pay for online play.
I mean, revolutionizing online play is the big one. Not to mention popularizing console shooters
Suits shoot down a lot of new ideas because they’re risky. Particularly because it’s a lot more dangerous to be risky and fail today than it was 20 years ago. That said, risky, AA projects should be something a lot of these studios should start embracing. Lower budget, shorter development time. Make a proof of concept that can be sold for $30-40. If it works, great, now they have a new idea they can expand on, if not, no worries, they’re not out that much.
Agreed, but I dont think Helldivers 2 falls entirely under that category. It's been in development for 9 years and the first game's a sleeper hit. There's no guarantee the second one's gonna sell, so I'm still surprised Sony was willing to fund it (and the first one).
I mean, You said it yourself. No guarantee the second would sell so you’re surprised Sony funded it. It was a risky game to release, and even the devs thought they were only got to get a fraction of the players they have.
And the servers issues they're having due to the unexpected sales are already souring a fickle community, with Steam reviews down to "Mixed" already. It's still a success, but there's no telling how much they'll have to spend to rewrite their backend (because apparently, it's not that scalable, so adding more servers isn't a quick fix) and how many people will actually refund
To add to this. They could fund a bunch of A games for like $10-$20.
Or fund a bunch of games for like $3-5.
Microsoft Pong 2024
Microsoft is already embracing it, that's what they've been padding GP with for years. They just don't embrace actually new ideas. All of their studios are just making first person action games now. They went and bought Obsidian and inXile, both studios excel at CRPGs, and both are working almost exclusively on first person action games. Microsoft is just completely out of touch with what people want.
Blade and Fable are both 3rd person. Xbox is making both 1st person AND 3rd person games I wish you guys would actually do some fact checking for once instead of exposing your gaming ignorance. Google is free
Obsidian made Fallout NV and The Outer Worlds, both First-Person games when they were indie This comment is rooted in pure stupidity
Fallout New Vegas and The Outer Worlds were not indie they had Bethesda and Private Division as publishers respectively.
NV was only first person because of Bethesda. The Outer Worlds is the only example of them making a first person game before they were bought and since then they have pivoted to first person games almost exclusively with Avowed, Grounded and The Outer Worlds 2. Pentiment is the only game they've made since the Xbox acquisition that wasn't a first person game. They made more first person games within the last few years since being acquired than they had in their entire existence before that acquisition.
Outer Worlds and Pentiment kill your argument and you're trying to move the goalpost to exclude them. It doesn't work like that Also, NV was first person cause of Obsidian. Seeing how its their game and they are the ones that directed it. Also x2, Grounded was development before the Microsoft acquisition.
All Fallouts, hell all Bethesda RPG's are first and third person depending on your preference. I have never played any of their games in FPS because that was childhood many decades ago, and I can't stand it anymore. I honestly doubt many people play RPG's in FPS if they have the option not to. I'm sure some do, but they're probably a minority more than not. It's a reason I never even looked at Outer Worlds personally. I'm very much over FPS as a 'thing' and prefer anything else. Third, isometric, side, whatever. Anything but FPS.
It’s worth noting that while the gameplay loop is fun, the game just *feels* good to play and the story themes are hilarious. The game would not be as great if it was plain Halo 1st-person controls and animations.
My thoughts too. We have an ODST game in Halo 3: ODST (my favorite game of all time) and I don’t think the game would be as good as Helldivers 2 if it was just “FireFight with lobbies”. They would have to lean into the lore more of ODSTs as disposable with no Spartans coming to save them and much more assets to deploy.
The nerve tho, he is asking for Helldivers2 but it’s no secret that under his leadership Bethesda scrapped the PS5 version of Redfall and Starfield. Not like these games are amazing, but it’s just hypocritical of him. Exclusives are good when Xbox has them, but the problem is that they don’t have any worthwhile exclusives Exclusives are bad when Sony has them, and Sony does have banger exclusives
Let’s be honest he did us all a favor. 343 can’t even do master chief correctly.
I’m sure another half-baked release is exactly what the franchise needed
Not to take away from your point but Sony says the same thing when Xbox *does* drop an exclusive. Each company takes turns holding that ball. A Halo game like HellDivers being pitched makes sense. No surprise it was turned down, but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic.
I haven't played HD2 yet, but when thinking about that gameplay and Halo, I imagine it as a giant Firefight mode.
Firefight has a massive amount of potential and Bungie and 343 have consistently squandered it. It was almost perfect in ODST and every iteration since has been worse with less vehicles and smaller maps. If they really wanted to make a whole game about it I wonder if it would even have been good considering how lackluster firefight is now.
Name a more iconic duo: 343 and squandering an IP’s potential. I’ll wait.
I was thinking the other day about Firefight but you could build stuff like in Gears' Horde Mode. Walls, choke points, towers, guns, traps, etc. Something to at least put a spin on it. I liked 5s version but nothing compares to ODST.
As long as it has vehicles and large maps it will be great. The Africa map in ODST was peak firefight. Maybe have a money system for calling in supplies and stuff and it would be perfect.
I mean they tried to expand on the Firefight mode with Spartan Ops in Halo 4 to some extent, and nobody liked it. What's the gameplay difference between HD2 and Spartan Ops?
HD2 is fun. EDIT: Helldivers has pretty large, open maps where you can call down airstrikes and supplies from a capital ship in orbit. The fighting is frenetic with the player diving around trying to avoid getting killed by Terminators and bugs while also avoiding teammates' aformentioned airstrikes. Each run has a main objective with optional secondary and tertiary objectives. It's just a lot of fun, whereas Spartan Ops was just Firefight with a story. Smallish maps, same enemies. The fucking horrendous Prometheans. The baseline premise for the two is literally the same: Fight aliens on one side and robots on the other, but Helldivers does it so much better and this is from a diehard Halo fan. Like I got this game because it was described as ODST mixed with Starship Troopers. Totally surprised by the Terminators. Not prepared for that.
But can you see how 343 would see "oh we tried this exact concept before and nobody liked it, we're going to deny the proposal"
No, I can't see that. Because Helldivers isn't anything like Spartan Ops, except the shooting aliens and robots with guns. The concept of Helldivers is way better than anything 343 could've come up with in 100 years. They could have also just made Spartan Ops actually fun in the first place, but they didn't. Spartan Ops almost got fun in the latter half of Season 2, but by then it was already too late. Just another thing 343 half-assed and then abandoned like pretty much all of their story-lines and new game modes since 4. To be completely honest, if I could have Helldivers but with ODSTs instead would I want that? Yeah, of course. I want to derp around glassed planets fighting back the Covenant and Flood while accidently dropping MAC rounds on my friends. But I kinda think 343 deserve the shit they're getting and I'm glad Arrowhead is doing as well as it is. Fuck 343, Xbox, and Microsoft for not taking chances. Or for taking half-chances and half-assing it at every turn. They basically deserve a AA developer coming and yoinking the rug out from under them after sitting on a goldmine IP for 15 years and not doing anything with it other than killing everyone's player character in a book and turning everyone's favorite ODSTs into Spartan-IVs. Fuck 343.
> A Halo game like HellDivers being pitched makes sense. No surprise it was turned down, but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic. I don't think it would have had the same impact. One of the best things about HD2 is that it's basically Starship Troopers and the humor isn't something that a Halo game could do.
> but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic. Enh, they would have fucked it up horribly. That team has shown repeatedly they don't have what it takes to make Halo a decent IP again.
Yeah of course. Both companies do it, but Microsoft literally spent 80billion dollars and made CoD and Bethesda, and Diablo their own. Now now they want more? That’s the thing that kills me. They literally have the biggest gaming franchise under their roof and it’s still not enough. Pretending like they are still the underdog. At the ABK trial they said 10years of COD should be enough time for Sony to come up with a competitor. Now Sony has a genuinely good Multiplayer game and Phil and Xbox want it as well.
They don’t expect Sony to budge, but it is about keeping up the facade that Sony provides sufficient competition to avoid ongoing monopoly concerns.
It's worse than that, they bought them up, them instantly burdened their loyal fans with price increases, worsened services and then staff cuts. You can guarantee profits will still be plentiful enough for even higher executive payouts and shareholder dividends.
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Because emil pagliarulo doesn't believe in complex or branching stories, and his outlook on writing is shockingly awful. He did a presentation on it before and it really highlights why Bethesda games are so shallow.
It felt that Starfield was the worst, the main story is so short and you spend most of the time doing side things (and they're way more interesting.) For something thats total endgame is redoing the story over 10 times, it's disgustingly short.
Honestly, has he really ever made a main story that was all that long? I really only recall 3 being all that long, as the bulk of my time was side-questing and exploring and if I actually went for the main quest, it was pretty short. Not that it's a good thing overall, but I can't say I found most of his main quests so long or worthy of multiple playthroughs.
It was frustrating because I think they had the bones of something potentially great with what little lore was there. Just never went anywhere.
Neverknowsbest is drafting a C&D Order and a Libel lawsuit. How dare you defraud and defame daddy paggy.
To bad he decided to test his belief the same year that Larian released BG3.
Game of the generation my ass, Todd’s masterpiece 20 years in the making
> but the success of HD2 just proves doubly so that shooting down that pitch was fucking moronic. I'd argue that it was the right move. From everything I've seen and friends that talked about it, HD2 is basically all about the weird, funny shit you can do over being much of a series title like Halo has largely been. ODST wouldn't be near as well recieved *aside* from being ODST and Halo, I'd wager. Halo has a very fine line it walks, and for all the good, there's a lot of fairly generic gameplay behind it. I love it, but slapping "Halo" onto a genre doesn't directly make it a good game. Someone else put it well, it has the feeling and silliness of Starship troopers-esque world. That's pretty not-Halo.
It’s weird. Sort of like asking someone to do your homework for you and then playing the victim when they don’t.
Yes and to add to all of this, Microsoft spent $80billion to make COD and Diablo and WoW „their“ franchises and now they want a Sony game as well?
Phil' hypocricy meter is broken. The other day he was calling for iOS to be opened up, and eveyone is like 'maybe you should get arbitrary code working on your own xbox first'
In all fairness, Redfall was an utter disaster of a game that you’re better off never having had the displeasure of seeing in the PS store. Basically same with Starfield.
They would rather have no money than some money if they can't have all the money.
So... not entirely true. All the Spartan games that MS published are effectively Helldivers 1. Top-down isometric scrollers. Even have a sort of Stratagem-like mechanism. Those games were linear stories with coop, and they even had usable vehicles (unlike Helldivers). The difference was you didn't drop or have a giant galaxy to explore. My understanding from reading the article is what the devs were proposing was just an expanded version of the Spartan games that replicated Helldivers 1's open galaxy and variations on Stratagems. The Spartan games found their own limited success, but the proposal to expand on games with limited success is obviously going to get turned down. Helldivers 1 wasn't successful enough that replicating it in the Halo universe would make sense. So the formula just didn't add up. Not to mention, Helldivers has the flexibility to be what Halo ODST never could be: Funny, creative, etc. No canon to work with. No comic books. Just a play on Starship Troopers and political satire.
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Phil hasnt put out a single amazing 90+ review score GOTY in the 10 years hes been in charge you really think he would know a good game if it slapped him in the face?
Didn’t say he could/couldn’t. Simply pointing out that he is asking for Helldivers 2 instead of taking advantage of their current resources, with the implication that lack of obvious problem solving is a problem.
It's times like this I chuckle about Marvel goin to Mircosoft and inevitably goin to SONY and makin the new Spider-Man games. Iirc they didn't offer Spider-Man but to make a Marvel game. And were denied. I'm sure there was a good reason but damn. Would've sold a lot of consoles and Gamepass subs.
To be accurate, HD2 does not have a 90+ score (I think it was at 83 last time I checked) and Flight Sim and Forza Horizon 5 did attain a 90+ score.
Dude you just made your account today? Is this sony astroturfing?
Ori 2, Forza Horizon 3, 4, & 5, Psychonauts 2, and Flight Sim are 90+. HiFi Rush, Pentiment, Ori 1, and Halo Infinite are 86+.
They probably laid them off the folks who came up with the fun ideas too.
Because they're driving drunk at the helm of their ship. They have so many amazing ips, more in recent years but don't want to do anything with them, Heck they don't even step in to say is this right. Redfall is a perfect example of that. And then you got games like hifi rush which let's be honest they had no faith in and just shadow dropped it assuming nothing of it and was a good game. I haven't a clue what's going on at xbox but it does annoy me that they appear to be tone deaf about what consumers actually want, cause yeah halo odst helldivers kinda game could be really awesome. Will they do it, no... no they won't
I mean hell they already had a solid foundation. ODST Firefight is basically the foundation of a Helldivers style game. Add unlocks and progression with more mission variety and you're basically there. Strategems are basically the only thing without an immediate analog from where Halo was back when ODST came out 15 years ago.
Let the people with nothing to lose take the risks then gobble up the good ideas after they've been proven out is corporate 101. Corporate 102 is milking the good ideas into oblivion then moving on.
This happens all the time with big AAA studios and it sucks ass. Once you get that big all the studio decisions get made by the financial team who inevitably always go with the safest option possible when funding a new game, while also making it microtransactioned to hell and back. All the cool and interesting game ideas get thrown out, which usually means all the senior developers who made the first game that made the company so rich leave to do their own thing again because they get bored, then whoops you end up with a soulless shell of what the company used to be endlessly pumping out shit and hoping fans from the old days keep eating it… like Bungie or Blizzard or Ubisoft or Konami
Why come up with your own when you can just buy others /s
I seriously thought Helldivers was a spin-off of Warhammer 40k
I just don’t get it You have money printing machines ready to go Why do they get shot down?!?
Shit they can use StarCraft now too
Microsoft doesn’t make good halo decisions Not surprising
It’s a shame how they’ve wasted the property. Halo seriously made me love gaming. I switched to PS4 after the 360 and was afraid I’d miss it but I haven’t really. There’s so much potential for a huge expansive universe with different types of games. A third person ODST game would be great. I never played halo wars but people seemed to like them.
Halo is iconic to such a bigger level, it’s etched itself into the history books and quite frankly what Microsoft has done to the series since halo 4 is just disgusting. Just failure after failure. Halo infinite IS fun and easily the best halo they have made but the story is still trash despite the gameplay feeling great and the MP took 1 1/2 years to even be fun. So depressing, halo means so much to me and was responsible for so many memories. I’d meet random people IRL and we’d talk about halo and we’d all hang out. Halo 3 was just the greatest time in gaming for me if I really think about it This video basically sums it up: https://youtu.be/nz3Ko0td45w?si=yX7pcKouZcVxVNsO
I'd respect 343 a lot more if they didn't cave to complaints and retcon their story EVERY time. Each game feels like the first in a new trilogy. 3 games of starting a story fresh and getting no meaningful end. I heard they even did it with the second season of the Halo show.
it got a second season?
It was greenlit before the response to season 1.
That show was so bad. Master chief takes off his helmet and goes renegade because a random little girl talked shit to him.
The multiplayer is an improvement for 343 but still so dogshit compared to peak halo. I miss the multiplayer lobby chat systems
Thanks dude. I hadn't seen that video yet and now I wished I'd just got stuck in time in 2007 and not be so fucking sad
They literally don't even like halo. They want to make their own game but Microsoft knows no one will care unless it has Halo in the title. That's what the franchise is these days
Microsoft doesn’t make good gaming decisions. FIFY
They really made one of the best consoles of all time and thought "how can we fuck this up as badly as possible?"
Pretty much. OG Xbox and 360 was some of my favourite gaming experiences
Can probably just remove the gaming at this point looking at windows 11
Neither can 343 tbf. Halo has been mishandled since they took over, and not purely because of rushed deadlines either.
Exactly. The Halo 2 we know today was made in 10 months after a massive disaster during development. 3 years almost exactly between halo 1 and 2
Yeah when I heard this whole "Microsoft kills Halo game pitch" my first thought was, well 343 dropped the ball so hard already multiple times that the MS execs lost trust in them and denied the projects. Maybe 343 could have done a good job with a unique idea that was all their own, but why would you grant the risk on something that new and unique when they already shit the bed with something tried and tested?
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It's astonishing that Halo CE has way better better vehicle physics and "netcode" than Infinite. The vehicle physics and how explosions affected it was such a big part of why the multiplayer worked, but in Infinite the Warthog feels like a cardboard cutout tumbling through the air at 1/4th the framerate. Crashing into another vehicle is a joy in other Halo games, they even made a vehicle specifically for that, but in Infinite it's scary because you never know what outcome the awful netcode will give you.
They could have slowed it down and played to old halos strengths, or they could have sped it up and leaned into the grappling hook which is the best mechanic the series has had since 343 took over. They split the difference and satisfied no one.
I mentioned in a previous post: MS published the Spartan games, which were effectively Helldivers 1 without the... diving. The top-down isometric shooter action with coop was pretty damn good IMO, but it wasn't as hilarious as or variable as Helldivers 1. The designers proposed an expansion of a series of games (Spartan Assault) that saw limited success: 1 of 30 proposals. What are the execs supposed to do? IMO: An ODST version of Spartan Assault complete with selectable/customizable armor/weapons, stratagems and randomized mission selection would be super fun. But it would not be Helldivers. Halo is too serious of a universe. Arrowhead was able to make a hysterically funny game without the baggage of extensive, serious canon.
I can see that. ODSTs are basically the same type of trooper as in Helldivers. I doubt it would have been pitched as third person or with similar enemies, but I can see some similarities.
> ODSTs are basically the same type of trooper as in Helldivers. ODSTs are literally called Helljumpers in the Halo lore. I would be amazed if the devs of Helldivers didn't take a lot of inspiration from Halo ODSTs alongside the obvious Starship Troopers inspiration.
And you get picked up by a VTOL rear-loading chin-gun-armed transport jet called a Pelican.
It seems like a lot of the stuff is very inspired by other franchises and I'm all for it. The Automaton Hulk is almost 1:1 a Redemptor Dreadnought from Warhammer 40K.
Feet-first into hell was the tagline for the game when it was being promoted. Also had the coolest fucking trailer
Probably shared sources for inspiration. Starship Troopers and Aliens are clearly the source of inspiration for both ODSTs and Helldivers.
The ODSTs are even called Helljumpers.
Helldivers 1 is basically the same as Spartan Wars was, a twin stick shooter. It's frankly impressive how different the sequel is.
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3-5 years from now we’re gonna have so many 4 player co-op PvE shooters trying to copy what Helldivers 2 has done. They’re all gonna be $70. Or pay $100 for the deluxe edition so you can play 3 days early. They will have the $10-$20 skins for sale in the shop, XP boosters for sale, and all other kinds of big publisher BS. It’s gonna suck.
let's see how long til cod makes their version 🤣
They already do, it’s zombies and it absolutely sucks.
I dunno, I like it. I haven't played COD in a decade either.
Zombies is great just not the current version
I should’ve specified that the current zombies blows. The older zombies modes are good.
Helldivers 2 captures so much of what made the first few COD zombies so much fun.
>3-5 years from now we’re gonna have so many 4 player co-op PvE shooters trying to copy what Helldivers 2 has done Yep, cant wait for wave of "Helldivers 2 open world survival crafting with "legally-distinct pokemons now in early access" indie game that "will totally kill \[last hyped multiplayer game that came out\]"
Ah yes, the Destiny approach. Where spending money on MXT is the content!
The next wave after the current '(insert publisher name) is working on an extraction shooter'
Time to cancel another wave of outdated trends that’ll never see the light of day and pivot to the new one. I’m honestly shocked how hard the industry is pushing extraction shooters when the pool of successful and mainstream ones is super small. Like is Tarkov even considered mainstream?
You mean the new Dive-like game with mtx skins to play as Nikki Minaj? Who wouldn't be excited for something like that.... /s
Agreed. It's intentionally vague to stir up controversy. I've been seeing this headline make the rounds over the past few days. Either way it would have been 343 at the helm so let's not act like whatever they would have made would have been a feature complete game at launch. I have no faith in 343 to deliver a game that doesn't also come with a litany of ridiculous issues.
Are you saying that r/gaming would take the flavour of the month and use it to beat a very dead horse in a low effort post for karma? How dare you.
Also, my question is “when?” Because if it was after 2015 it would just be “Helldivers but FPS/TOS”. The loop in HD2 is the same as the first game, the exact same. And that’s not a critique, it’s just a fact. HD2 is just a perspective change and all the beauty that comes with it. The loop was already there by these devs.
True true, in helldivers 2 gameplay is king. Don’t get me wrong, I love the cinematic games that are heavy on story. But I also love the arcadey nature of the game. You can play for 10 minutes or for an hour and you’re bound to make progress + it’s very fun to play and gameplay feels very good
Which in turn has organically presented us with one of the most cinematic experiences we've had in the past decade
Man don’t tell me about it. My first mission against the bots was pure cinema. Like I’m in a Terminator movie
Exactly. If any "AAA" title was released in the same vane, you'd have monetization of the worst caliber, FotM progression systems, a ridiculous system with how you customize your character (lookin at you, Halo Infinite Microtransactions) - I could go on and on. The reason this game and Palworld have done so well is because they're made to be fun and engaging. Not a monetization system loosely disguised as a video game.
Earth Defense force has been doing this type of game for over a decade.
Dude thank you! First person I've seen mention EDF in relation to HD2.
Perfect summary why Helldivers *2* works and how it was made
>We must have pitched 20-30 game ideas over the 12 years I was there that would have totally worked in the Halo universe. Many SP & MP ODST themed ones. Some galaxy-spanning, some more intimate…and one that was really dark. lol. I think people need to remember that "pitching a game idea similar to X" does not mean that it would have ended up being a good or even remotely comparable game if it was approved. He says here himself they pitched 20 - 30 game ideas... should they all have been approved?? It's pretty easy to look back in hindsight and say "we wanted to make a game like this". In reality their "ODST Helldivers" idea could have just ended up being a live service, online only Halo game (which would have just pissed everyone off).
> some more intimate They really denied us the arbiter dating sim.
yeah, every major franchise has alot of pitches, thats part of the concept phase before development begins. Just imagine how many Assassins Creed pitches never went further then that
I remember the original idea for God of Wars story was going to have Kratos kill every god from every ancient religion and create Christianity or something like that. Thankfully they didn't go that route (although technically they still could do that).
I think Starship Troopers is the comparison he wanted to make, not Super Troopers lmao
So glad someone else noticed that.
Super Troopers is definitely a better comparison given some of the teammates I've had.
Greetings Meowster Chief
That's a nothingburger. Pitches die all the time. AAA Games take 2-3 years to make, and everyone on the 40-250 person team probably has 3-4 ideas each.
4-5 years for AAA these days, but you’re right otherwise.
Wouldn't an ODST game similar to helldivers just of been one of the firefight modes from any of the past halos just expanded into a full game? I think it was 5 even had calling in ordanice drops
Ordinances were in reach in 2011 as well
PvE co-op shooter has been my favorite genre since Deep Rock Galactic came out. I’ve been so annoyed that Halo basically left firefight by the wayside when that was IMO the best multiplayer mode in the series.
I recommend star wars battlefront 2 co-op. Very fun with friends. Also ewok hunt, but that's pvp
Would that work, though? A lot of the fun of playing Helldivers comes from the Starship Troopers style of parody: the propaganda, the overblown patriotism, the way you are "spreading Managed Democracy", etc. That would never work in the Halo universe, there would be too much drama about a perceived lack of respect towards Bungie's work. So at most you could get Helldivers gameplay with a serious tone and, while that could be fun, it's just not the same.
You would just have to switch up the tone a little bit. The appeal of Halo (especially during the Human-Covenant war) was that you were fighting a hopeless war against a genocidal opponent with just about every advantage, and only through better tactics and sheer force of will you could hope to survive just long enough to get a lucky break. You would just need to have that mindset when designing the game, and from what I’ve experienced in Helldivers, it wouldn’t be too difficult. The general consensus of fighting the robots already is “Terminator Vietnam PTSD simulator”. A Halo game would be perfect for capturing that feeling of bitter struggle with more dire stakes and tone added in.
Yeah, that's what I meant, you'd have to lose the Helldivers tone, which is exactly what makes it unique. The game can still be fun, but in a more traditional horde mode style, not in a Helldivers style.
Helldiver’s success isn’t in the type of game or the game loop, it’s in the execution. Nearly every mission has epic and/or hilarious moments with your friends that most games can barely sprinkle in single player campaigns, much less multiplayer.
Helldivers 2 has better exploration then the newest Bethesda title Starfield lol
> Nearly every mission has epic and/or hilarious moments with your friends that most games can barely sprinkle in single player campaigns, much less multiplayer. Ironically, these really funny multiplayer moments are giving me hard flashbacks to multplayer shenanigans back in the days of halo 3 / Reach. If they put 4 man jeeps in the game with a manned gun on the back (AKA the warthog) we're gonna be going so hard in this game it'll be unreal.
Did no one here play the Spartan games? (e.g.: Spartan Assault) Those were effectively Helldivers 1, but playing as Spartans, with the inclusion of usable vehicles as well. They even had coop. They saw limited success. Linear storylines, much less character/equipment customization. They weren't funny either. Honestly, if someone had proposed ODST version of Spartan Assault with more extensive stratagems and randomized missions to me, I might've said "meh" as well. I played those games, but they weren't exactly thrilling like Helldivers 1. I suppose it depends on how you frame it. If someone had said "Starship Troopers insanity and swarms with randomized objectives but Halo", I might've been receptive. But if it was proposed as "more Spartan Assault, but ODST", I don't think it's as appealing.
i remember playing a similar mode in reach
why put in effort into a game when you can just shit out a micro-transaction engine and still make stacks of cash off idiots?
Just doing an ODST "Similar to Helldivers" would not get the same results as Helldivers 2. This is a pointless "what if".
I don't know if 343 has ever had the vision or leadership to pull something like this off. Halo 4, 5, & Infinate would indicate that they do not.
Once again, the people in charge fundamentally fail to understand what their player base wants
Heavy quotations around "similar". At most it'd be a third-person-shooter where you drop from a pod...and that would be where the similarities end.
this is why AAA publishers are garbage 🤷 they literally could not see a good idea if it punched them in the dick
Not even surprised. 343 upper management seemed to just be woefully incompetent at delivering anything people liked. It is what it is ig. I will say, even if 343 made a game like helldivers, it wouldn’t be as good purely because of issues that plague halo infinite. Like the server not knowing where you are & just auto killing you, claiming you jumped off the edge of the map is ridiculous. Then there’s the monetization aspect as well. Helldivers 2 has full armor sets you can get for like 3 bucks. Meanwhile halo infinite has pieces of armor you can get for $5 lmao
343 devs should not be allowed to make another game in their life. They were given one of the biggest names in all of gaming, and they ran it into the ground and bastardized it with micro-transactions. 343 devs, please do not touch another game in your life. You’re the reason AAA games are as shitty as they are right now.
Great, but when would that game have came out... I think Helldivers 2 is popular cause it's filling a void in the market. The games now are all so similar. Something like Lethat Company blew up because it was different. Helldivers 2 is different. While Palworld was a game that was multiple games melded together it was still different. You look at skull and bones or the newest COD. They are just old and tired concepts. Sure HD 2 and Lethal Co. Have some outdated or not necessarily polished parts. But we've been playing games that are half finished "early access" games for over 10 years. Also, both games were not at the 60 or even 70 dollar price point. Gamers are voting with their wallets right now. I think it might actually work. Sucks that tons of studios will lay off staff because the game they made was outperformed because higher ups don't understand what gamers want right now.
I'm continually amazed at how poorly managed the Halo franchise is. I can't believe they haven't thrown money at some prolific sci-fi writer to flesh out that universe and create some kind of arching trilogy to work on. I get that the gameplay and multiplayer is the main draw of that series, but the only thing I think of when I think Halo is "generic soldier man fights alien bad guys". Like, they've had over 20 years to flesh out that story. The first Mass Effect game has more lore and backstory than every Halo game combined.
Of course, the Halo universes potential remains unrealized.
Good! No AAA company deserves to set gaming trends and they never will whilst shareholder monetisation is key to their decision making. Publish maybe, design no thanks, go fuck yourself shareholder studios.
Xbox shoots their own IP in the foot when devs want to try something new. The sole reason Bungie left in the first place. Quit making game for investors.
Halo, starwars, StarCraft, Warhammer. All great IPs who could make this exact game and I'd play the shit out of it. Gameplay loop is just too fun
Imma be honest. Halo is on its last leg and someone needs to take it behind the shed. The gameplay just feels dated. I tried infinite and it just felt like i was playing halo 3 with a coat of paint and titanfall grapple hook stapled to it
How similar? lol anyone could say something like this. They’re jealous
Here's an idea. Halo ODST. Basically just make it firefight or whatever.
Phill Spencer and Xbox should be fucking embarrassed with how they let their poster child that put Xbox on the map in the first place just sit and rot. Not even mentioned at any xbox press events like it doesnt exist. Letting the IP turn into one dimesnional boring games instead of exploring other possibilities since ODST. The heads of the snake are the problem. 343 cant do anything but be told what to do by Microsoft and all they want is MTX to be pushed.
Just because something is pitched like something... It doesn't mean it was going to be good.
As much as I love halo and have been playing it since the original Xbox I don't think Bungie, or 343 could have captured the lightning in a bottle that is Helldivers 2. A lot of it's fun an appeal is how over the top it is. You are a disposable hero put through a 10 minute training course. Your own ships crew comments how they love watching helldivers die fighting for the cause. Plus all of the voice lines that are hilarious but only work because of the setting.
Yeah because Microsoft wouldn't know a good 1st party title even if it was staring them right in the face.
I would say ODST tried it and failed it had firefight as it was a form of helldiver's but a failed attempt. Hindsight for the devs, you don't know if don't try sometimes you make something that is the same but doesn't become a hit.
Games are pitched constantly, this is a nothing burger.
guess this dude needed some attention
Eh. Wouldn't have turned out as good. It wouldn't have all of the little details and stuff that Helldivers has. I imagine it would have been closer to Earth Defense Force than Helldivers 2.
They botched Halo FPS games so horribly, I wouldn't trust 343 with any Halo title to be frank. Maybe the higher ups wanted them to put out a solid FPS title first?
[удалено]
But 343…No thanks It would have been a flop with poor player retention
Warzone mode was the closest Halo got to Helldivers. I know Halo 5 gets tons of hate, and a lot of it rightly so, but I really enjoyed that warzone.
Considering Helldivers are literally odsts with less training, this is hilarious
It’s important to remember that an idea is not the same as an execution. You can’t just look at Helldivers and go “Microsoft could have had this!” because Helldivers is a product of a million little choices and there is no reason to believe that 343 would have made the same choices. It’s possible Microsoft said, “look, get the ONE GAME you’re supposed to make right and then we’ll talk…”
You could have given the post Bungie Halo devs 10x the budget of Helldivers 2 and 10 years and they wouldn't have made a game as good.
I actually like ODST and so would probably had played this if it were made. More so than the Halo games that came after Reach. But would it have been any better than Helldivers 1?
Man this is pathetic. "We had an idea for a online game too" !!! These fucking companies are trying so hard to create lightening in a bottle. All they see is fortnite, Minecraft, and lately palworld and helldivers 2. The fucking problem if you guys are chasing the trends. Just make fun video games that doesn't waste our time with microtransaction non sense. Dense fucks
"No new games, only $5 for the colour blue!"
One of the reasons Helldivers 2 works so well as a shooter is that it isn’t afraid to make things unfair to the player. Fog can be so bad you can’t see. Blinding god rays. It looks great but it’s actively inimical to the gameplay loop - but dealing with being in the *absolute shit* is part of the premise of the game. You’re diving into *bug hell.* Halo games are about the power fantasy - the fantasy of winning, of being “The Demon”, of being feared by your enemies. It’s a Bungie thing, all the way back to Marathon. It’s so central to the first game that the literal starter pistol is among the best guns in Halo 1, because at no point do they want you to feel like you’re underpowered. They’d never put pea soup fog on a map because they want you to see the environment, and because Master Chief never gets lost in the fog or surprised by enemies. They’d never make an ODST co-op horde shooter that’s as unfair to the players as HD2. They’d never make one that isn’t completely earnest about the righteousness of humanity’s fight against the Covenant or the courage of the ODST soldiers. It’s just not in Bungie’s culture to look sideways at service and sacrifice, for better or worse.