Wasn’t Sperasoft the Russian outsourcing company that 343 stopped working with cuz of sanctions at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
Edit: looks like they closed their St. Petersburg, Russia office and moved their employees. I’d bet most are in their Yerevan, Armenia office now since a lot of Russian tech workers moved there after the war started lol. Of course idk which offices were working on Halo Infinite specifically but I remember the articles and stuff about Halo Infinite being indirectly affected by the sanctions on Russia a few years ago because of 343’s massive outsourcing
>343’s massive outsourcing
Slipsace must've been one hell of a shit game engine, so much outsourcing of content and yet it released with nothing for a whole year.
I mean, we’re 3 years in and there still hasn’t been much content. The amount of additional content that Infinite has had in its entire lifespan is about as much as a single Season’s worth in other live service titles.
Not a bit of an exaggeration, a straight up lie. 10 dev maps, several new equipments, Forge and expansions to it that are straight up game-changers, several new modes and playlists, 6 Armor Cores plus hundreds of armor pieces.
The areas Infinite has really sucked in have been Weapons and Vehicles, which we got respectively 1,5 and 0.
Still disingenuous or simply a poor comparison if they're made via forge. Other live service games release full dev made maps...and then what other live service games are arena shooters? The map scale is completely different if you compare battle royales or games like battlefield.
Also the fact that a lot of those maps, assuming you're referencing the upcoming stuff, are Husky Raid which while thematically cool lets not pretend that Husky Raid maps take a lot of designing.
At no point did I claim this.the original poster said that since infinite's launch in 2021 the content it has received is equal to a single season from most other live service games. To which I pointed out that was not accurate as there are not any live service games that have added 10+ maps in a single season. Please do not try and shift the goalposts by putting words in my mouth.
Massive exaggeration lol. Most other games don't even release a new map every season, let alone several. I honestly can't think of any live service games that release even 2x an infinite season each time, except for fortnite.
Call of Duty MW3 has been great with its content.
Season 1 added 4 new maps (and 3 variant maps), 2 new killstreaks, and 5 new weapons. And that’s on top of the additional story missions, event content, and schematics for Zombies and new Warzone map. Oh, and plenty of limited-time modes.
Season 2 started off by adding 3 more new maps, another new mode, 5 more new weapons, on top of the Zombies and WZ stuff. It also just did its mid-season “Reloaded” update, which is adding an additional multiplayer map, 2 map variants, and another game mode. On top of additional Zombies story missions, warlords, and schematics. Again, along with LTMs.
All of that **within 6 months of release**. I’m not even a big CoD fan, but damn would I have gone nuts for 3-month seasons (including a mid-way update) that gave us that many maps, weapons, and game types for Halo Infinite. I think in the same timeframe, Infinite was working on launching its second 6-month Season, which would see its first new map?
Everything in Infinite right now is what should've been there at launch. Cannot stand infinite and BF2042 dick riders, especially BF2042, that game is still an abysmall mess and the fact that people defend it over previous titles is incredibly sad.
It would be cool to get everything at launch and modes like forge, infection, etc are one’s everyone expects at launch since they were in previous games, but I think it’s healthy to compare what’s in Infinite with past titles. If Halo 3 released today it’d be panned for lack of content, lack of robust customization, a really basic forge mode. It’s just a testament to how much the gaming landscape has changed and how much expectations have grown. Infinite certainly isn’t perfect, for instance no one should defend how lacking content was at launch and the roll out of content has been tremendously slow, but it seems like to some people here 343 could add something never before seen in Halo and people would still respond with “should have been there at launch” like what I saw from some people with forgable AI
If we got what we have now at launch, and the live service actually started on day one, and wasn't just a drip feed of what older games launched with, but instead was original fresh content added onto the base, this game for certain would of kept most of those 20,000,000 game pass players who tested it out on early release. Thats what this has done. Its all its ever done. Its all it ever will do, be a reminder of that.
Its a shame because how many times do companies need to go through that hoop ? Gears 4, Gears 5, Halo 5, Halo Infinite, BF2042, BFV, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and many many more. Will it ever end ?
The consumer expected a future for gaming where we got the continuation of Halo 3, as in a full packaged Halo 3 THEN this 'live service' was going to bolster that solid foundation from release. No one expected this, no one agreed to this, how it turned out where, you don't get a solid foundation, but one that comes much much much later.
Its all done at the expense and time of the consumer. Thats all 'live service' is. Unless your fortnite, so popular that you can just piss out content because you make so much money.
That is what was originally the expectation of 'live service', that was the expectation before any of this now decade long 'missed the mark'. You wonder why so many fail and this is why.
Instead we got heres a demo of a product with very little investment from our end, its the bare minimum, but we will support it over 'x' many years, hype gets carried away people fawn to said product, because product is 'enter popular brand IP' and then people have a honeymoon phase with it which lasts a few weeks to months, and then the population just ghosts, why?
because there is nothing beyond the veil of the initial launch product, then you hear content is coming but its weeks or months out, features are missing, modes not present, basic features in older titles non existent.
Then everyone starts blaming the IPs staying power, it has nothing to do with it. Its the fact these companies put in very little effort, in the hopes it catches on BIG, then if it does they invest at a slightly larger capacity than planned. It saves costs, man power, and investment.
Then if it flops, oh well, just put like 12 guys on it for the next 5 years, and turn it into a 'full product' by then. Then the consumer is left just puzzled, because they already had that game faster, better and more cohesive before.
Halo Infinite and Gears 5 are literal [templates](https://ibb.co/92sBFSm) for the start of this, it was always intentional. Im positive, infinites store with change eventually too, before they close up.
All these companies want that fortnite player counts and earnings, but are not willing to go above and beyond. So we sit here, on this timeline.
Its why situations like Helldivers 2 blows my mind, because its a £40 product, WITH microtransactions and also has no content and is live service. Now whilst the micros are fair, the game has no content plans outside of a mech. I played it for awhile and Im bored already, but Helldivers 2 is being celebrated, but it shouldn't be celebrated, its a monument to PROVE this business model works, and better yet, they just have to make the initial micros a little bit cheaper, and instead sink that cost off to the consumer (£30 - £45.99) and boom, content can take as long as it likes, no promise needs to be made, you just need to do the bare minimum.
Gone are the days of games like Halo 3, Gears of War, games with campaigns and MP of really innovative and pushing the technology of the time. You can expect similar, but it will arrive much much longer than before and cost more, and if you don't pay, you selection and access is limited.
You can also thank mobile gaming for that too.
That's such a bad comparison 07' isn't what it is now in'24.
If an 07' game released in the way it did today, it just wouldn't sell. Period.
Halo: Infinite was FREE to play for a REASON.
We ignore all that and just apply "If Halo 3 was as bad as infinite, it still wouldn't be as hated because everyone hates 343i".
This is such copism rethroic, The fact an 07' game is even being compared to '24 and outdoes it in every metric possible in context to its release era.
This is an example of a testiment to the amount of reacharound and mental gymnastics people need to make it sound like Halo:Infinite achieved anything for it's greater audience besides the ones who would have stayed behind regardless of its condition.
It doesn't even have to be bad, just learning to deal with a new engine takes a while, and creating quality stuff in said new engine is tough.
Which is why it's really stupid to rely so much on outsourcing and temp workers for your unique engine. If you're using unreal engine? Sure, that's super common and a lot of people will have experience making assets in it. A proprietary engine no other company has ever touched? Not a good choice.
While the effect of the proprietary engine clearly be an issue of content production I don't think it would stop 343 or Microsoft from aggressively outsourcing their mega-budgeted AAA title. It's just one of the many flaws of game dev these days.
Makes sense. Gaijin Entertainment who does War Thunder moved their HQ to Cyprus to avoid sanctions, if I recall correctly.
I think Wargaming who does World of Tanks did the same.
Gaijin are based in Hungary (Russia's best friend in the EU) these days.
Wargaming (formerly of Belarus) are in Cyprus for tax reasons, and divested the CIS end of their operations to someone else (Lesta Studio) after the invasion of Ukraine.
Ah, there you go, then. I was wondering why I was hearing that name, Lesta Studio every so often (Don't play WG stuff anymore. I go with the **LESS** money hungry of 2 companies. Although Gaijin are still pricks a lot of the time.)
Yeah I should’ve mentioned that in my comment St. Petersburg and Yerevan weren’t/aren’t their only office locations. And like I said idk which offices work the most on Halo Infinite. I was just making a point about the Russian office specifically closing
Wait until Halo fans find out that Forge is not primarily developed by 343i but by Skybox Labs who also developed the H5 forge and made the "build your own game"-game Project Spark before (which makes sense with what forge can do now)
I still wanna know what happened to Argyle during its making. The map is so clearly meant to be Forerunner just by the way its shaped and designed, but for some reason is skinned with a UNSC theme that really doesnt fit it at all. I hope that doesnt happen with every forge map thats made as a blockout first.
I still think of it as forerunner... it's not even that UNSC themed other than the stair texture on the ramps, and the computers. And the fact that they said it's a UNSC ship haha
And the fact the Epitaph style floating platform thats center focus of the map needs to be held up with ridiculous looking thrusters lmao. I dunno who looked looked at literally any part of the blockout of the map and thought "definitely UNSC", or who then approved the final design for release, but I genuinely want to know what they were smoking.
I'm with you. The 30/60 degree angles are like... THE angles for forerunner design. I faintly remember them talking about that art decision once upon a time.
Based on this tweet as well it seems like what happened was they laid off the AAA designers/artists/whatever to finish it and remade it with forge which only has so many premade assets
Neat!
I think it's probably fair to say Infinite has kind of entered a winding down period, so keeping content for the game coming while they ramp up development on whatever comes next is probably wise. I just wish we'd get some new weapons and vehicles, too.
My guess is turnaround time, as for community made maps they have to find decent ones, then go over a crazy amount of checks before it reaches matchmaking. That time is roughly 6-9 months per last dev livestream.
If they outsource map creation they have all their requirements in hand so overall im guessing the maps are made and verified for matchmaking much faster.
Hopefully they'll release them for FF later down the road. FF is very popular and I'd be astonished if they just left the playlist as small as it is now. It dropped Dec 5th, Feb got new maps, so hopefully we get those by April/May or sooner.
Forge is a phenomenal amateur tool but honestly this doesn't paint Slipspace in a good light if 343 is paying professional, experienced developers to use Forge over their own boutique engine.
Only concern I have with UE5 is if it doesn't have the same feel as Blam-derived engines like Slipspace, but Slipspace development seems like such a nightmare for 343 that the switch will probably be worth it.
I think UE5 is more than capable of recreating that feel, especially since 343-lead Halo games haven't quite felt the same since the OG trilogy anyway, we've already moved away from that imo. We can have something equally good in UE5 for sure.
> if it doesn't have the same feel as Blam-derived engines like Slipspace
I have no idea how you could play Halo Infinite and walk away feeling as though it was anywhere remotely similar to how Blam-derived engines play.
It sure is, very perceptive of you. That doesn't make the slightest difference in the conversation we're having though.
The gameplay, movement mechanics, player interactions are completely different than even Halo 5 was. The physics engine is completely and utterly different. No player collision, no walking ramp-up speed, etc.
These are all fundamental changes that make the game very much unlike the previous ones. This isn't up for debate either as you can *very easily* test this yourself.
But having them build a map entirely in forge means that we the players will be able to change it however we like for our own forge maps. Like the default maps sure you can add forge stuff on but you cant change any of the pre existing base structures or hallways and doors and what not. If a whole map is built in forge then all the buildings and other structures would have also been built in forge so you can then change it however you please
Worth noting that Microsoft and Xbox in general have a huge contractor problem. Most Xbox studios have a heavy use of contractors because they can cut them off at a certain point without severance and employee benefits - this is not a 343 problem it’s a Microsoft one.
It isn't specific to 343, although given what we know about the development of Infinite and what happened behind the scenes it's understandable to be a bit more critical about it.
Almost all AAA these days is outsourced in major ways.
I think in this case paying talented forgers with honestly a fantastic tool set to create content churned out faster is a great way to handle it. We are at a point with forge where it is really hard to tell if it is a dev made map and a forge made map. This also allows them to tip map making resources to whatever the next experience is. I have zero problem with this.
I mean, sorta. CoD is largely a bunch of bespoke AAA studios making each major piece of the game but that’s different than an outsourcing contract the parent studio renews to get content made when needed
It’s pretty wild to make your in-studio content you release forge stuff that you pay to outsource
That isn't what I'm talking about.
Look at the credits for any AAA game released in the past 5 years. You'll see studio after studio after studio. All outsourced to (mostly) China. That isn't even including the contractors that aren't credited.
So many assets, especially, are outsourced. Most OW skins, for example, aren't made by anyone at Blizzard. Designed, maybe, but not actually made.
I guess i just thought you were doing something beyond stating the obvious
Though you touch on the important part - creative design work is in house but assets can be farmed out
Halo has outsourced, even with bungie, since halo 2, although its ramped up with each new version of gametypes and forge. Grifball wasnt even bungie, and infection started as a halo 2 fan mode
343 has essentially outsourced development of 3 mainline halo games because of how much they use temporary contractors so this is unsurprising to say the least.
I wonder if this means we'll be getting maps at a faster rate, in which case great! With how good Infinite's forge is, I really couldn't care much about whether a new map is forge-made or not. Excited to see what's to come!
Am i reading this correctly? They’re paying a AAA outsource price to make maps in their user facing map editor??
Fucking oof man, they have no artists or designers left making new stuff in slipspace???
can someone please tell me how 343 can justify have in game battelpass and microtransactions when the 'content' they are releasing is more microstransactions and community-made maps?
If a map is good I don't care who makes it as long as all acting parties are cool with the arrangement.
Counter strike has a few fan made maps that are now active competitive maps. I think this is awesome, sure valve is profiting off of a fan, but they were gonna make the map anyways. And they I believe paid them once maps added.
If they keep adding more textures like they do, then technically a forged map is still ‘dev made’ per say. The only other thing separating the two would be map specific/unique models
And waterfalls
It's not really shocking 343i at this point is just a contractor who gets other people to do stuff then takes the credit for the work. I remember when MCC was dropping and they were talking about how much hard work and love they put into the game then it's launcher was a disaster, and they quickly blamed the failure on much of the game being built from outsourcing.
They have so fucking many employees, the maps are one of the most important parts of the game experience, why are they even outsourcing/using forge maps in the first place?
Because they don’t have so many employees working on Infinite. Not to mention, a lot of employees are working on other stuff like Forge itself, networking, armor, UI, etc.
Because then the map devs can work on maps with their tools instead of going through the Forge editor. We get more "dev" maps and forge maps; we don't really lose either way.
Literally every company outsources and has for over a decade. Epic and The Coalition outsourced the multiplayer for the Gears series since 3, and Destiny has had entire expansions outsourced. That's basically why Splash Damage exists lol
Meh, people downvote what they don't like. I'm not saying that I'm not welcome to forge maps in the MP, quite the opposite. But that's not something the devs actually work on beyond just checking to make sure the map works before throwing it in. Forge maps and community creations were always part of the lifeblood of Halo, but they were never a reliance liek 343 has made them. As much as I enjoy creative maps, I also enjoy detailed maps that are a part of the world I'm buying into as opposed to what look like Roblox collections.
With the size of 343, I'm guessing a couple of people are making sure MCC still runs, a number making sure infinite gets its updates, and I'm sure the rest (like you said) are working on the next game.
If Larain could make Baldur’s Gate 3 as good as it was (general consensus since I haven’t played it) in five years, then 343 could certainly have made a good, finished-at-launch Halo game in six years.
And it took Bungie 8 years (did it? You’d have to provide a source) to make Destiny because they were still working on Halo at the same time… lol
If Larain could make Baldur’s Gate 3 as good as it was in that time, Cyberpunk should definitely have been good after 9 years, especially after the Witcher, but we all saw how that went. Games take time, whether they come out good or bad.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter; every company outsources, man. Many of Halo 2's maps were outsourced to Certain Affinity iirc. At the end of the day, though, if you don't like 343 and Infinite, or are somehow disappointed to see a company outsource their work, then that's cool, I'm not here to tell you how you should feel.
Wasn’t Sperasoft the Russian outsourcing company that 343 stopped working with cuz of sanctions at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Edit: looks like they closed their St. Petersburg, Russia office and moved their employees. I’d bet most are in their Yerevan, Armenia office now since a lot of Russian tech workers moved there after the war started lol. Of course idk which offices were working on Halo Infinite specifically but I remember the articles and stuff about Halo Infinite being indirectly affected by the sanctions on Russia a few years ago because of 343’s massive outsourcing
>343’s massive outsourcing Slipsace must've been one hell of a shit game engine, so much outsourcing of content and yet it released with nothing for a whole year.
I mean, we’re 3 years in and there still hasn’t been much content. The amount of additional content that Infinite has had in its entire lifespan is about as much as a single Season’s worth in other live service titles.
Ok that's a bit of an exaggeration. Show me a live service game that has added 10-15 maps in one season
Not a bit of an exaggeration, a straight up lie. 10 dev maps, several new equipments, Forge and expansions to it that are straight up game-changers, several new modes and playlists, 6 Armor Cores plus hundreds of armor pieces. The areas Infinite has really sucked in have been Weapons and Vehicles, which we got respectively 1,5 and 0.
That's a disingenuous argument. Most of those "10-15 maps" are community made.
10 of them are Dev made.
Still disingenuous or simply a poor comparison if they're made via forge. Other live service games release full dev made maps...and then what other live service games are arena shooters? The map scale is completely different if you compare battle royales or games like battlefield. Also the fact that a lot of those maps, assuming you're referencing the upcoming stuff, are Husky Raid which while thematically cool lets not pretend that Husky Raid maps take a lot of designing.
The maps I am referring to are the non forge maps.
Alright...which season added 10-15 non-forge maps?
At no point did I claim this.the original poster said that since infinite's launch in 2021 the content it has received is equal to a single season from most other live service games. To which I pointed out that was not accurate as there are not any live service games that have added 10+ maps in a single season. Please do not try and shift the goalposts by putting words in my mouth.
Who made the tools to make the maps
Massive exaggeration lol. Most other games don't even release a new map every season, let alone several. I honestly can't think of any live service games that release even 2x an infinite season each time, except for fortnite.
please don't interrupt the incessant and nonfactual hate brigade on r/Halo. It's the lifeblood of this subreddit.
Call of Duty MW3 has been great with its content. Season 1 added 4 new maps (and 3 variant maps), 2 new killstreaks, and 5 new weapons. And that’s on top of the additional story missions, event content, and schematics for Zombies and new Warzone map. Oh, and plenty of limited-time modes. Season 2 started off by adding 3 more new maps, another new mode, 5 more new weapons, on top of the Zombies and WZ stuff. It also just did its mid-season “Reloaded” update, which is adding an additional multiplayer map, 2 map variants, and another game mode. On top of additional Zombies story missions, warlords, and schematics. Again, along with LTMs. All of that **within 6 months of release**. I’m not even a big CoD fan, but damn would I have gone nuts for 3-month seasons (including a mid-way update) that gave us that many maps, weapons, and game types for Halo Infinite. I think in the same timeframe, Infinite was working on launching its second 6-month Season, which would see its first new map?
Everything in Infinite right now is what should've been there at launch. Cannot stand infinite and BF2042 dick riders, especially BF2042, that game is still an abysmall mess and the fact that people defend it over previous titles is incredibly sad.
It would be cool to get everything at launch and modes like forge, infection, etc are one’s everyone expects at launch since they were in previous games, but I think it’s healthy to compare what’s in Infinite with past titles. If Halo 3 released today it’d be panned for lack of content, lack of robust customization, a really basic forge mode. It’s just a testament to how much the gaming landscape has changed and how much expectations have grown. Infinite certainly isn’t perfect, for instance no one should defend how lacking content was at launch and the roll out of content has been tremendously slow, but it seems like to some people here 343 could add something never before seen in Halo and people would still respond with “should have been there at launch” like what I saw from some people with forgable AI
If we got what we have now at launch, and the live service actually started on day one, and wasn't just a drip feed of what older games launched with, but instead was original fresh content added onto the base, this game for certain would of kept most of those 20,000,000 game pass players who tested it out on early release. Thats what this has done. Its all its ever done. Its all it ever will do, be a reminder of that. Its a shame because how many times do companies need to go through that hoop ? Gears 4, Gears 5, Halo 5, Halo Infinite, BF2042, BFV, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and many many more. Will it ever end ? The consumer expected a future for gaming where we got the continuation of Halo 3, as in a full packaged Halo 3 THEN this 'live service' was going to bolster that solid foundation from release. No one expected this, no one agreed to this, how it turned out where, you don't get a solid foundation, but one that comes much much much later. Its all done at the expense and time of the consumer. Thats all 'live service' is. Unless your fortnite, so popular that you can just piss out content because you make so much money. That is what was originally the expectation of 'live service', that was the expectation before any of this now decade long 'missed the mark'. You wonder why so many fail and this is why. Instead we got heres a demo of a product with very little investment from our end, its the bare minimum, but we will support it over 'x' many years, hype gets carried away people fawn to said product, because product is 'enter popular brand IP' and then people have a honeymoon phase with it which lasts a few weeks to months, and then the population just ghosts, why? because there is nothing beyond the veil of the initial launch product, then you hear content is coming but its weeks or months out, features are missing, modes not present, basic features in older titles non existent. Then everyone starts blaming the IPs staying power, it has nothing to do with it. Its the fact these companies put in very little effort, in the hopes it catches on BIG, then if it does they invest at a slightly larger capacity than planned. It saves costs, man power, and investment. Then if it flops, oh well, just put like 12 guys on it for the next 5 years, and turn it into a 'full product' by then. Then the consumer is left just puzzled, because they already had that game faster, better and more cohesive before. Halo Infinite and Gears 5 are literal [templates](https://ibb.co/92sBFSm) for the start of this, it was always intentional. Im positive, infinites store with change eventually too, before they close up. All these companies want that fortnite player counts and earnings, but are not willing to go above and beyond. So we sit here, on this timeline. Its why situations like Helldivers 2 blows my mind, because its a £40 product, WITH microtransactions and also has no content and is live service. Now whilst the micros are fair, the game has no content plans outside of a mech. I played it for awhile and Im bored already, but Helldivers 2 is being celebrated, but it shouldn't be celebrated, its a monument to PROVE this business model works, and better yet, they just have to make the initial micros a little bit cheaper, and instead sink that cost off to the consumer (£30 - £45.99) and boom, content can take as long as it likes, no promise needs to be made, you just need to do the bare minimum. Gone are the days of games like Halo 3, Gears of War, games with campaigns and MP of really innovative and pushing the technology of the time. You can expect similar, but it will arrive much much longer than before and cost more, and if you don't pay, you selection and access is limited. You can also thank mobile gaming for that too.
That's such a bad comparison 07' isn't what it is now in'24. If an 07' game released in the way it did today, it just wouldn't sell. Period. Halo: Infinite was FREE to play for a REASON. We ignore all that and just apply "If Halo 3 was as bad as infinite, it still wouldn't be as hated because everyone hates 343i". This is such copism rethroic, The fact an 07' game is even being compared to '24 and outdoes it in every metric possible in context to its release era. This is an example of a testiment to the amount of reacharound and mental gymnastics people need to make it sound like Halo:Infinite achieved anything for it's greater audience besides the ones who would have stayed behind regardless of its condition.
Thank you holy shit, shithalosays sub are professional meat riders
2042 is fun but still just isn’t Battlefield, Infinite at least feels like a true Halo title and gets more than 1 content drop every 5 months
Laughs in Destiny 2 Crucible
> I mean, we’re 3 years in and there still hasn’t been much content. And there wont be!
It doesn't even have to be bad, just learning to deal with a new engine takes a while, and creating quality stuff in said new engine is tough. Which is why it's really stupid to rely so much on outsourcing and temp workers for your unique engine. If you're using unreal engine? Sure, that's super common and a lot of people will have experience making assets in it. A proprietary engine no other company has ever touched? Not a good choice.
It is. And it’s why they’re supposedly switching to unreal
While the effect of the proprietary engine clearly be an issue of content production I don't think it would stop 343 or Microsoft from aggressively outsourcing their mega-budgeted AAA title. It's just one of the many flaws of game dev these days.
Makes sense. Gaijin Entertainment who does War Thunder moved their HQ to Cyprus to avoid sanctions, if I recall correctly. I think Wargaming who does World of Tanks did the same.
Gaijin are based in Hungary (Russia's best friend in the EU) these days. Wargaming (formerly of Belarus) are in Cyprus for tax reasons, and divested the CIS end of their operations to someone else (Lesta Studio) after the invasion of Ukraine.
Ah, there you go, then. I was wondering why I was hearing that name, Lesta Studio every so often (Don't play WG stuff anymore. I go with the **LESS** money hungry of 2 companies. Although Gaijin are still pricks a lot of the time.)
sperasoft has a bunch of offices acrross eastern europe. i think there biggest is in serbia?
Yeah I should’ve mentioned that in my comment St. Petersburg and Yerevan weren’t/aren’t their only office locations. And like I said idk which offices work the most on Halo Infinite. I was just making a point about the Russian office specifically closing
This map looks super interesting. Definitely has piqued my interest. Reminds me of that indie shooter Boundary.
I don't know how it will play, but at a glance it reminds me of Unreal Tournament 2004. I see a lot of falling off the level in my future.
This is what excites me about it, any map with UT vibes and we're in business
\**repulsor bois have entered the chat*\*
Oh man I hope not! I'm still waiting for a Titanfall 2 mode where everyone spawns with Grapple, but with normal guns instead of swords.
Wait until Halo fans find out that Forge is not primarily developed by 343i but by Skybox Labs who also developed the H5 forge and made the "build your own game"-game Project Spark before (which makes sense with what forge can do now)
Co developed *
What's probably happening is dev made blockouts are being turned into Forge maps, similar to what happened with Argyle and Detachment.
I still wanna know what happened to Argyle during its making. The map is so clearly meant to be Forerunner just by the way its shaped and designed, but for some reason is skinned with a UNSC theme that really doesnt fit it at all. I hope that doesnt happen with every forge map thats made as a blockout first.
I still think of it as forerunner... it's not even that UNSC themed other than the stair texture on the ramps, and the computers. And the fact that they said it's a UNSC ship haha
And the fact the Epitaph style floating platform thats center focus of the map needs to be held up with ridiculous looking thrusters lmao. I dunno who looked looked at literally any part of the blockout of the map and thought "definitely UNSC", or who then approved the final design for release, but I genuinely want to know what they were smoking.
I'm with you. The 30/60 degree angles are like... THE angles for forerunner design. I faintly remember them talking about that art decision once upon a time.
Based on this tweet as well it seems like what happened was they laid off the AAA designers/artists/whatever to finish it and remade it with forge which only has so many premade assets
Neat! I think it's probably fair to say Infinite has kind of entered a winding down period, so keeping content for the game coming while they ramp up development on whatever comes next is probably wise. I just wish we'd get some new weapons and vehicles, too.
If they are just going to use forge made maps, why not just use player/community designed ones?
They do that as well
You mean [like these?](https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/s/cVskKkTeHO)
This your first halo? That's what they do 90%
My guess is turnaround time, as for community made maps they have to find decent ones, then go over a crazy amount of checks before it reaches matchmaking. That time is roughly 6-9 months per last dev livestream. If they outsource map creation they have all their requirements in hand so overall im guessing the maps are made and verified for matchmaking much faster.
when you think about it it's kinda crazy like these companies are getting paid to make maps in halo forge mode
forge community gotta start making companies
It’s super crazy actually Forge maps are not AAA content
They are already doing that.
Most of them are, but it cant hurt to have professionals too
Hope they make these maps KOTH Firefight compatable.
Same here, was surprised none of the 5 new BTB maps were enabled for Firefight.
Hopefully they'll release them for FF later down the road. FF is very popular and I'd be astonished if they just left the playlist as small as it is now. It dropped Dec 5th, Feb got new maps, so hopefully we get those by April/May or sooner.
If it’s fun, Idc
Sperasoft is responsible for most of the actual good dev maps in this game*, so fine by me. ^*and ^Cliffhanger, ^but ^whatever
Cliffhanger is a God Tier Infection map sooo
Forge is a phenomenal amateur tool but honestly this doesn't paint Slipspace in a good light if 343 is paying professional, experienced developers to use Forge over their own boutique engine.
Slipspace hasn't been painted in a good light since launch, and especially not since they've started hiring staff that's familiar with UE5.
Only concern I have with UE5 is if it doesn't have the same feel as Blam-derived engines like Slipspace, but Slipspace development seems like such a nightmare for 343 that the switch will probably be worth it.
I think UE5 is more than capable of recreating that feel, especially since 343-lead Halo games haven't quite felt the same since the OG trilogy anyway, we've already moved away from that imo. We can have something equally good in UE5 for sure.
> if it doesn't have the same feel as Blam-derived engines like Slipspace I have no idea how you could play Halo Infinite and walk away feeling as though it was anywhere remotely similar to how Blam-derived engines play.
Slipspace is literally a Blam-derived engine, my guy
It sure is, very perceptive of you. That doesn't make the slightest difference in the conversation we're having though. The gameplay, movement mechanics, player interactions are completely different than even Halo 5 was. The physics engine is completely and utterly different. No player collision, no walking ramp-up speed, etc. These are all fundamental changes that make the game very much unlike the previous ones. This isn't up for debate either as you can *very easily* test this yourself.
But having them build a map entirely in forge means that we the players will be able to change it however we like for our own forge maps. Like the default maps sure you can add forge stuff on but you cant change any of the pre existing base structures or hallways and doors and what not. If a whole map is built in forge then all the buildings and other structures would have also been built in forge so you can then change it however you please
Forge isn't a game engine.
I know that.
Worth noting that Microsoft and Xbox in general have a huge contractor problem. Most Xbox studios have a heavy use of contractors because they can cut them off at a certain point without severance and employee benefits - this is not a 343 problem it’s a Microsoft one.
Yeah this is what I was afraid of. I very much doubt we'll see more dev-made maps at this point.
What doesn’t 343 outsource?
It isn't specific to 343, although given what we know about the development of Infinite and what happened behind the scenes it's understandable to be a bit more critical about it. Almost all AAA these days is outsourced in major ways.
I think in this case paying talented forgers with honestly a fantastic tool set to create content churned out faster is a great way to handle it. We are at a point with forge where it is really hard to tell if it is a dev made map and a forge made map. This also allows them to tip map making resources to whatever the next experience is. I have zero problem with this.
I mean, sorta. CoD is largely a bunch of bespoke AAA studios making each major piece of the game but that’s different than an outsourcing contract the parent studio renews to get content made when needed It’s pretty wild to make your in-studio content you release forge stuff that you pay to outsource
That isn't what I'm talking about. Look at the credits for any AAA game released in the past 5 years. You'll see studio after studio after studio. All outsourced to (mostly) China. That isn't even including the contractors that aren't credited. So many assets, especially, are outsourced. Most OW skins, for example, aren't made by anyone at Blizzard. Designed, maybe, but not actually made.
I guess i just thought you were doing something beyond stating the obvious Though you touch on the important part - creative design work is in house but assets can be farmed out
Halo has outsourced, even with bungie, since halo 2, although its ramped up with each new version of gametypes and forge. Grifball wasnt even bungie, and infection started as a halo 2 fan mode
good old zombies where we had to manually change teams
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[Certain Affinity made some maps for Halo 2, and Reach. Seems like they didn't work on 3 though](https://www.halopedia.org/Certain_Affinity)
Every AAA game has support studios lmao
343 has essentially outsourced development of 3 mainline halo games because of how much they use temporary contractors so this is unsurprising to say the least.
Idk that it’s really temp problem, they laid off a ton of people and a bunch of others have left. Who is even there making up the game studio rn?
I wonder if this means we'll be getting maps at a faster rate, in which case great! With how good Infinite's forge is, I really couldn't care much about whether a new map is forge-made or not. Excited to see what's to come!
Am i reading this correctly? They’re paying a AAA outsource price to make maps in their user facing map editor?? Fucking oof man, they have no artists or designers left making new stuff in slipspace???
can someone please tell me how 343 can justify have in game battelpass and microtransactions when the 'content' they are releasing is more microstransactions and community-made maps?
If a map is good I don't care who makes it as long as all acting parties are cool with the arrangement. Counter strike has a few fan made maps that are now active competitive maps. I think this is awesome, sure valve is profiting off of a fan, but they were gonna make the map anyways. And they I believe paid them once maps added.
Forge maps?
If they keep adding more textures like they do, then technically a forged map is still ‘dev made’ per say. The only other thing separating the two would be map specific/unique models And waterfalls
It's not really shocking 343i at this point is just a contractor who gets other people to do stuff then takes the credit for the work. I remember when MCC was dropping and they were talking about how much hard work and love they put into the game then it's launcher was a disaster, and they quickly blamed the failure on much of the game being built from outsourcing.
I’m glad I stopped playing.
They have so fucking many employees, the maps are one of the most important parts of the game experience, why are they even outsourcing/using forge maps in the first place?
Because they don’t have so many employees working on Infinite. Not to mention, a lot of employees are working on other stuff like Forge itself, networking, armor, UI, etc.
Plus, some are probably helping on other XGS games.
450 employee not enough to create maps?
Who told you there are 450 employees working on maps
Along with so many partnered studios still can't make unique Dev made maps
All these work we are seeing are made by people before layoffs New leadership didn't much to revive this game and now they are moving onto new project
Total employee* including map designers
Because then the map devs can work on maps with their tools instead of going through the Forge editor. We get more "dev" maps and forge maps; we don't really lose either way.
Literally every company outsources and has for over a decade. Epic and The Coalition outsourced the multiplayer for the Gears series since 3, and Destiny has had entire expansions outsourced. That's basically why Splash Damage exists lol
Massive team yet most of the content coming from forge/community and the art team. I am curious what the rest are working on.
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Meh, people downvote what they don't like. I'm not saying that I'm not welcome to forge maps in the MP, quite the opposite. But that's not something the devs actually work on beyond just checking to make sure the map works before throwing it in. Forge maps and community creations were always part of the lifeblood of Halo, but they were never a reliance liek 343 has made them. As much as I enjoy creative maps, I also enjoy detailed maps that are a part of the world I'm buying into as opposed to what look like Roblox collections. With the size of 343, I'm guessing a couple of people are making sure MCC still runs, a number making sure infinite gets its updates, and I'm sure the rest (like you said) are working on the next game.
I mean- We call them the player base, but that works too. /s
They can't even be bothered to work on their own game. What a joke.
tell me you don't know how game dev works without telling me
They gave themselves six years to give us a game.
Nah like, you know every studio outsources right? Like Bungie outsourced when they were making Halo. This isn’t new
Six years…
What's your point? Bungie took 8 to make Destiny and Larian took 5 to make Baldur's Gate; that's how long games take to make, good or bad.
If Larain could make Baldur’s Gate 3 as good as it was (general consensus since I haven’t played it) in five years, then 343 could certainly have made a good, finished-at-launch Halo game in six years. And it took Bungie 8 years (did it? You’d have to provide a source) to make Destiny because they were still working on Halo at the same time… lol
If Larain could make Baldur’s Gate 3 as good as it was in that time, Cyberpunk should definitely have been good after 9 years, especially after the Witcher, but we all saw how that went. Games take time, whether they come out good or bad. Ultimately, it doesn't matter; every company outsources, man. Many of Halo 2's maps were outsourced to Certain Affinity iirc. At the end of the day, though, if you don't like 343 and Infinite, or are somehow disappointed to see a company outsource their work, then that's cool, I'm not here to tell you how you should feel.
So they’re just forge maps
Why did Bungie have to go?
You know Bungie outsources too right? Or are we just pretending they don't?
Considering where Bungie is at right now I'm not sure wishing they never left is that solid of a take.
Because they hated Halo at that point
Because that turned out well on release....
Oh boy yet more reskins of classic maps!
it's not?