How Did Halo Infinite Launch Like That? The Infinite Show

The Infinite Show, Episode 1.
Laper Larden: / laperlarden
FootedGhost: / footedghost
From microtransactions, to limited playlists, to performance, Halo Infinite's launch has been far from perfect. In this video, We discuss the state Halo Infinite launched in, and, more importantly, how it ended up the way it did. The Infinite Show, featuring Laper Larden and FootedGhost
Join the Discord: / discord
#Halo #HaloInfinite #HaloMultiplayer

[@ShreddedNerd]

Special thanks to Laper Larden and FootedGhost for this. Let me know what you guys thought of this.

[@centurymemes1208]

im actually glad forge wasn’t at infinite yet or else our MCC halo reach custom browser games would die off

[@LaperLarden]

Now I feel like a box of crackers. Maybe with some swiss cheese.

[@FootedGhost]

Laper Larden and his food analogies 😆

[@LaperLarden]

I aim to please!

[@stardust_2339]

The more cheese the more holes, therefore the more holes there are, the more cheese are there too?!

[@chrislee7222]

the analogies were actually really good, cant lie lol

[@FootedGhost]

Thanks for having me on! I had a great time talking with you both :)

[@lindholmaren]

Don't worry they'll have all the content that was missing (that they haven't said specifically that they've delayed, like forge/co-op), fix the progression and customization, and drop all the campaign DLC that shows the biomes shown off in the trailers for free, after the Christmas break COPIUM

[@KampzOnXbox]

After 10 years*

[@gtrblackhawk]

I’m glad I’m not the only one that understands this

[@pododododoehoh3550]

@@gtrblackhawk Amn said "COPIUM" you numb chuck

[@gtrblackhawk]

@@pododododoehoh3550 Woosh

[@TheFacelessStoryMaker]

Free Campaign DLC? Yeah I doubt that if the in game store for MP is any indication.

[@Nikkerman]

I could see there being a massive resurgance in fans with forge, the gameplay foundations of the game are just begging to have amazing customs on forge maps yet it's simply just not there yet.

[@simplynotthere4726]

It's sad to think that in a year or 2 halo infinite will finally hit it's stride

[@Kaimerah]

@@simplynotthere4726 sucks but im not too upset ive just accepted this is how a lot of games are. also apex legends and R6 didn’t hit their stride till a year in or in sieges case more like 3 years

[@quincygaming9529]

Just worried the majority of the community wont come back

[@Nikkerman]

@@quincygaming9529 oh the hardcore halo community will, it's the casuals that'll start moving on

[@malazan6004]

If it doesn't take a year plus

[@tomfoolery5844]

As much as I’d like to believe another year of development would’ve done Infinite justice, I think it would’ve just been a seventh year of development hell.

[@kianjames5650]

Is there an in game option to make the spartan nude? Oh I'd love that!!

[@ASDGA]

I've been wondering the same thing for ages myself...? I need the answer to this so I can go live again later, and have a quick ....

[@TheChadPad]

Good discussion. The fractured development team dynamic disturbed me. I had heard that they had people moving in and out on contract, having to pick up where others left off. I heard it's common in gaming, but that really frustrates me. It allows people to pass the buck to someone else too easily and there's a lack of responsibility I could see being bred in that kind of environment

[@CommanderAkio]

The 343 degree turn joke fucking killed me lmao

[@forwarduntodawn.]

they should make the player be able to choose their own gamemode to play to make challenges easier and the battle pass to be less tedious, in the last oddball match i've played i saw someone begging to kill the ball carrier to get their challenges done since he knows that oddball isn't gonna come up again for probably hours

[@TheManOnTheStreetOMG]

They just need to rethink the challenge and XP system entirely. It forces people to play a certain way instead of the way they want to, it should be trivial stuff that you get passively like weekly commendations, it should just be like get X amount of score in game modes of your choosing and be fixed each week rather than 'random' and forced. The challenges that require you to get wins are some of the most frustrating because you can have a really good game personally but then your team just throws it because a couple of them choose to go afk to get their challenge done and easy XP.

[@tomfoolery5844]

The last 3 years of development were very tumultuous, with Creative Director Tim Longo leaving in 2019 and Studio Head Chris Lee leaving in 2020 following the announcement for delay. I agree with Jason Schreier that Joseph Staten likely saved the game. Joseph even said that when he played it for the first time it simply wasn’t fun enough.

[@drummerAVA]

31:26… that was good 🤣🤣

[@TheSplashArmyy]

Really enjoyed watching this, I haven’t played halo since reach but still watch from the outside. Really nailed great points here really wanna see more!👁👅👁🤚🏻

[@bluejay1727]

Nice Video. I follow all you guys so glad that you had a trifecta going :)

[@ReNDDDG]

I always love your commentary on the halo series, you’re probably my second favourite next to the act man. Always able to put my thoughts and feelings in the series into words. Keep up the work!

[@quincygaming9529]

If you look at the marketing offensive Microsoft is going on at least here in the USA it is MASSIVE. I haven't seen THIS big of a marketing push for a game for as long as I can remember. Maybe back to like halo 3 or halo 2. That said im sure Microsoft will get the word around when new large updated come out. I dont think microsoft will allow us to forget Halo Infinite exists.

[@TravellingHalo]

Good on you lads for gettin together! Great idea.

[@jzassassin1255]

Good video lads the only thing I could add is maybe indicate who is talking at each moment, it’s easy to follow along but it might be visually pleasing, idk just a thought

[@coopercurtis8502]

You have gotta be kidding me. This is the dream team right here. I haven't started yet but I'm so excited to listen!

[@TheManOnTheStreetOMG]

If they just delayed it by 6 months to include forge, infection, custom games and co-op all together, they wouldn't need to worry about player retention - I'd be having the most fun I've had on Halo in years but they kinda dropped the ball with multiplayer by shipping the beta build a month early thinking they were doing us a favour. People forget they can play other games, I'm a fan but I don't need to devote myself to it. I'd rather play a Halo that keeps me entertained for hours than one I get bored of after I get the daily XP gains. I guess their reasoning for the early release is so that it can compete with BF and CoD but we've all seen how they're doing, as long as it gains momentum I don't care too much - just sucks that the next few months are looking pretty dry

[@pododododoehoh3550]

Dropped the ball on campaign even worse in my opinion, at least multiplayer can be redeemed in time. Sure campaign might be fun but its no where near what they promised and what it so easily could have been. Differrnt biomes and alien environments, unuiqe mission areas, set pieces and side missions, all the wildlife shown in the original teaser trailer to liven up the world could have made a masterpiece of a generation. Instead its an open world halo with less variety of environments than any other regular halo game and one of the most empty open worlds ive seen. Doesnt take any of the things that made open worlds like breath of the wild, dark souls, skyrim, gow, red dead and the like special. Its just a big green space with copy paste bases and missions. Its still a fun campaign but it toon 7 years and is still a shadow of what was promised and what it clearly could be.

[@gabethebabe3337]

I miss when the barrier to new content was $10 for map packs. But I guess spending $20 for the color red, two shoulder pieces, two emblems, and a nameplate is reasonable. Seriously I’ve seen people act like this is better than paid DLC when you at least got your money’s worth back then.

[@nappa3550]

It's just the standard in the industry nowadays..

[@Kryptik0III]

great video, hope you continue this.

[@TheManOnTheStreetOMG]

Saw a dude the other day with the bandolier chest, the vesda white coating and one of the shop stances. Dude must've paid like >$60 for that look. He even went negative and I was just thinking to myself, Jesus Christ.

[@Xtermenator217]

Would love more videos like this with them

[@garretttekampe9564]

I wanted to bounce a thought off of you guys. I think the decision to make multiplayer free to play was a decision that had a lot of strings attached like the battle pass system, customization lockdown and only a fraction of the content available at launch and extremely limiting it because of paywalls etc.. But that free to play model was so unwarranted because they still charged full price for the campaign. They are acting like the horrendous monetization was because they needed to make up costs of the multiplayer being free, but people are still buying the campaign. It's number one on steam and getting just as many players as the multiplayer. There's no loss of profit, that's a fallacy. They didn't have to make it separate, they could have made a better received system by keeping the campaign and multiplayer together and charging for expansions and non Halo extra content in the customization and then have a major selection of armors available to be earned by gameplay and progression. It seems the only reason things are the way they are, is because of the greedy sales tactics designed around manipulation of the players.. that's a bit unforgivable if that's true and I think it is.

[@soktherat777]

Low and behold they would go on to restructure the Tenrai event to have the armor from the trailers. Guessing you guys recorded this before the announcement.

[@ShreddedNerd]

yes

[@oldcrow6752]

Just a quick point about steam numbers I switched from steam to PC gamepass once campaign came out. Had about 150 hours on steam. Don't know if it tracks different

[@thedeanofbacon5270]

14 when MCC was released? I was 24 when CE released, lol. Am old, and not bothered by anything about Infinite except some gliches. Didn't expect much from a Halo not released by the OG Bungie.

[@Cheezmonka]

Not sure when this was recorded, but the Halo holiday stream has me pretty hopeful about the next few months.

[@underscore_5450]

Infinite is in desperate need of a roadmap. Whether its content, features, events, patches, ect. just give us a roadmap of what is happening and when. Getting told that co op is coming eventually and we'll get forge at some point just sucks. Even if it's a rough eta, just anything would be nice.

[@youngman850]

I really enjoyed this. You're all awesome

[@Xtermenator217]

Every time I here someone mention extraction from halo 4 it brings me so much hope I’ll see my favorite game mode return

[@ROCK_UNIVERSE97]

Not awful since I had so much fun but they definitely should have been alot more modes and the progression jesus.

[@mfspectacular]

The vcr xbone runs at 30fps? Explains why im so inconsistent in multiplayer. Guess i didnt notice cause i was regularly playing 360 reach til the mcc port

[@DrFoo11]

Anyone remember that sausage scene in Snatch? Turkish: How's that roadmap coming Charlie? Charlie: Next week Turkish! Turkish: Charlie, it was 'next week' 4 weeks ago.

[@tomfoolery5844]

Destiny does have similar development woes, but it was planned from its inception to be a live service game.

[@tuckerkrause5838]

On the Battle Royale part, using the Pelican Down island as the BR map would actually work pretty well, with a ton of good loot in the center downed pelican area but it being more dangerous and open for example. It's a good size for 100 players, and like y'all said with the looting and what not Halo is perfect to be a BR. Most importantly reusing the Pelican Down map could let them release the Battle Royale much sooner so they could bring up that playercount while Halo is still fairly new.

[@yellowhoodie5299]

Killed Zeretus while listening to this. Literally took me 40 minutes to prep for that fight and kill him, some BS

[@yellowhoodie5299]

Fun tho

[@johndodo2062]

I can't believe Microsoft still feels OK putting halo on the box for every console and they make games like this. Also, 343 only fixed mcc so they could sell the one x. If that system didn't exist, mcc would still be broken even more than it is now

[@kinnijones1213]

Every match should have Match XP like MCC. You can save up and trade that XP for BattlePass XP or Store Credits. Ex:100,000 M XP=1000 BP XP or 1000 Credits.

[@807D14M0ND5]

I'm not playing after my weekly challenge is done. Any thing that tallies up would get me to play more. Earn 300 of this medal, get this amount of xp etc. Anything.

[@corex7125]

Gaming

[@Qvartz_Lite]

EA was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual!

[@armstronggaming8566]

I will say that customisation in its current state, less is more

[@NeroLink1107]

Great discussion Bois! Fellow Aussie here, wondering if any of you boys are Melbourne based

[@ShreddedNerd]

I'm Melbourne based

[@807D14M0ND5]

Crt comparison with 30 fps falls a bit flat. Crt is great!

[@Monkeyman-qt1sm]

This game could of easily took over the shooter market once again, but it just failed in so many seemingly obvi ways that are unforgivable, first impressions are everything, at “launch” it didn’t have coop or forge which I was excited for, I didn’t have audio for the first 2 weeks because of a bug, the campaign was wayyyyy too short then multiplayer didn’t have enough modes or maps. Then the killer was the progression system, I quit and will never look back because of all that

[@masterofraw1175]

Only 40 minutes weak. Memeing aside good work

[@n7revan829]

If CoD vanguard and battlefield 2042 were not complete flops, would Infinite be as good or popular?

[@MrDavidRosca]

Yes.

[@gtrblackhawk]

Nope it’s just riding out from the diehard fans. Once something else new comes around that’s actually a well done game this game will be like H5 all over.

[@chrislee7222]

@ 10:52 I think Im getting old now or something, cause im starting to here this more and more now as time goes by, that devs "take too long" to update live services. From my perspective, they jumped on tackling some issues within the first month of it being out. i think it was more like 3 weeks or something when they started trying to change the progression system etc. Thats faster than some other games I can name. I swear we expect and demand so much from devs these days, we are gonna kill them lol Again I might just be old and thats ok, but a month isn't a long time for me whatsoever. I mean they do have to actually work on the changes first before they put them out there. If it were like 2 or 3 years then yes, they are taking too long. but do we really expect them to update the game every week? Idk im always confused by this

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Yeah. The suits pretty much screwed over infinites development. Really sucks to see investors ruin more fun for us. But this is halo 2 all over again where the game had dev hell and it turned out not as buggy as every other disaster this year.

[@camora_]

I'm hopeful that 343 will take all the feedback they're getting to heart. There's so much that feels deliberately implemented to wear you out and get you to start paying to skip challenges, which they've said they're changing, but takes away from the core halo experience that players were expecting. I just hope it doesn't take them months or years to replace the horrible rng/challenge based system they have.

[@shrey7387]

First letss goooo

[@user-mx1fq6qm6i]

The "1000$ for all the cosmetics" stuff is just a rumour. Yet *everyone* took it as fact to try and shit on the game

[@lowlyaa0974]

Halo 5 had some good multi-player but the campaign was bad. I still am deciding infinite's multi-player but I enjoyed the campaign despite it didn't feel like a halo game

[@deriznohappehquite]

The MCC still isn’t on par with the OG releases of the games in maany ways.

[@mrmadskillz1240]

Um

[@od13166]

infinite isnt all that rememberable to me ever since first few hours in campaign levels's looking are same as 7hrs in

[@chrislee7222]

Microsoft owns 343 right? I do wonder how much of the monetization was due to Microsoft being in their ear. It doesn't make much sense for 343 to create such an amazing core game of Infinite, then want to deliberately destroy it with all of these problems. Especially when we hear that some 343 employees were big advocates of delaying the game so it could launch better. It REALLY seems like 343 did things right this time around, but the big boss said no, you do it my way, and influenced an earlier release, and the way the battle pass is.

[@malazan6004]

And the most generic Far Cry world I never expected to see in a Halo game. Yet nobody wants to admit it's campaign is sub par.

[@mrdude1516]

taking a long time to update? are you joking? the games been out for less than a month and has gotten multiple fixes and add ons.

[@elwen8525]

My theory for why infinite is so crap is because every Xbox needs halo as a launch title. 343 didn’t really know where to go after 5 so they scrambled really hard to get something out and now their scrambling to try and give it content

[@georgemcdaniel4654]

You might as well what two years. For your review. And good luck no body cares. It's easy dude's it's a digital casino company. That's it. At least we can have a good laugh.

[@frank-b6169]

Honestly wish they delayed this game. I rather wait for my meal to be fully cooked then to eat it raw.

[@mangomadness6351]

Should have been delayed the lack of features is really hurting the game it sucks cause I wanna like it but any of the original trilogy games did something better than infinite even reach had a better story

[@georgemcdaniel4654]

They don't care dude. It's not regulated. What do you think.

[@mitchie2267]

DOOM was a better return to form than this mess of a game.

[@simplynotthere4726]

it almost wasn't, luckily they didn't swap out employees 2629493 times and actually kept focus

[@truthspeaker7878]

GAME NEEDS PLAYABLE ELITES AND 40V40 INVASION

[@truthspeaker7878]

,BATTLE ROYALE WOUILD BE COOL TOO

[@unknownwill4th549]

@@truthspeaker7878 no but 40v40 would be caotic

[@BestintheWest25]

The game is fine on Xbox One. “30FPS Literally unplayable awful... Stone Tablet” So I guess literally every Bungie Halo game is shit now.

[@KrozerRules]

Doesn't make it shit, it just makes the game feel awful

[@georgemcdaniel4654]

Dude's the road crap is a joke. And it's a 10 year progict. That's what they said. Sow what do you think.

[@georgemcdaniel4654]

Why cutting things out and putting things in like a store. To buy crap with no value. Just in the game. Yes you don't need a new Lambo but at least you can use it in real life.

[@andresdubon2608]

I liked the discussion, but had to dislike the video for that battle royal "need" comment.

[@harrybee5924]

You're fucking hearing things, man. They never said "need" they said "there *could* be room" for one to appeal to the normies.

[@andresdubon2608]

@@harrybee5924 They presented an issue, an issue that worries them from the past. Their stellar answer (at least for one of them) was BR. Am sorry but that's the definition of needs to me. And it's disgusting.

[@gamertone1999]

Laper Larden needs to understand that screaming at and bullying others in matches for buying shop items is not gonna help people 'join the cause' to lower prices. Its only gonna make players hate you and buy item shop cosmetics just in spite of what do and say to them. I still hope they lower prices and make other changes too, but im not taking my frustrations out on item shop buyers like an insecure child would. Otherwise great video with great topics

[@KabutoMushi_]

This video was cool until you guys started talking about making Halo into a Battle Royale