Halo: The Greatest Fumble in Gaming

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The story of Halo over the past 13 years has been one of repeated failure. It is perhaps the greatest fumbles in gaming.
#gaming #writing

[@ShreddedNerd]

I don't think 343 is as bad as EA or Activision in terms of the things they have done, this video is for understanding why they gained this reputation.

[@n7troopergaming501]

EA and Activision are publishers. 343 are developers

[@bion-geek-le1109]

the worst thing 343 did was forget to do the extra mile. what made Halo CE - R so impacting is that bungie Innovated, invented, ideas that would work rather than just follow the highest money making trend, and they built a relationship with the community, even modern bungie has forgotten it's community relationship with Destiny

[@keyboardstalker4784]

They are though, at best they’re nominally better.

[@Leitis_Fella]

As keeper of the SoyLore, if you just drew 343 as a Soyjak and yourself as the Chad, Infinite would have been fixed by now.

[@gpheonix1]

no they're not as evil, but that doesn't mean they're not worse. at least with ea most of the games are decent. with 343 it is nothing but absolute dog shit everytime. they know nothing about halo. all the bullshit from the employees on twitter is pure bullshit. literally wiping the slate clean and starting a new company from scratch WOULD be a better chance. We're getting nothing buts -nths so a ??? is far better.

[@lilbubz2803]

Can we have playable elites? 343: No Can we have splitscreen campaign? 343: No Can we have emblem customisation? 343: No Can we have invasion? 343: No Can we have colour customisation? 343: No Can we have campaign unlockable armour? 343: No Can we have working theatre mode? 343: No Can we play forge offline? 343: No Can you ask Marty do the soundtrack again? 343: No Can you stop soft rebooting your campaigns and villains? 343: No Can we have a working progression system? 343: No Can we have assassinations? 343: No Can we have forge at launch? 343: No Can we have infection at launch? 343: No Can we have the falcon or hornet back? 343: No Can we have map voting? 343: No Can we have a reach style UI that lets us quickly access all information at the press of a single button 343: No Can we have a visible player counter? 343: No Can we have pre game lobby voice chats? 343: No 343: WHY DON’T YOU LIKE US

[@gianlucag100g]

No.

[@piotr78]

"can we have" ?? Stop treating these companies like they're your parents or something. Just tell them what you are willing to pay money for. And yes I do think language matters.

[@motozealot5176]

@@piotr78 Thats what we ARE doing. That's why no one is playing Infinite

[@ben-ben2366]

Can we have a game that isn't a dogshit cashgrab? 343: nah

[@lilbubz2803]

@piotr78 ahh yes. I remember my sweet childhood days of asking my parents to include a previously established feature in their tripple A FPS shooter, then threatening to not buy it if said feature was not included. Good times.

[@the_dapper_stormtrooper9302]

The best way to describe 343 is like if your grandfather handed you the keys of his old but beautifully maintained car, just for you too slap a cheap anime decal over it and proceed to wrap the car around a tree the following day.

[@Dodsodalo]

Don't insult anime that way. I'd say it would be like if they put Chris Chan art decals on it unironically.

[@smoldoggy1005]

@@Dodsodalo anime is terrible

[@Dodsodalo]

@@smoldoggy1005 You are saying that Berserk is worse than Chris Chan?

[@smoldoggy1005]

@@Dodsodalo Id rather watch something besides those two

[@HailAzathoth]

@@smoldoggy1005 smoothbrain take

[@debugden9172]

A journalist managing the direction of the franchise explains literally everything.

[@Freelancer837]

A journalist who has never once gotten the plots for any Bungie Halo games correct either.

[@zanesnep400]

He also retconned literally everything about the Bungie games and all of the original lore around Halo. Basically none of the events that happened in any of the games before 343 are actually cannon in 343's universe, all because of Frank. Halo desperately needs a partial reboot to get rid of all 343's games and lore all because of that one douchebag and his weird obsession with pointless, meandering stories.

[@DanielA-yg3un]

@@zanesnep400 He definitely seems to completely miss the epic space drama/mythology style of the classic bungie games.

[@halinaqi2194]

Is he not the reason why the halo 3 terminals contradict halo 3s main story? By making the forerunners a separate species than ancient humans? Thereby making 343 guilty sparks lines in CE, 2 and 3 make no sense?

[@ixlndvsxtc]

Pierre should change the 343 name to 686 to shitt on 343 like they shittted on Bungie's Halo legacy.

[@5hane9ro]

It's shocking how much 343 has failed in the past decade. Halo reach and 3 still beat most modern shooters in terms of quality and content and all 343 had to do is expand on those

[@Rhysto115]

It seems humans just hate having to follow someone else’s work. Kinda like the halo Tv show. A cinematic well written story was already laid out for them but they absolutely could not possibly imagine recreating what was already great. Seems like everyone that gets in these positions looks at what bungie did and it’s greatness and just throws it out in hopes for there own personal vision

[@nutyyyy]

Honestly I would have been happy to have a bunch of prequel games where you fight the Covenant throughout the war. Would it be somewhat unoriginal? Sure... but it would be a hell of a lot better than what we got.

[@aureliannatuiscaesar421]

I honestly think its both incompentency or hatered for the source. These mutants want to destroy things we love and enjoy. 343 handiling is pure incompentemce. The TV show was done out of malice and hatered for what Halo is.

[@thetrashking6747]

Bungie did amazing and reach is my favorite

[@KoylTrane]

I don't get it. I played Reach when it got ported and after beating the campaign on hardest difficulty I say it's one of the most overrated games ever. The controls are so slow and unresponsive, weapons felt weak. Felt like a baby's first shooter.

[@JusteDesserts]

“That’s the entitlement of people who never had to build their own audience.” That line goes so hard. It applies to anyone who inherited, instead of created something great. Halo has become the video game equivalent of the Simpsons

[@Valdrex]

I'm just baffled that someone thought that changing from "we create games that we want to play" to "we create games that inspire friendship" was a good idea. In all seriousness, that kind of thinking is probably why modern AAA games are so bland and lacking any sort of lasting value. When you try to make art that appeals to everyone, you end up with garbage.

[@Homerboy44]

"Look up indie games" count: 43

[@CJ-hd9nn]

Right? They’ve gotta be so out of touch to not realize how diverse Halo’s fan base was. If you like something, it doesn’t mean that only people with the same skin color as you will like that thing. It’s ridiculous I’d have to explain that to studio executives. It seems like a common fatal flaw for those engaged in artistic endeavors to become obsessed with trying to recapture the success of their older work, without really understanding what made it successful. All of a sudden, they’re making something that they think other people will like, instead of making something meaningful to themselves, and the difference is palpable. It’s incredible that Bungie used to have the self awareness to value this as a principle, and disappointing that they’ve blatantly and unknowingly lost their own artistry.

[@diego2fuego869]

I mean even games that make u want to be friends can be really good army of two was great but they don’t do that at all w the way they make the chats less usable

[@Visstnok]

Also when you shoehorn in people based on superficial metrics to be muh progressive.

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

Just your typical "progressive" rot ruining everything it touches.

[@fyiicheckforspies]

Remember when people made games because they liked playing (and making) games? It's not "old thing good, new thing bad" when people genuinely cared about what they made vs. people appeasing investors nowadays.

[@christophbeck1305]

And that is why the indie scene at least has still that specal feeling to it that you no longer find in The AAA part of gaming

[@icantthinkofagoodusername4464]

By the sounds of it, most development studios under Microsoft at the moment have actually been given a lot of freedom. Psychonauts 2 is a prime example of that. Halo Infinite is an example of how that lack of oversight can let poor leadership go unchallenged, but it seems to have been working out for other studios. Weirdly enough, EA's also been killing it with their single-player game output too. Not all new triple-A games suck. There are still gems coming from the larger publishers once in a while.

[@xXYannuschXx]

Sadly thats most of the AA and AAA space nowadays. Luckily there are still some exceptions and indie games.

[@bluespidergaming7719]

@@icantthinkofagoodusername4464 ea seeemed to think that single player has no money to it thats why its suprising that fallen order came out Microsoft on the other hand seems great at letting there franchises kick and scream to death because incompetent studios they created to keep franchises going ex. 343, The coalition

[@christophbeck1305]

@Please Get This 1 Right I am inclined to agree Double A has usualy the marketing to not get unnoticed like a Lot of Indie titles (I am still mad that I didn't know about Synthetik until The last big steam Sale) but in general you find that spirit that videogames used to have in indie and Double A games. Double A games have the advantage of having a slightly higer budget but not so high that it needs to chase trends and add Microtransactions. Indie games get around that kind of budget constraint via Early Access on steam (yes I am in favor of early access on steam because at least they are honest and tell you it's a work in progress) to some extent but there is a lot of Junk out there amongst the indie titles as well.

[@requiemagent3014]

They specifically hired people for 343 that hated Halo. That despised this entire franchise. Kinda hard to sympathize with any of those clowns.

[@hyperdimensionbliss]

Don't forget that they handed the franchise keys to Frank O'Connor, someone who literally did nothing for any of the Bungie titles except writing terrible contradictory "lore" entries and has never played a Bungie Halo game whatsoever. There's a reason Halo 4 ignores everything that happened previously and instead only acknowledges the 0.01% that O'Connor wrote and was stuffed away into terminals and botched marketing material.

[@aidan8473]

dont worry none of those people stayed longer than two years lol

[@jamyhvt6271]

343 WAS PEOPLE WHO STILL WATED TO MAKE HALO WHAT ARE YOU ON

[@joshuavidrine889]

@@jamyhvt6271 Correction: 343 is people who wanted to make Halo theirs. They changed the whole art style, ignored the story and themes of the Bungie games, changed the multiplayer formula, and then changed how we recieve the game by shipping out barely working products that they staple up and gradually, slowly fix over time. Halo 4 was their only complete game at launch, and it wasn't a bad game. It just wasn't a good Halo game.

[@thefactory7221]

I still find it funny that the studio is named after 343 Guilty Spark, the guy that betrays you at the climax of the story.

[@LaperLarden]

Ahhh, Ed Fries. He was easily the best head of game publishing that Microsoft ever had. Which makes sense, seeing as he was a video game programmer as well. It's almost like, hiring people who have a passion for a certain thing (instead of people who climb up the corporate ladder) are the best choices for the job? 🤔

[@MoronicRoc]

Another good example is FromSoft being managed by none other than Hidetaka Miyazaki. Because who else to manage the company than the person who knows the game design the best?

[@MoronicRoc]

14:30 Ironically, the game that has the most in-your-face RVB references doesn't even have the teams being Red vs. Blue.

[@Sheikah_Architect]

Someone said 343 is named after 343 Guilty Spark-who betrayed Master Chief-and I can't believe I didn't notice it sooner.

[@MozambiqueEnjoyer6097]

TWICE, and I saw that as a kid. I wished I was wrong.

[@jdbb3gotskills]

It makes too much sense and it’s sad

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

This is the greatest fumble in gaming, 343i rather make shitty marvel tier quips at their own fans than fix the game and raise a fanbase of shills than make a good halo game. I am gonna be honest after the 3 months of halo infinite launch I got really upset about halo, The tv show releasing didn't help and I had my own reasons for being upset about that. It just felt like everything we waited for was a lie built up by many 343 shills and halotubers. I was kinda sold a lie before infinite launch that 343 changed and things would be different this time, Slowly seeing it unfold made me realize the truth about everything and I felt anger towards everything that happened. But after months, that anger turned into apathy. I kinda realized that nothing is gonna change for halo because microsoft is not gonna do anything and neither is 343. But coming to that realization made me try out more mods and check out more fan creations. I know its cliché to say the fans do it better than the devs, But its really true here. While halo will probably never be good again and will forever be in a state of failure due to alot of the reasons stated in nerds video. You can still find love for the franchise in the things you or others create.

[@chocbartowbar2668]

well said, exactly my thoughts

[@aidan8473]

Cautious optimism about the new heads, and season 3 drops in like two weeks with a bunch of new maps and fixes. It's a shame but idk i still enjoy Infinite and the MCC quite a lot. Just wish it got some new fans in here

[@saltedhorsemeat4843]

Master Chief as an emotional protagonist was already handled pretty well in Halo 3 - he barely jokes around anymore, Cortana is missing, the Covenant are ravaging Earth, the Flood is coming and the end of the universe is nigh, he’s visibly lonely, dead serious and obviously shocked when Johnson gets killed and when the entire human fleet is destroyed by the Ark portal opening, he’s just too subtle and emotionally reserved of a guy to make it audible in anything but body/head language It’s why I think that if there was ever another Halo series where Chief is in the lead, he’d probably work better with another protagonist or two to share the spotlight with, let the Chief be himself while other fellow soldiers fill the other character archetypes to compliment his actual personality

[@mario-k.]

Or as side character like in forward unto dawn

[@saltedhorsemeat4843]

@@mario-k. Yeah that too, but since the Halo TV series wanted him to be the main character so bad I’m thinking more along the lines of a retread of that idea He works better as a video game protagonist for being so quiet and reserved, but it wouldn’t take any major tweaks for him to work on TV, like I said he just needs some other main characters to work with or clash with his personality, then you get to decide how cool and funny he can be or how grim and silent you make him

[@alphabloodhawk]

Finally someone whos saying it.

[@ThatOneAverageIdiot]

Let arb back in

[@saltedhorsemeat4843]

@@ThatOneAverageIdiot Arby was a cool character to pair Chief with, he’s like his alien counterpart in character - stoic, killer of millions, the single most dreaded people in their respective militaries, and a lonely existence In a way I think he’s like this mirror for Chief if he got the good-ending he deserved, where Chief is sent off to lose more friends, become the enemy and continue to try to save everyone every time something he’s involve in goes wrong, the Arbiter managed to go back home, become a revolutionary hero among at least half of his people and negotiate peace between most species of the galaxy. Compare being remembered as a diplomat with a warriors code of honor versus being remembered as the savior of humanity but a controversial figure among your own people and the rest of the galaxy If Arby comes back it’d have to be strictly for the coolness of it since to me it’s like having Chief1 and Chief2 join forces to kick tons of ass together, which is probably even better than giving the writers a headache about how to give it a deeper meaning

[@blastingsound]

I grew up playing CE on the Original XBox ... nothing can compare ... the ambience of the maps, the silence when alone... or the loud crashing/exploding/laughing/screaming while playing with my brother and sister or cousins ... those times were truly special ... even before all the "I've been playing since Halo 3" youtubers. .. now when me or my friends bring up Halo ... literally any semblance of debate over the topic dies instantly with laughter at the mere mention of "10 month season" ... or even "match XP beta" ... its well past the grievance stage lol

[@pododododoehoh3550]

WTF DISTRICT 9?! Thats one of my all time favourite films! I never knew it was the result of a guy who was gonna make a halo film. AHHH, the missed opportunities! Why was I born to this cursed version of reality!

[@CoffeeSA96]

Infinite not having a career progression system is the biggest reason for the population decline

[@christiansmemefactory1513]

modern gamers need le new shiny thing non-stop. Should probably also mention that Infinite added aim assist to Mouse and Keyboard. The most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in an FPS.

[@christiansmemefactory1513]

@@EggEnjoyer they added it on mouse because it's overpowered on controller. Aim Assist is obscene in Halo. It's only casual low skilled players that think otherwise, because the idea of having a soft aimbot and still being a terrible player is too hard a pill to swallow. Also, literally nobody plays Infinite on PC. Mouse is allowed at the pro level in Infinite. Nobody uses it. And for good reason. So if you get slapped by dudes on PC in Halo, I got news for you lol.

[@KampzOnXbox]

@@EggEnjoyer since halo 4 no scopes have been easier to hit that shooting at an elites head from the back with a rocket launcher point blank looking 180 the other way.

[@blitzstrk0]

@CrunchyWolf In MCC I actually felt at a disadvantage being a purely kb/m player for shooters because not only do controllers have strong aim assist they have higher bullet mag than the default levels for us. This is absurd for so many reasons.

[@deriznohappehquite]

There were dozens of reasons why infinite failed. I don’t think you can really pinpoint one reason.

[@lloydpatam4189]

343 bragged about their Slipspace Engine and now they are immediately going to switch to Unreal Engine (which is a decent engine). The terrible management from Microsoft and 343 pretty much killed the Halo franchise.

[@citizen3000]

Every game switching to UE isn’t a good thing. You like the unique feel of Halo games? Fat chance 343 will be able to recreate that in UE.

[@lloydpatam4189]

@@citizen3000 Let's be honest here, they already failed to get that unique feel of Halo before the engine switch.

[@deriznohappehquite]

@@lloydpatam4189 Yeah, just look at the videos of the guy stepping side to side in Halo 3 vs. infinite. Look at the physics. Halo Infinite has some elements of Halo design, and for that reason it’s the best Halo game 343i has made, but there’s nothing of value left in Slipspace that would be lost by going to Unreal.

[@doltBmB]

Unreal is vastly overrated, and has been an absolute disaster for PC gaming for the past decade.

[@gogousa6661]

SlipSpace is the Steven Gerrard of gaming engine

[@LeeFox1337]

They had 4,5, MCC and Infinite to NOT FUCK IT UP. Halo 4 and 5 caused a massive divide. MCC was broken until years later when it went to PC and even then there were problems. And then they took the nothing they learned and put it into Infinite.

[@halinaqi2194]

Halo mcc is probably the best way to experience halo right now, (at least the PC version) since there are mod tools and workshop. Yes I know there are some issues that the mcc version of halo 2 and ce have, things that are broken that work on the original Xbox releases, and it should be fixed, but currently I say that halo mcc on pc is the way to go.

[@Grogritark]

@@halinaqi2194 It's still very sad that 343's only triumph is still marred with utter incompetence. They couldn't even repackage Bungie's Halo games and not cock it up. I have a friend who says 'But you must like 343 because you play MCC which is a 343 game!', it makes my blood boil 🤣

[@ShishouDzukiZaManako]

@@halinaqi2194 im content to leave the franchise to its fate... i have my old discs. i'll let them be the Disney of games; vile, unworthy, a reminder that failure can be found anywhere when those in charge don't care about what came before.

[@Janx14]

Yeah I remember Frank O'Connor's article he put out in the official xbox magazine theorizing about halo 3 shortly before he joined them. And in it he hoped the flood wouldn't be in the game. Like...how do you not have the flood in the finale of the trilogy? They literally just captured high charity had access to untold numbers of vessels. It shows just how he didn't understand well...story telling. Did he expect bungie to just say the covenant took care of the flood off screen? Well...given how h5 and infinite both handled villains from the previous games...I guess yes. And then surprise surprise, since he became franchise director the flood have only appeared in HW2 and in some dumb mood for h4 that didnt even look like them.

[@Slender_Man_186]

And even then, their entire appearance in Halo Wars 2 made no damn sense, we blow up High Charity and activate Installation 04-2 at the end of Halo 3, War 2 basically pulled the same shit Rise of Skywalker pulled with the Death Star.

[@Janx14]

@@Slender_Man_186 Honestly I find 343's handling of halo to be eerily similar to Disney's blunders with Star Wars. Except Disney sometimes puts out some okay stuff while 343 continues to bumble about.

[@KingdomKillaz117]

As someone dealing with bad company management, I have to say that what you all really see and seem of focus on is really just the tip of the iceberg.

[@deriznohappehquite]

Yeah, that makes sense. We only really get press releases and the end product. We don’t see the toxic, unorganized work environment, and we don’t understand it.

[@highjumpstudios2384]

Actually, the sniper rifle you showed in the district 9 segment is a South African Denel 20 20mm anti material rifle. It was probably chosen because it's a rifle that's manufactured in South Africa, and would be there. But it does look an awful lot like the halo sniper rifle, so you still have a point.

[@Slender_Man_186]

Halo’s sniper was directly based off of that sniper, similar to how the Famas and XM-8 served as inspiration for the BR.

[@highjumpstudios2384]

@@Slender_Man_186 unfortunate that the halo sniper rifle is only chambered in .50 cal

[@NovaKaiser21]

I think you really got it right with this analysis of 343. I was huge on Halo from CE-Reach and I kinda dropped it afterwards. It really shocked me how similar 4 was to COD. I like COD to be honest, but when I boot up Halo, I want to be playing Halo. 343 was really trying to differentiate themselves from Bungie, but just copied wider trends in gaming. They basically landed on a worst of both worlds situation.

[@josesosa3337]

Purposely not hiring former devs is scummy. Sounds like they didn't want a potential ego clash.

[@ThatOneAverageIdiot]

This is the funniest reason of them all as to why game series get ruined so often Like dude, your bright idea is to actively avoid hiring the guys with the MOST experience making the series? The people who know the essence of it firsthand and understand what the audience enjoyed and wanted from it. Only thing I can say to them at that point is enjoy the player drop

[@NorthYeezy]

What bothers me as a long time fan is that other long time fans keep giving these people money

[@redjupiter2236]

The Master Chief Collection is the only good thing to come to halo since Bungie left. Ironically it’s made up of all the Bungie games.

[@hipmp5]

Halo Wars 2 was great

[@redjupiter2236]

@@hipmp5 It would’ve been better if they adapted the story into an FPS and not an RTS

[@blitzstrk0]

@@hipmp5 No.

[@quadbecky14]

@@blitzstrk0 Well for one it's not even made by 343 and 2 why?

[@blitzstrk0]

@@quadbecky14 Some us play actual good rts games made for PC and not casual baby strategy games that belong on mobile.

[@thedude9001]

Nothing better than waking up to a Shredded Nerd upload.

[@lesbianduck7862]

What about waking up to a Shredded Nerd in your bed?

[@thedude9001]

@lesbian Duck god I wish

[@ItatsuMagnatsa]

With the Same Leadership in 343, they will never change. Frank O'Connor is 1 of the Sources of this Poison. In Halo 3, he tried to Change the Lore through the Terminals. I saw a Video from someone who literally covered this.

[@henrybenson1501]

13 years of pain and humiliation from arrogance and stupidity.

[@motozealot5176]

Ahhh 343i The masters of fixing one issue then creating 500 new ones, doubling down, and wondering why no one wants to play their game

[@mynamejacob8678]

The one thing 343i don't understand about halo, it's not about the sprint nor the shields nor Master Chief. It's the combat. I booted up CE with no idea who master chief was, no idea of the story nor cared, but soon as I popped down on that ring i was blasting the AR like it was a futuristic gladiator set, blood spouting everywhere and felt very visceral. That's what attracted so many people to Halo - the combat (how many people talk about punching an elite's dead body til the purple spray reduces your xbox to 2 fps?) It was the turn of the 21st century and that futuristic yet savage gameplay really hit hard and hit home. Everything else was an after thought, no one cared about MC or the lore until that was good. And 343 have reversed it without the combat being as savage. To further prove this point it is literally in the title - Combat Evolved. There were lots of games before Halo that didn't hit as hard and they wanted to create the combat but evolved, harder more savage, and it exploded. 343 do everything else but look at the name of it and the combat.

[@justsomehalofan4386]

What boggles my mind about these corporations is how do they expect a product to be successful and continue to be successful while being completely ignorant to what made it successful in the first place. It's so simple yet all of them seem to miss it, or are aware of it but think the consumer is stupid enough to keep purchasing a low quality product.

[@Sqdlow]

“What’s a Party? Ive Never been to one of those.” Absolutely killed me 😂😂😂

[@fGlassmanN]

“The original Republic Commando” is there something you know? 😳

[@iKiwed]

The video before watching yours is called “How to make the audience cry in a movie”, and the video showed that the key point lies on the term “Injustice”. When it’s about injustice, we know that that figure didn’t deserve what they got. Similarly, Halo fans are angry towards 343 because they see injustice towards a series that used to have a great value, and it feels like if 343 could do something for the series. This is why the Halo community is so moved on content creation like forge maps and modes: to give proper value to Halo. Hopefully the new 343 Industries managed by Pierre can actually give justice to Halo.

[@iBMcFly]

Best thing the number company ever did was to let us play the bungie Halos again(MCC)…

[@thedude9001]

Once they got MCC to work that is lol

[@gogousa6661]

Got an Xbox like 3 years after MCC release and it didn’t work

[@iBMcFly]

@@gogousa6661 yet it’s worked perfectly for me since the PC release.

[@madness3369]

I remember Reach. God that shit was good.

[@iBMcFly]

You spelled three wrong.

[@Debilm4nzs-zu9bc]

@Please Get This 1 Right that's not how combat evolved is spelled

[@blitzstrk0]

@Please Get This 1 Right Incomplete, hitscan, inferior health system, annoying unintended mechanics.

[@iBMcFly]

@Please Get This 1 Right lol twoshay…

[@E55666]

3 was better but yup still good

[@brazmann9571]

After about 3 months Infinite was released, and nothing had changed, I wasn't even mad, I was just kind of like, well, I saw that coming. It was weird, but deep down I knew it would flop just knowing 343 and their track record. I had also heard of many issues within the company like use of contractors and poor testing environments for their builds prior to Infinite being released. And their communication with the fans was just awful. For example it was so weird to see Halo marketing with stuff like the Master Chief and the Halo Infinite logo on Monster cans in 2020, yet there had been radio silence from 343 on any kind of update to the game whatsoever. Really strange. Like, is this happening, or not? And when? Oh, the Slipspace engine barely works, but you still want to release it? Oh, okay, makes sense now.

[@MozambiqueEnjoyer6097]

Thank you for setting the myth that "most of Bungie went to 343 to keep working on Halo" straight. People keeping parroting that without ever looking into it. Worst goddamn thing in the community in my opinion.

[@evansuarez5432]

Naming 343 after one of Halo’a villains is very apt

[@Atilolzz]

That haircut+eyes combination will never get old

[@user-jx6bt2tw5q]

I love the part of the Halo show where John Halo fucks up and then a womyn goes up to him and says "you need to do better sweeteye"

[@NemesisOgreKing]

I knew something was wrong when Master Chief talked during gameplay at the start of 4. One of Bungie's tenets about Chief was that he only talked during cutscenes. The player was in control during gameplay, 'action dictated response'. 343 just threw that out the window.

[@Nighterac]

And they gave him a ton of unnecessary filler lines that he doesn't need to say like the 50th version of saying "Cortana" slightly differently that Steve Downes had to record, or great lines such as "I thought we had a truce with the Covenant" (they never did, the Elites weren't considered a part of the Covenant anymore)

[@Ihateironyanddumbusernames]

If youve ever played Bungie's halo games obsessively till 4am with buddies having a blast the entire time, you'd know halo isn't just about competitiveness. It's primarily a party, laugh when I die, oops I brute shoted our warthog into my entire team then grenade spammed a teleporter kinda game.

[@Qballiz2kool]

Gotta wonder what the defense force that was heavily defending 343 when the game released is doing now.

[@GummyKermit]

They're still coping

[@ptolemaicfoxxo3032]

“We create worlds that inspire friendship” They say as they actively make a game where you murder entire alien races

[@Gameplato]

“343 delivered a brilliant game in spite of itself.”

[@bbfreak10000]

Geez that quote at 3:20 is so embarrassing. What the hell happened to bungie

[@squigin3380]

Younger people just can't begin to comprehend how big halo really was back in the day and how it's now a shadow of it's former self. I don't think I've to this day seen bigger hype leading to a launce since halo 3 except maybe no man's sky but I still think H3 hype was bigger. If you had told us back then halo wouldn't be the top dog in gaming like ten years plus later we all would of laughed at you and would of in no way taken you seriously. It really was that big and I'm so glad I got to experience it, it really felt magical as cheesy as that sounds.

[@flipsvstheworld]

Crisis averted. He made another Halo video. Reset the clock

[@NinesNX]

I find it ironic how Bungie constantly crying about how they want to move on from halo and create new things yet it’s almost ten years and they only released two garbage live service games.

[@sealboy1211]

Ah yes, the midnight releases. Another casualty of the hellscape of modern day gaming we find ourselves in these days. Yea…..the burning crusade….halo 2……I went to more. But man, you could FEEL it in the air those two nights. All minds wrapped in festive vibes, gaming at its highest moments really could bring all creeds of all sorts together.

[@fojisan2398]

Going to the night release of Monster Hunter World was exciting for me

[@gogousa6661]

Was finally old enough to drive to a midnight release when Halo 4 released. Long lines Big atmosphere Big laughs It was an insane level of hype and anticipation Honestly that’s the last moment I felt like Halo was Alive

[@Grogritark]

Burning Crusade, what a time. Stop it, you'll make me cry 🥲

[@sealboy1211]

@@Grogritark it’s just onions man, neither of us are crying. Totally onions stop cutting them it burns my eyes.

[@brup123]

You absolutely hit the nail on the head with your point that, during Halo's prime from Halo 1-3, other FPS developers failed because they blindly copied Halo's mechanics without thinking about WHY it worked and whether those same mechanics actually work outside of Halo or the game they're making. 343 made this EXACT same mistake when they took over Halo - they started incorporating mechanics and trends from other popular games without considering why they were popular, and whether it actually works in Halo at all. The answer in hindsight (and frankly even without hindsight) was that those mechanics just do not fit Halo and never should have entered the franchise. Halo should have kept being Halo, and it likely would have been magnitudes more popular than Halo is today.

[@lesbianduck7862]

Cannot fathom why people still want and defend sprint in Halo, especially after so many people who worked on the original games multiplayer have come out saying it just didn't work

[@mattd5240]

Another problem was that the people they hired didn't like Halo, which is antithetical to making a Halo game.

[@MozambiqueEnjoyer6097]

It's like Arbys hiring a vegan cook. Doesn't make any sense.

[@jameshodgson3656]

16:55 "they chose a gun that looks like the halo sniper" nah thats a south African Denel DTW-20 which the halo sniper was based on. District 9 is set in South Africa so it just made sense to use as a prop, since the film had help from the army.

[@ultrajeb5689]

New favourite channel, loving it!

[@elitetripod4188]

I can still remember lining up outside my local gamestore at 5 in the morning to be first in line to get my preordered copy of Halo 3 Limited edition. I was too poor to buy the legendary edition so missed out on the helmet :( I got the game home by 9 and played it non stop on legendary til I finished the campaign. It was a once in a lifetime experience from a once in a lifetime franchise (even though I think Halo 2 was a better game overall). Now, I wouldn't even play a new Halo game if you gave it to me for free. It has become so twisted and rotted, it's a mockery of its former self. Halo needs to be put down and left to rest.

[@rootyp]

I’m old enough to experience the Launch of all the Halo games. I went to midnight launches of H2 and H3 at EB Games. These games were a phenomenon. The gameplay, UI, sandbox, multiplayer interaction, the campaign, split screen, proximity chat, game modes, forge, custom games, the sounds of weapons and environment… the MUSIC! I know these games almost killed Bungie but we were given masterpieces. We may never again have something like that but at least we have the memories.

[@Sound557]

I wish I could tell younger me playing Halo Reach in 2010 that even over a decade later there hasn’t been a good game since.

[@ORLY911]

some people say 343 got too much hate...no, they got what they deserved. this wasnt one bad game, or one bad employee being toxic, it was over a decades worth of questionable decisions and bad management, with 3 bad games to show for it. Hopefully the MCC dude redeems them, new management was the only way forward as well as completely scrapping infinite (the live service model made the game inherently unfixable, on top of the engine not being easy to work with).

[@gogousa6661]

The term “Halo fans are entitled..” being thrown around in those days as a shield from criticism was so gaddam annoying

[@MozambiqueEnjoyer6097]

@@gogousa6661 It's like drinking good clear water for years then the new landlord pisses in your well and gets mad when you tell him that the water tastes bad.

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

Honestly, it's the death of passion that killed gaming more than anything. Gamers got forced out by corporate types after HR squealed in their ears that it was bad optics to have icky ists and phobes working for them. The replacements generally loathe games, and gamers, and they make awful products that demonstrate that hatred in full display. Honestly, pretty much every non Japanese AAA title is absolutely awful, and Forspoken proved that even the Japanese can't save a game written and designed by people who hate games and gamers; at this point, indie is really the only hope.

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

@Arthur Brown Yeah, the ESG scores and top down "diversity" mandates have nothing to do with incompetent management being hired. You serious?

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

@Arthur Brown "You really don't need to bring ESG into it", NO, you don't WANT me to bring ESG into it, because it's placing blame squarely on ideologues such as yourself, hence why you are mad about me actually addressing root causes instead of pretending that the problem just magically happened for no reason like you wish was true. Yes, O'Connor was poison to the story, but things like dressing Cortana up like a nun, the bait and switch with Locke instead of playing as Chief, and other story elements are 100% due to ESG and you know it. There was also far more management that Ross and O'Connor, though you obviously knew that already and are just trying to obfuscate the issue. Prime example of why gaming is dying though; even """gamers""" spend more time defending corporations from extremely valid criticism than they do actually holding them to task for any reason.

[@williamgripshover331]

last time i was this early halo was still a good game

[@RiskOfBaer]

It really is frustrating. A successful franchise only needs two things to survive and keep thriving: staying in touch with your fans and giving them what they want, and not growing complacent and releasing bad or unfinished video games. Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy (despite some bumps), Yakuza, Legend of Heroes games, Tales games, Souls games, and many more gaming franchises follow just those two steps and are rewarded by continuous success and dedicated fanbases. It's such a simple recipe, it pains to see how many big companies screw up something this simple purely due to their own stupidity or greed...

[@bigmack70]

It was obvious 10 years ago that 343 had absurdly incompetent leadership who neither understood, nor respected, nor liked Halo. Shame it took Microsoft and the general public so long to realize what fans knew a long time ago.

[@MrRBX]

Oh wow this could've easily been a kick of the dead horse of Halo Infinite but I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know. Your vids always are worth a watch

[@karim009]

Thanks for the video, is there a way to read the document you showed in the video regarding Xbox Live Matchmaking Feedback? Thanks

[@snark567]

You are quickly becoming one of my favorite youtubers

[@telacrap]

Get rid of the other 342 industries

[@blazeaster]

OMG is this the newest slow burn, bone-chilling, atmospheric shredded nerd video?

[@vaudeur]

h5 having some of the best mp ever and then just building from the ground up *again* was such a piss poor idea

[@IIUzzymanII]

I lol literally at the Haze reference. The “halo killer” what a joke that game was.

[@doggedlyhandsome8181]

Halo infinite is the closest 343i ever got to making a Halo game, but they forgot to make 80% of the game

[@deriznohappehquite]

Halo ended with 3 and Reach was the Eulogy.

[@willjames9]

“Like they’re a non meth-head who just stepped foot in Frankston”

[@gagecoutch3284]

BTW landfall was made before cgi took over those props are out there still

[@plastiquemonk]

there's a timeline where bungie got bought out by apple bc of their earlier connections with marathon and mac established itself as a major gaming platform. the best part is, i have no idea if its a utopia or dystopia

[@KILLERAOC]

“We create worlds that inspire friendship”…bwhahaha. Better not to have a motto than cringe like that!

[@AWittySenpai]

"A non Methhead who just stepped foot into Frankston" Hahahaha i absolutely get that welcome to Frankenstein

[@mitchellhorton9382]

You're the first person I've heard mention the fact that Bungie started on Mac and that Halo took like 8-10 years of work before it was initially released (after I believe *TWO* OS swaps from MacOS > Windows > Xbox)

[@_Devil]

The Bungie that made Halo Reach is not the same Bungie that exists now. All of the developers and writers who made Halo great left the studio long ago.

[@Kaimerah]

Lore wise I really hope halo does a reboot to H3. A lot of bungies lore that made halo more interesting by the end of halo 3 (at least in terms of the whole reclaimer stuff and humanity being forerunners descendants/forerunners themselves was so cool) was just retconned in H4 with all this reclaimer bs, mantle of responsibility, forerunners being a separate thing and humanity having been around when the forerunners were, and essentially making it so that master chief was destined to become this hero and the librarian implanting a gene song which caused humanity to create Spartans and chief and ALLLLL this extra shit is just too much fantasy bs for what was a military scifi series. That and idky the endless is a thing, we literally have AN ENTIRE ALIEN SPECIES in the San shyuum (the species the prophets are for those who don’t know) who are just gone from every 343 game… like why not have them lead a covenant off shoot faction, I feel like they’d be more interested in taking out humanity and the sangheli in an act of revenge or something way more interesting than a fucking random ass elite that seems to still believe in the great journey, or a brute. Like how cool would it be to have arbiter and his elite army (maybe mixed with some hunters, grunts, jackals etc) team up with humanity and watch them have an all out war against this new covenant faction made up by the san shyuum in response to the death of truth, and we could have San shyuum prelates take the place of elites as the main enemy you fight during gameplay all while uncovering more forerunner secrets and seeing to humanity reclaim more of whats theirs, which in turn would give this new covenant faction even more reason to want to wipe out humanity, since now humanity knows the power they hold when it comes to forerunner stuff and pose a bigger threat too this new covenant, and then have the flood come back finally

[@dawndarklight44]

we could have gotten a Sergent Johnson movie instead.

[@ninjaswordtothehead]

It's like corporate watched that Poochie episode of the Simpsons and said "That's the way we should do it.".

[@barretprivateer8768]

Halo 1-3 are the glorious trilogy. ODST was a neat DLC. Reach was a fairly fun tribute. The others don't exist as far as I'm concerned.

[@jakeharman1592]

The 2nd biggest blunder was all of the halo fans refusing to see this coming. They even encouraged 343 along the way. At least the “fans” are getting what they wanted….. (imo real fans would’ve tried to stop this from happening)

[@EvilPhoenix007]

No real Halo fan would support the IP going free to play. xGLLx stated this before and he got dogpiled from both sides regarding to the inevitable failure that was Infinite.

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@EvilPhoenix007 exactly, the words “free to play 10 year plan” were all the confirmation I needed that I wasn’t going to spend a single cent on this game, I didn’t and haven’t even touched it since late 2021.

[@nigeltheoutlaw]

I think real Halo fans tapped out after "Halo 4" was "CoD Doomguy: The Spacening". I didn't even finish the game because it was such a slap in the face. Then idiots got hyped for 5, which was even worse AND scammed and lied to fans by tricking them into thinking they would be playing as Chief. Then got hyped for Infinite, which was even worse than that!

[@redenginner]

I think 343’s biggest issue is that they should have taken the setting and aesthetic and used it to make something new. Chief should have stayed in the tube.

[@Dawntana]

The fact 343 believed Halo’s multiplayer is a team based competitive shooter and not an FFA arena party game really shows how out of touch they were with the game. For some reason ever since 343 took over, they stopped the tradition of doing remakes of old mp maps for online modes on their titles. Bungie constantly updated old maps for new games, for example Turf on H2 became Icebox on H3 and there’s a couple more examples. Why would they do that? Because it’s the science and strategy of how the game works. Its like how chess is played on a chess board. There’s a term it says “you can’t fix perfection.” That’s where i believe things went wrong. Halo 3 was a perfect game and only needed to be expanded upon. Trying to change it is like trying to replace basketball hoops in the NBA with hockey nets, then making the players dribble a basketball with a tennis racket. It doesn’t work, it becomes a different game which people aren’t familiar with. First impressions are everything. If you have expectations for something and those qualities aren’t met then it’s not what you love. Changing the trademark weapons and altering the ways they operate is like changing the way chess pieces move across the board. There’s a reason why games like chess have lasted centuries untouched with nobody changing things. It’s the same reason why a majority of people consider Halo 3 their favourite in the franchise.

[@aceathor]

I was a PC gamer since 92, so Halo 3... it was annoying that it didn't come out on pc. I played it for the first time 13 or 14 years later on PC. I can't play a FPS with a joystick. And I had a Wii at that time and after the PS3. Sorry if bad English, I'm French

[@hoonterofhoonters6588]

In korean mooncake-baking circles, I see people saying that Halo was just too old from fundamental design perspective and wasn't built to last passed the Xbox360. That idea seems odd to me, considering that the series starts losing cultural relevancy as soon as it changes hands, but let's just blame gaming trends as a whole so that we don't have to think about our the games themselves or how they were made. I mean, seriously. They just had to take Halo 3, refine some its new mechanics, tweak the underpowered weapons, add a few new ones and they would have had a popular Halo 4.

[@JJO117]

I love this take on Halo today. And yeah, Masterchief should be a support character like in forward unto down. I would like Halo to have a reboot or at least a spin-off prequel era.

[@maube8007]

The new management does not automatically make me hopeful. In spite of what they have achieved in the past, the have to SHOW me they can save Halo. Actions not words.

[@8instantramen]

NOOOOO MUTA GOT JAK'D

[@BrokenCircle1]

343 is hands down worse than EA and Activision. I'm no fan of them at all but here's the thing. When EA got massive backlash for the microtransactions in BF2 they backed down. 343 doubled down when they received their backlash. They doubled down AND lied.

[@redeyexxspaz4626]

You are a man of stronger moral fiber than me, I've been praying on Skull & Bones's down fall since AC black flag. And it's strengthened my faith.

[@kraptastic333]

17:03 why do they look like they have never held a gun before

[@ZSTE]

It's okay, a bunch of people will get their hopes up again next game and hype it up.

[@TheLEGITstuff]

Halo 3 and reach had the golden formula, and 343 & microsoft absolutely destroyed it. If anything it is super similar to what happened to the star wars franchise..

[@matthewbadger8685]

They think that the goose will lay whilst strung up by the neck.

[@brad5426]

Would it be worth making an update video? I dont know if Halo has changed since this half year upload.