The Surprising Truth About Halo's Reboot Situation

[@ReactEmUps]

Favorite Halo?... GO!

[@israelfigueroa4197]

Halo reach

[@BrixsDNAfortnite]

THe first one? I don't know. Haven't played a single one.

[@Cato_Sicarius66]

Halo 2 for the nostalgia and Reach because 😭

[@BrettMedlock]

Infinite 🫣

[@Not_stoked]

3

[@verum117]

The guy talking at the end is the new leader of the studio all the leaders of the 343 Halos are gone the guy is the one who turned the Master Chef collection into a workable game with only 15 developers in other words I have more faith in him than Bonnie Ross etc

[@SilverViper1000]

But do not let your hope make you delusional. MCC is still broken in many ways and as long as Microsoft dictates where the studio has to go, it won't change a lot. There is much talk and we have listened. Through Rock,metal and time. Now they shall listen.

[@bombasticbadassbrigade3552]

This feels akin to 2018/2019 BEFORE the gameplay reveal. And we saw how that turned out... Must be painful to be an ex-343 developer, recommending UE, getting pushed out for recommending it, then seeing it adopted. I really hope Halo Studios is open to working with any devs that "dissented" previously (who were right all along)...

[@EthanRom]

TLDR. Slipspace Engine was based on the original Bungie era engine. The problem was it was poorly documented by Bungie and they didn’t train 343 how to use it. So basically when 343 got handed it they didn’t know how to get around it and use it effectively as Bungie did. Aside from that it was starting to get outdated. Slipspace is basically held together by duct tape and frequently crashes and bug ridden hence the mess that is Infinite

[@TakisEnjoyer]

Slipspace was a good engine. The problem is that Microsoft relies on contract workers a lot, more than half of all Infinite devs were on 18 month long contracts, and after they end they can't work again for at least 6 months. Now imagine you just started to understand how to use the engine after working with it for 18 months and Microsoft just says you bye bye so they can abuse the system. Of course the game will have problems. Now UE5 will let them abuse the system even more since they don't need people that know about Slipspace and they can just get new UE devs every year

[@EthanRom]

@@TakisEnjoyer I work in the design industry. Contractual work is common. Imagine you ship a game. What are you gonna do with all the employees you just gave full time employment to? It’s common practice for specialists to come in only when they are needed on a per project basis. Also I think you ignored what I just said. Slipspace was not good. It wasn’t really. If you’ve seen one of the interviews with Marcus Letho, he has said that Blam engine has poor documentation and only the original devs knew how to use it hence it was hard to train new people on it. It’s part of the problem why content roll out for Infinite is so slow. The tools they used would consistently crash and then you’d spend your whole day redoing what you just did. Working with a tool like that can be uninspiring and demoralizing for a game designer. Instead of focusing on being creative, you are focused on squashing bugs instead. You can download Unreal right now for free and learn it. It almost makes game development brain dead in a good way

[@Deliveredmean42]

​​@@EthanRomthe problem with that you just can't apply that practice on every industry especially game development, and that was 343 many downfalls. For a proprietary engine you NEEED to make them permanent employees not contractors, especially if some of those guys end up doing the documentstion work for future employees. You can tell the game engine was falling apart when the engine contractors leave with their knowledge with them.

[@TakisEnjoyer]

@@EthanRom and I worked in the gaming industry with proprietary engines and contract working just doesn't bode well with this. Again just imagine adding 100 people to work on the game just to remove them all from the project by the time they finally fully figured out your engine and then hire 100 more people that don't know anything about it and will have to learn from 0. Of course you'll have problems in this situation. This is where switch to UE works, but what could help more is I dunno, caring about your developers, let them master the engine and properly hire people instead of abusing contracts. I have some experience with Ubisoft that primarily use their own engines, and there are a lot of reasons to dislike them, some of which I share, but when it comes to stuff like this they're much better than what I heard about Microsoft.

[@tougeadventures2076]

Bungie used the Blam! engine and 343 made their own engine Slipspace

[@B-SybrZaku-ThendHaloAirsofting]

Saying 343 is just rebranding is genuinely wrong, they literally were uprooted, reorganized and almost all of the people in 343 have been replaced

[@blackrazor9011]

Fr. I get why people think 343 is just changing the name. But cmon 3 sets of layoffs all big names gone. With people that have worked on MCC and made it great now in front of this new company is actually awesome!

[@kobuna7577]

Think? We don't think they're changing the name we KNOW they are lmao they even reported it themselves

[@teagenwalker1365]

this guy here gets it. speaking of pierre as 343 is not right. he saved mcc and now hes here to save Halo. lets wait till he drops his first game to get negative

[@B-SybrZaku-ThendHaloAirsofting]

@@kobuna7577 you missed the point, sure it's, on paper, a rebrand, in actuality 343 stopped being 343 months ago with mass layoffs and dev switching and leadership changes. As they said originally this whole thing wasn't planned to be public, but they realized showing it is what would show people how devoted to changing and actually making us happier and more satisfied with halo.

[@glucky9970]

Yeah and replaced by what

[@epic_iram]

They nailed Infinite’s gameplay. The game plays so well and feels like Halo while also balancing some new features to modernize it with other multiplayer titles. Map design is solid af. They just released the game way too early and didnt roadmap the post release content. If they are able to use the extra time/accessibility that UE5 will provide to create a fully complete Halo game with a solid story, Halo could be back. But, I’ve had hope before and been let down, so we will see.

[@MasonOfLife]

Idk, I feel like the gameplay in multiplayer (the gunfights) got boring extremely quickly I can still play Halo 3, 2, CE and even Halo 5 multiplayer to this day and the gunfights still feel fun But in Infinite I just feel bored I’m not sure what it is exactly about it, although I do love the concept of the equipment in Infinite

[@cylerner]

The problem was that Infinite had extra time, YEARS OF EXTRA TIME. 343 and Microsft management killed any chance of the game being good, like the skull-and-bones developers. It might've felt nice, but in the end, it's a B- at best. More than half of the campaign content cut lies regarding customization and lies regarding co-op, forge, and split-screen. And that's the management side of 343. They were rotten to the core. The developers were too prideful of their work and resistant to anything Bungie. They actively turned down and mocked any ex-Bungie employee who came their way. The art department was exceptionally resistant and always wanted to put its own twist on the halo style. Also, the map design was okay. Maps like the launch site were terrible, and others were too big, not to mention random vehicle spawns. I have spent over 800+ hours in that game and have never driven a scorpion in a live match.

[@YuYuYuna_]

Infinite's movement and gunplay definitely were solid, but the weapon variety was/is awful. Going back to playing Reach or Halo 3 damn near every weapon was not just usable but had their own niche cases and combat situations they were good in. The brute mauler wasn't a great weapon but it was a mini shotgun you could grab if someone else had the shotgun or you were trying to sneak kill someone with a power weapon. In Infinite the only cool new weapon was the Skewer. The bulldog was just another one of 343's attempts to take a classic Halo weapon with an iconic design and scrap it and make an entirely new design. The Mangler was the same case, it's the brute mauler but renamed and redesigned to be a pistol(???). They also had a Human pistol - m50 sidekick - but instead of using the classic magnum design they made a new one and it looks like a generic real life glock? The Commando was effectively the DMR but remodeled. The Hydra was kinda cool but not really that exciting to use. The heatwave was a similar case, looked cool, had cool effects, wasn't very useful. Ravager was a boring weapon and looked like a giant rectangle block. Disruptor was a useless weapon. The shockrifle was good, they should keep that. The Cindershot was okay i guess, very forgettable. They also completely changed how the grav hammer works and feels which made the weapon kinda gross to play with, I hated it.

[@Deliveredmean42]

Not to mention an engine so problematic its the reason we dont have any big content xompare to Halo 5.​@@cylerner

[@SilverViper1000]

The engine definitely is not the problem.

[@Panyc333]

All of the devs and management from 343 involved with infinite are gone. Switching to UE5 is important since they contract support devs and UE5 will require very little onboarding for devs familiar with it. With slipspace contractors spent 3/4 of their contract just learning slipspace. This won’t be an issue now.

[@davidfrederiksen3185]

Not to mention that they had to spend insane amounts of money on the engine itself they could probably have created 3-5 halo games for that amount of money

[@SilverViper1000]

But you know, that they still have to alter the engine to make it work for a halo game, don't you? All bigger Studios alter the engine to suite their applications, so will "totally not 343". So in the end, it's getting easier but not completely blindfolded. Contruct workers are still the biggest issue of Halo and UE will it make just easier or Microsoft to abuse it.

[@Panyc333]

@@SilverViper1000 yeah, I already know this, along with most people. Thanks tho I guess.

[@MRxSNEAKY]

Halo 3 Starry Night trailer is the grit I need in a new Halo game. Also, the rule of cool was so prevalent in 360 era... look at Halo 3 and MW2 scale and set pieces

[@Ivanimirus]

True

[@corbinstevens5546]

Make Halo Couch CO-OP Again

[@needdles1]

All of 6 people will be happy for that.

[@stateyournameplease]

@@needdles1 clearly more people than 6...

[@Panyc333]

That promise from Bonnie Ross is what got her canned. Amidst all the turmoil at 343 her declaration to bring couch co-op in all halo games was her most public failure.

[@Deliveredmean42]

Well.moving to UE5 will make that dream harder to achieve now.

[@Ledout-c3y]

MAGA 2024. ✌️

[@korps2137]

Halo infinite was actually my favorite. I know it had its downfalls but for the most part I have a blast.

[@epic_iram]

Infinite has the best gameplay since reach/3 imo. The gameplay was so solid, they just released it unfinished

[@bobby_c07]

Gameplay is good. Everything else is bad.

[@hairybushman]

The game sucks!

[@JoshRojo98]

@@bobby_c07saying that with that incredibly insane art style, graphics sky boxes, customization forge and eargasmic soundtrack in it? Dunno man, seems like you’re objectively wrong.

[@stormbreaker7373]

@@bobby_c07you’re just bad at it

[@RednekGamurz]

Something to note is that they did an interview on Xbox Wire (I think that's what it's called) where they go into more detail with things. They specifically mention that they're trying to get the physics and game feel to be as close to the previous games as possible, even down to the subtle nuances. That was the big thing that worried me about the engine switch. Halo has such a distinct feel to it, which is why I think they tried to stick to Blam/Slipspace for as long as they did. Really hoping it's true, and the new Halo games will still have that Halo feel to them. Something else to note is that the models for Chief and the Elites are mostly just ripped from Halo Infinite, which might explain why they look a bit off. They're likely just placeholder assets, but it is weird that there's some slight modifications to the Infinite CE armor, like the 117 being on the chest like it is on Chief's Infinite armor, so idk.

[@McQuiznos]

Chief probably looks like an action figure because that’s how he looked in halo ce. As they said they’re not making a game it’s a test, seems they’re recreating scenes or a theme of halo ce. And Chris always looked super sleek and clean back then due to the graphics and such. That all being said. He’s always been an action figure lol.

[@trevor9972]

There has been a group inside the studio pushing for change for 7 years. Things hit the fan during covid and not hitting their benchmarks. Sales, RTX timeline and issues with multiplayer game modes effecting single player. They had massive layoffs. In 2023 and that’s what prompted all of this.

[@smashdriven1640]

As a 3D artist you are absolutely right that the thing making the characters look toy-like is a lack of dirt and grime. It’s on everything in real life even if it’s hard to see. So when it’s missing it seems very off to our eye.

[@Deliveredmean42]

Yeah, especially dirt and scratches and wear that affects the shader e material of it. They could mimic how the halo structure look in the original halo 1, since you can tell they were rough around the edges and dirty around nature compare to the interior ones. Have it less shiny and the likes. For character definitely need some tweaking as well.

[@narthandel3305]

In my opinion, when it comes to pure game play, sandbox, and art style, infinite is one of the best games we had gotten in a while. However, the live service model and microtransactions made me slowly grow sick and tired of it until I quit playing entirely out of annoyance. I'm disappointed with halo infinite, because I feel like it had so much wasted potential.

[@RedMaxDragon]

Hello, love your videos, keep up the good work and thank you for always making my day better (bean a viewer for more than 7 years) !

[@sofaking1627]

This changes nothing until "Totally not 343" studios releases a good Halo game

[@Deliveredmean42]

It totally not 343 studio, since the leadership and the devs were replaced from the ground up. So it's just a different company all together so of course with its own new ups and downs depending what their first product end up doing. One should hope Microsoft doesn't rub their bad habits on this one too sadly.

[@sofaking1627]

@@Deliveredmean42 Nope, it's still 343 until they make a good Halo game

[@SilverViper1000]

Yep, still 343. Leadership did change, but did management above them change? Is "totally not 343" inharhe and completely free in decision making? I don't think so. If you watch old Bungie footage, they had to fight with Microsoft a lot and I do not think that fresh blood has the balls to stand up against executives of Microsoft.

[@HanaNoMaude]

Hey man! Been following your content for years and I just want to say, whatever this channel is, I like what it seems to be doing for you. Your energy and excitement even when discussing potentially polarizing or not all positive topics comes through, or at least it seems so to me. Hope it’s serving you as positively as it seems to be

[@MykeondaMic]

10k hours on MCC PC, lets see if these guys can redeem themselves. LETS GIVE IT A SHOT

[@paulvarnell]

Agree with you! I am very excited for the future of Halo. My thoughts on the "multiple projects" thing is I believe one of the projects is a full remake of Halo: Combat Evolved in UE5. I know some people react with "not another remake" but I have no problem with it because I also believe the other projects are original Halo games.

[@Will_Forge]

This is the first of your videos that I've seen, and I'm sold. Subscribing. Zelda fans are often Halo fans as well, and I think we align in game preference and thoughts, so I look forward to hearing your takes in the future.

[@kamyronaustinr]

Halo infinite is vastly overhated. If you’re a multiplayer player than I get it. The open world wasn’t needed but the campaign story was good

[@bobby_c07]

Infinite's story, and every single campaign mission.....are absolutely horrible. The open world and gameplay are decent, but there is not one memorable story moment, not one memorable location or character. It may actually....be even worse than 5. It is not hated enough.

[@eliaxxz5360]

​@@bobby_c07You're just yapping now.

[@GallowayJesse]

Halo Infinite's story is complete nonsense.

[@ozaee7]

@@bobby_c07infinite had some fantastic moments and was a good looking game, the mission design was pretty basic and quite repetitive but still decent, better than halo 1 imo 343 mishandled it very bad after launch though and they launched it not finished

[@LuisAndion]

I agree that Halo Infinite is overhated but for the opposite reason lmao Gameplay is tight, the multiplayer is REALLY good (just lacks account progression)

[@israelfigueroa4197]

I love your new channel, its great!🙌

[@BrixsDNAfortnite]

YUP. Love that your keep pumping vids here. Never played Halo, but looks fun.

[@TySpurk]

My first Halo game was Infinite, and I had some enjoyment out of it, but overall it was just okay. I do plan on going back and playing all the Halo games. I did hear that a Halo Combat Evolved remake might happen, so I'm hopeful for that, but I am really excited to see where Halo goes and for I to possibly become a Halo fan in the future, and everything they said got me excited, so I can't wait. Glad you discussed it.

[@IronDuck789]

I dont think I have played halo since Halo 3, I'm glad I haven't missed too much 😅 I love hearing your insights into and excitement for all sorts of games, even ones I'm not as excited by.

[@etainic6858]

I watch the main channel, I watch the podcast. I LOVE this channel. I love listening to people just talk about what they love and give their opinions etc…I appreciate the dedication to Nintendo but we all know you’re more than just a Nintendo guy. So keep the videos coming, gush about whatever you want!

[@sammacphee3065]

Halo needs 3 pillars. A gripping campaign, fleshed out online multiplayer with lots of maps and content, and a free open and creative forge mode that you can dick around with your friends.

[@enorma29]

so LAN and couch multiplayer aren't important anymore huh

[@Deliveredmean42]

​​@@enorma29you can forget about couch coop/multiplayer since you know how heavy UE5 is. Unless they remove every feature of the engine so it can run well with two player splitscreen.

[@Ivanimirus]

@@Deliveredmean42 That's wrong. You can do splitscreen in UE5 even on consoles. You just reduce resolution, fx or lod like even Bungie did in example reach. Future hardware would allow for 4k splitscreen.

[@Deliveredmean42]

@@Ivanimirus The real question will be will they do it and its a focus to them? Altho to be honest I am pretty sure even with future hardware I will suspect splitscreen will just max out at 1080p or 1440p max given how demanding 4k is.

[@sammacphee3065]

Couch multiplayer should be a given for any multiplayer game

[@devynriley8307]

I like what I’m seeing on this channel keep it up Wood!

[@rubenmoreno407]

PS has always been greater than Xbox

[@BillyBCreations]

Dude. Back to The Future, Zelda, and Halo? You have the most exquisite taste

[@yyyhhh8481]

I'm with you bro, that last line is giving me hope.

[@OnePolishMoFo]

CE is my favorite Halo hands down. Without a doubt. And I hope that the rumors that they're doing a remake in Unreal 5 for all platforms is true. I wanna play CE on my PS5.

[@Anonymous-Digits]

Truly hope you read this, and understand the sentiment I'm bring forward here. 1) UE isn't really easier, it's actually harder. Consider for a moment that this singular entry they are showing off has been under development for 1-2 years with zero technology being in their responsibility (thus, they are crafting the game via artistry, and paying an external dev to do UE work). Now realize that the legitimate development time for Halo Infinite was 2019 - 2021, and they planned on launching in 2020 (but due to 'tech problems' delayed until 2021). By both definitions, the engine they're working with was "finished" already by the time development began. They showed us a Render, not even in-engine, a render. By this exact time in development for just the previous entry, they showed us the 2020 trailer. I want you to think about that for a moment. We'll get to why this is actually not as it seems shortly. Consider in the background of the video, these were testing locations, they were playtesting this exact game we saw a render of. It was in such poor shape, at this stage, that they couldn't show in-engine. I'd equivocally argue that early stages of Halo Infinite in 2019 (months after dev started) may be exactly where they're at in UE, about 1-2 years in, which is why they dictated "Foundry" as a "research" project...because UE is harder to learn with more bugs, more challenges, and since they can't just call the Engineer to fix it, more complications. 2) Albeit 343 simply changed their name to Halo Studios, everyone below isn't that wrong. It is practically a "new team", but it's always been a "new team". Only about 10% of each Halo Games team was the same across the board. Of course this means that "upper management is new", but that doesn't say much outside of "We're new people". The problem still exists, which is why they moved to UE: They listen too much to the Community. They're not making a game for themselves, they're making a game for someone else. Branching off point 2: Imagine you were writing a book, or a novel, or making a video game all based on an already existing media. Instead of using your work, or what you prefer to use, or what imagination or design points you think are going to mold perfectly into the already existing media -- You are required to listen to a die-hard niche community of fans who specifically want a category of the game to be the bold facing and direct identity. You are no longer building something for yourself, basing it off your ideals or your imagination, or your creativity. You're basing it off what another person, rather vocal group, wants to see internal to the game. That group is divicive, and split into four factions: - "I want hcs halo to be this" - "I want casual halo to be this" - "I want all progression to be this" - "I want these features" Meanwhile, you (the fan, now developer, who maybe played Halo 2 and Halo 3 religiously when they launched), truly wanted to create a matchmaking system like Halo 2, or Halo 3. Where every playlist is ranked 1-50, and the number determines your skill level, you match against equal numbers -- the more you win, the higher you go until you naturally plateau and have to overcome what created you to peak. But the latter 3 points -- Even the first one, the entire community "wants" no skill matchmaking, no ranked playlists. They believe its what destroyed Halo. They believe it's what determined Halo was "too" competitive. Say this group, this fandom, now wants all multiplayer to feature a story, and not just the campaign. They want iterative narrative events that take place every few months, requiring a grind where winning and losing doesn't matter, because if you complete the story despite the outcome, you obtain armor pieces. And this was the major form of progression. You, on the other hand, aren't thrilled about doing that, and you say "this really isn't what Halo is about". But that group, that fandom, perpetually claims the same thing: - Halo is about customization of your character - Halo is about social interactions and casual gameplay - Halo is about having fun and playing a party custom game - Halo is about kicking back, drinking a few beers and just stomping noobs - Halo is about using vehicles to be good But, you, the developer who played Halo 1, Halo 2 and Halo 3 respectively at their launch -- never experienced that. You lived in a city, you had internet access, and you had Xbox Live. You knew that Halo 2 was all about the level grind, Halo 3 was all about the level grind. Each were far more competitive games than the respective Battlefield, Counterstrike, America's Army, Ghost Recon, Splitercell, and eventually Call of Duty. Halo's formula did so well that Microsoft tasked Epic Games to make an entire games multiplayer based on this formula: Gears of War. Where they took this formula of "social interaction on a competitive level" and marketed it into Xbox Live, talked about trash talking and friendly competition on stages, and branded their console as an online platform...before other home consoles could. But you go and make the game exactly as the fans want. The game fails. The fans blame the game engine, when it was the direction of the game. Real players didn't truly care of sprint of slide was in there, but they would prefer it to not be. But they did care that there was "no where to play" Halo. Halo 2 launched, where you could play with your friends, level up, and climb a leaderboard based on wins. Halo was a game series that defined itself by skill. You couldn't use the needler to kill someone, just like you could barely do it with the AR (h1) or SMG (in h2), when the magnum (h1) or br (h2/h3) was going to do it faster. You couldn't pickup a spiker, mauler, plasma rifle and expect to win a battle across the map. You couldn't shoot someone with your AR or SMG and expect to get a killtacular (overkill) "just because" you existed inside of the game. That was the balance of Halo. That's the soul of Halo. That's what made Halo a competitive FPS. You were determined to be skillful with your precision weapon at 29.97 fps with a high latency controller that was highly inaccurate on a tube tv. You were suppose to perfect the controller, perfect communication, perfect team play and perfect control & map control to win a match. This was Halo. I'm getting too long here, so to conclude: The actual problem with Halo had always been that the "community", who was niche, spoke for only a fraction (1-5%) of the total player base, has far too much say into the game, while the overwhelming majority of players are entirely unheard. It makes 343, now Halo Studios, look tone deaf. And people saying 'what the community says they want' isn't going to make it better. It's just making it worse. Halo Infinite failed because it focused on being a 'casual fps' with literally no population for that genre to exist. This is why Halo Reach, Halo 4, and even Halo 5 failed. Halo 2 and Halo 3 had 12+ ranked playlists, less than 6 social playlists typically. Halo Infinite had over 20 social playlists and 1 ranked playlists for it's entire span until a few months back, to which now it has 4 ranked playlists and 16 social playlists. Halo 1, 2 & 3 all had weapon balancing that favored skill, precision weapons, and punished people who used vehicles. Halo Infinite, much like reach, 4 and 5, all punish people for using precision weapons, and even those who don't use vehicles. Halo 1, 2 and 3 all defined themselves based on the knowledge and understanding of the game, physics, player agency and decision making of what sandbox item they obtain. Halo Infinite is a "sandbox shooter", where you're goal is to pickup new weapon, because all weapons are a lethality upgrade. Halo standardized the 2-weapon slot because it wasn't a sandbox driven shooter, but a decision based one. Holding a plasma rifle + needler would always lose to someone with a magnum, and the same is true with the br verses other weapons in h2 and h3. And none of that gets into abilities or sprint, but that's not even that large of a deal compared to the rest. That's why Infinite failed. Not the engine. And the Engine was a side-effect of the "community" thinking Halo failed because the graphics and the lack of "customization options" for the player model. Meanwhile, it failed because it tried to be a casual fps when halo has never succeeded as one.

[@Anonymous-Digits]

5:54 Yes, of course, you can (as an indie dev or someone playing around) make graphically impressive things with the canned assets internal to the game engine. Totally get that, but the problem exists when you play it; It's laggy, slow, suttery, hitches, it creates latency problems across the board, it's lower fps, it can't scale properly -- and from nanite being a buggy mess, all the way to upscaling being worse than halo infinite's, you have literally one of the worst game engines to build an FPS on. Which leads to games like Valorant. You "can" make an FPS on Unreal, without a major problem -- but it literally requires you to not make a technologically advanced looking game. A Valorant, if you will. Make it stylized, not graphical. But that's the catch: Their goal isn't to make it stylized, their goal is to make it graphical. Nevermind that the graphical presentation showed in a render doesn't even look that far off from Halo Infinite on Ultra (which is hilarious to say the least) with more foliage, it's simply that their goal isn't to make Halo, it's to make "what the community wants as Halo". Which can literally destroy the franchise further than it already has. The problem constantly stems back to the Halo Community by large. They don't want what's best for Halo, they want what's best for their nostalgia based in 2010. That's it. Remove everything after Halo 3, and you have exactly what the normal players want. Meanwhile, the Halo Community wants Halo Reach & Halo 4, but with "classic halo" graphics and "classic halo" lore. That's where there's this instant disconnect -- The overwhelming majority of "causal" players never cared about the story, or the lore, or the concepts of any of these things. The most absurdly casual Halo player in 2004 - 2010 wanted to play Team Slayer, Team Skirmish, Double Team, Team Snipers, Team Swat....which were all ranked. Because it was fun to level progress based on skill. It was fun to master a game where your goal is to be good at a precision weapon, not an automatic. It was fun to improve. It was fun to trash talk, to know you can get better over time, and to increase your level. Legitimate "casual" players aren't dropping money on an armor piece that looks like Linda or whatever their name is. They're dropping money for something cool looking to accent their weapon, akin to literally every other first person game. By the inverse, the Halo Community truly thinks that the 'casual' player wants a non-competitive lore-filled game based around the gameplay of halo reach. While, almost no one wants anything of that, the Halo Community claims it's what "all casuals want". And that's who 343 has always listened to. The average player would rather a direct clone of whatever HCS wants, over anything the Halo Community wants...which was why "Ranked Arena" was the most popular playlist at launch, and continued to be even up unto today. Not because HCS is popular, but because more people would rather just play "halo" than 'timmy's idea of what defined halo to their rural offline childhood'.

[@sammacphee3065]

Halo is a good franchise, and is absolutely not dead. They just need to find what works for 343, and it cant be the same thing that worked for the old team.

[@Wuunderboy]

No. They've been completely avoiding everything that worked for the old Bungie team and that's why it's been failing for over a decade. They need to build their identity not by forging their own but by doubling down following Bungies footsteps every step of the way

[@sammacphee3065]

@@Wuunderboy Going back to Halo's roots I deffinitely agree is a good thing, but a game that worked 15 years ago isn't a game that will work today. They need to rethink how they build it, and a new engine is a great start. It should take inspiration from bungee but they will need to reinvent the wheel if they want to be successful.

[@Wuunderboy]

@@sammacphee3065 uhm absolute bullshit! Doom 2016 was a game that went straight back to its roots while using modern tech and it worked fucking brilliantly. Halo is cut from the same cloth, so fuck your dogwater opinion.

[@momNOseBeST]

Never played a Halo game... my gaming obsession started in my very late 30s... so I hope these new games are good willing to give it a chance

[@thechazz8080]

The unreal engine is probably the biggest thing I took out of this. That will help out a lot since Infinite apparently struggled with technical debt probably cause of their own engine, probably made stuff like co-op online, pc having early issues, and maybe even certain parts of the game chug. But other than that, I kind of take the whole “Halo studios” with a grain of salt, want to see how the next games looks cause we have been promised stuff before and I don’t want to be led again and then Halo 7 or whatever has stuff broken or needs an year and a half or two years or whatever yo stabilize.

[@hectorromero4370]

I really love this channel that you can give your honest thoughts and opinions without being hindered by being "the nintendo guy" and that you can actually play and like other non nintendo games Also my halo ranking is 2 3 1 Infinite Reach 4 5 OdsZZZ...

[@FOTUS]

343 is a studio that IS Microsoft… created BY Microsoft to manage Halo… No matter the studio name, it’s all still Microsoft.

[@maduross]

Modern game development is so complicated that its much harder for devs to make their own engines and assets and games all in parallel like in the old days. That said, I wish it was still more feasible, UE is not the end all be all of game engines and its not perfectly suited to every project.

[@Frank_West]

1:06 I'm gonna "like" the video for this statement alone. You could call me out specifically at the end of the video and tell me I suck and I still wouldn't take away the "like" because of how much I agree with this statement.

[@xOriginalGamerOG76x]

I bought an American Xbox in march 2001 just so i could play Halo 8 months before it released here in the UK the following November. I had to buy a step down for the American voltage 110 to the British 240v. I had to buy a Tv set that had NTSC as well as Pal. I was an absolute fanatic from the day i saw Halo. I bought the Legendary edition Halo 3 that came with master chiefs Helmet. Bought my daughter the Halo Reach legendary release. I haven't completed 4 or 5 and i didn't even bother with infinite. Unfortunately i got very bad vibes from this video. Im not really a judgemental person. But it's the same feeling i got watching the Indiana Jones video. I want to be wrong. I hope im wrong. And i don't own a series Xbox. I switched to PS5 Jan 2020. Xbox is so far from the great gaming experiences i fondly remember its unbelievable. I truly want Halo to be a win here. From experience. The more you want it to be great the bigger the disappointment.

[@JCULLI]

“It looks like somebody took some new Halo toys & placed them on a Little Rock” 😂😂😂🤣🤣 seriously lol

[@EpicHelios83]

People weirdly hate on Halo Infinite, bit honestly it was a really good game. The problem is, it just didn't have enough content to keep people interested too long. It was fun for a few weeks but got boring fast and they took way too long to drop new content, and when they did, the extra content was lacking. But for people to act as of the base game was bad, is a bit of a stretch. But for a franchise that's been around for so long, I love the fact that they know we need a rebuild and restructuring of how they approach all future Halo games, to get people hyped about the series again.

[@abdiels117]

Shortly after infinite released, mucrosoft cleaned house at 343, and removed practically all higher ups that have lead the descicions for the last decade. The new head of 343, Pierre lead the team that fixed up MCC after 343 had abandoned it. For all intents and purposes, "halo studios" is a new dev team, not just a "rebrand"

[@Ducain_Plays]

Whoa whoa whoa... Psychonauts 2 released this gen and that game was incredible 🤣 By the way, the algorithm showed me this video... great stuff! Will be checking out your other videos

[@555Gamingandproductions]

Now I Am Concerns On The Future Of This Franchise There Is Hope On One Side And There Is No Hope On The Other...

[@Gerry484]

I really hope the new Halo is diverse enough. That is all I want in a video game: diversity and inclusion ....

[@ssmufc9941]

Xbox has had so many more games than PlayStation this generation, but yeah sure, 'Xbox has literally had no games' ... 🙄

[@LumbyMcGumby]

I think slipspace was built on top of blam! Which was the original halo ce engine they used for a very long time.

[@marcusry]

Just subscribed, hoping for more Halo content 🙂

[@ahsile_]

halo infinite's campaign is very solid. multiplayer is good too

[@professordreadwin7959]

I became a fan of Halo during the Xbox One era so i never noticed any difference between Bungie and 343 outside of graphical fidelity, just felt like the same games to me

[@PlayerAlert]

Damn Wood, I didn’t realise you hated Infinite that badly! For me, despite its flaws, Halo Infinite was the first Halo game from 343i that actually had some of that Bungie sauce to it. It had the vibe. The core gameplay mechanics were very strong imo, which despite the messy launch of multiplayer, kept me coming back regardless as I just loved how the game played. That being said, this is an exciting "new dawn" for Halo and I think it does make sense to put the 343i name to bed, as it's far too tarnished at this point. I hope we can finally get a universally beloved Halo game again in the near future 🤞

[@theTYTAN3]

The "Slipspace engine" is built on the bones of Bungies "Blam!" Engine. There was alot of fear that using a different engine would make it difficult to replicate Halos unique feel. Thats why they wanted to make Slipspace work.

[@Deliveredmean42]

They could recreate the Halo feel in any engine if they put the effort. Folks manage to recreate the half life 2 movement and physics in Unreal Engine 4 a few years back for example, and didn't take long to port the funny Mario 64 library to UE5... along side every game engine that has mod support.

[@theTYTAN3]

@Deliveredmean42 I agree. It probably helps to have a game engine that already has games developed on it that have that feel, but I'm sure with the right talent behind it they'll be able to make it work. I'm a bit worried about physics interactions because I can't think of an unreal engine game that has physics interactions like Halo, but I think even that is probably doable. I'd also point out that unreal 5 is built on the bones of the original unreal engine, Epic has just done a much better job modernizing their engine and minimizing technical debt. Hell Bungie has done a better job with "Blam!" on Destiny 2. The potential for the Slipspace Engine to be great was always there. I think a big part of the problem was Microsofts production strategy of hiring short term contractors to speed up production. Halo was suffering from a bug ridden engine and the ramifications of devs who didnt understand how to develop for that engine creating buggy content, then timing out of their contract. It's a miracle the game turned out as good as it did. I'm still skeptical of anything Microsoft has their grubby hands in but if they're going to continue their contractor strategy at least it will work better with Unreal.

[@Icybubba]

​@@theTYTAN3 In terms of physics, Halo's Havok physics engine is compatible with Unreal, I believe.

[@TheOriginalJackTChance]

Because of some draconian policy shifts Microsoft made during the Xbox One era, I officially switched over to PC gaming, rather than console gaming. And I only returned to console gaming THIS YEAR when I finally bought a Nintendo Switch. And even though it's on PC, I haven't bought Halo Infinite to this day. So, they'll have to do something really superb to get me to buy the next one, and even then, I'll get it on PC. I have no desire to return to Xbox gaming. Not being able to backup my game saves on external drives killed Xbox for me.

[@momsspaghetti4064]

They probably remaking Halo 1.

[@YuYuYuna_]

Your cautious optimism is exactly how every Halo fan feels right now. Who knows. I, just like you and Halo community are a bit excited but also not letting our expectations get inflated and then popped like balloon. I need to see actual gameplay of the next Halo game before I can trust "Halo Studios" again. They ruined my favorite franchise as a kid. I had some of the best memories of my childhood playing Halo with my brothers and all of us just hanging out laughing and cracking jokes. Until I see a genuine faithful sequel to Halo 3 I do not trust them. I am excited for a potential great future for Halo though.

[@OnePolishMoFo]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the arguement that they look like toys is ultimately because they're still. The camera is moving but the models are lifeless. I can bet if you saw them in motion it'd look much better. That being said I think Chief's Mark 5 armor could use some wear and tear. Some scuffs, scratches, dirt. Battle damage. He's a bit too pristine for a battle hardened warrior.

[@117johnpar]

This is like me renaming myself to Coby "basketball" Bryant.

[@Deliveredmean42]

Yes and we totally didn't replace you with a different person in the process.

[@d4rk1ink]

I've only play CE but I loved it

[@brittianyistre]

I'm so ready for this!!!!!😍😭

[@cheporestrepo]

wasnt it that SLIPSPACE ENGINE was the "" BEST"" engine ???? all i see is fanboys now NOT complaing about slipspace, where are y"all s1mps?? all the ones that still say Halo Infinite is the best looking halo? that actually looked like toystory-esque looking plastic TRASH??? halo infinite= cartoony @ss trashy toystory-esque plastic dull lifeless garbage, even Halo 3 looks better. absolute undeniable facts Digital Foundry itself called it. "its miles away from halo infinite but not from other games", thats because ANY other game LOOKED 30X better than halo inifinite. what a joke

[@codytownsend6491]

awesome love your new channel double em ups lol

[@117johnpar]

This is massively entertaining to watch how other people deal with these situations. Its astounding the lack of memory people have. The lack of pattern recognition. Like everyone going into wild speculation on these proof of concept technical renders, as if its even anywhere remotely going to represent anything in the final product, as if that tech preview we got at like E3 2017 of Halo infinite resembled effectively nothing of the final games content or even level of fidelity, didnt happen in this exact same way. Its just gawking at sketches of the movie poster basically and trying to divine some meaning or self importance of the thing to try to hype ones self up for the product that doesnt exist.

[@davidortizdelatorre]

I hope they reboot the whole series or at least reboot from halo 4 and recreate things from there

[@servantjon]

Halo 3 ODST is my favorite but at the same time I know I've changed as a person and don't gravitate towards fps games like I used to.

[@sergiosarmiento4233]

Development limitations weren’t the the issue. Lack of direction, talent, and respect for Halo were the reasons why 343 failed. We can’t know what Halo Studios can do until they show us, but I can’t trust that enough has changed.

[@Anonymous-Digits]

100% correct. There was no limitations, the limitation was that what the Halo Community kept goal-post reaching for was entirely out of scope of the project. So then they would have to then "add it into scope", which would take the project longer. They couldn't meet the absurd demand of the scope after a period of time, and then the community would reply back with 'it's an engine limitation'. Lack of direction, yes. Lack of talent, no. Respect for Halo, iffy but also partially true. Many devs from Halo Infinite didn't want to work on what they did work on, and a lot of that was due to 2020's shift in leadership and the direction the game headed toward. They were no longer making a Halo game for themselves, they were now making a Halo game for "the community". Put this into your own shoes. Would you feel inspired to work on a project that you're no longer allowed to do what you like or want to do because the Halo Community claims that Halo was actually Mario Party? Of course you wouldn't lol. That's just not the work environment. Some of them didn't even want to work on Halo, either, and a number of them wanted to work on various other IPs to begin with, knowing that they can't even make their impression on the game absolutely tanked their aspirations. To them, Halo was "required" to be a party-driven casual game. To them, Halo was "required" to be about cosmetics. Because that's what the Halo Community wanted. Halo Studios is so far looking to be the same, they jumped head first into Unreal Engine, which over a year and a half, can't even make a game nor a demo, only a render. Although they were play testing something in the background, they were in the area to play test even...the problem is literally that they can't showcase what they have in-engine because the game itself is so primitive in concept that they couldn't even call it a game, nor a demo. Yet, it was the same span of time between the start of development of Halo Infinite, and July 2020, with the hilarious part being that they no longer have in-house engineers. Almost like "outsourcing engineers to work with unreal engine instead" wasn't going to solve their problem, like the Halo Community claimed it would.

[@MikeAngel-1995]

I played the Halo 1-4, Reach and ODST for the first time during the covid pandemic and I gotta say the ones that I enjoyed the most were Reach, Odst and Halo 4 . I also played Infinite like a year ago and I also enjoyed it. I still don't understand the hate of Halo 4, they added new weapons (I felt that halo 3 failed on that), they showed the most human side of Master Chief while he was trying to save Cortana, they also gave us the best Cortana design (sadly they ruined it in 5) and one of my favorite soundtracks of the franchise '117'. I wasn't a fan of the new armor but other than that it's a good game.

[@solidkwon]

For me it’s the way the weapons felt. Halo 4 gunplay was hard to get into. Guns ran out of ammo and out of charge way too quickly and enemies from far far away had perfect aim and so the game really made you stick to cover, and to me Halo is just not as a fun experience if you have to be so careful about being behind cover. Its hard to feel like a badass overpowered super soldier that can solo against an entire army

[@MikeAngel-1995]

@@solidkwon I guess that difficulty wasn't for you, there is no shame going for a more easy mode.

[@solidkwon]

@@MikeAngel-1995 it’s not that it’s difficult. It’s that it’s frustrating. When you crank up the difficulty of Halo 1-3, what’s chalkenging is that enemies do ridiculous amount of damage. Few mistakes or one mistake will end you so you have to consistently be aware of your surroundings, be quick on your feet, and use your arsenal well, and it’s still a very difficult but satisfying experience. With Halo 4, it just feels like the enemies are cheating against you with hacks, and the arsenal you have just feels lackluster against it. It just feels frustrating and off

[@solidkwon]

I did really like the plot and the environmental storytelling of Halo 4 tho. Seeing Chief’s and Cortana’s relationship conclude in that way was done so so well. It’s too bad Halo 5 just botched that plotline so awfully and now we’ll never know how it’s supposed to conclude

[@LouieC]

Look up Melissa Boone. That's the new leader of your Halo games.

[@raymcdougal420]

Xbox got games, Failstation already dead anyway 😂

[@tellinustr8up]

Unreal engine is amazing! There is no limits now

[@MichaelRiveraBX81]

Wood please do not change your name to Ups! My tattoos will have to be changed and will have to be redone!! No puffy vibes jk !!

[@Pyroja]

Hey good vid and all but wanted to mention that the audio in this one is way quiet. Your previous vid easily exceeded -6db, this one is barely reaching -12db.

[@ZukaraTheGame]

"It's too clean" is exactly what happens with lots of Unreal Engine stuff add the clean (low poly) look of halo 1 and its going to look like that.

[@runninwizard8609]

I don’t get what’s all the talk about “this is still 343” after the layoffs last year there is hardly any of the old 343 employees there, and this next game which I’m assuming is the CE remake will be Pierre Heintez first NEW release as the head honcho at Halo Studios(btw he’s the guy who’s credited with saving mcc and being behind a lot of the decisions that helped turn Infinite around the last couple years)

[@KintaroTakanori]

makes no sense to complete move onto another studio. they made the right choice to rename and restructure the studio. im 100% willing to give them another chance and see what they can do now. less opinions and more silence until the product is here. let them cook

[@bluegoose7832]

I'm happy to see a fellow Infinite hater ngl. I'm so tired of people saying that Halo Infinite was a great return for the franchise JUST because they dangled some Bungie-esque art style in front of them... Halo Infinite doesn't come close to the old games, it only just surpasses 343's other games. That campaign was worthless and empty, the world was equally empty and the areas were repetetive. The OST was an immitation of the Bungie games, just less interesting. The multiplayer was good until they decided to neglect it. Gameplay was really good but no content to keep anyone coming back so it was wasted.

[@115spt2]

That Melissa Boon (or wtv) Girl with the dyed hair is a DEI person, I believe either her or another one of the girls in the video has publicly supported sweet baby (shitty) Inc. They've said a lot of the assets used in this research project will be used (or is being used) in stuff they are developing. 15:35 they need to add Bump mapping to add depth/dents and some dirt smears/Scorch marks on the character models, kinda similar to how chief looks in Infinite's trailer vs Release.

[@chasehatfield927]

If you still have your 360, see if Bob will jtag/rgh3 your old console it revives the nostalgia for the 360 in a big way!!

[@EdwardGutierrez90]

They want to prove to the fans that they are really trying to make an awesome new halo game?? get Marty and Joseph into the mix and that would ease many of my concerns

[@ThatHaloGuy020]

343i marketed the slipspace engine as a "brand new engine" but in reality it was just a tweaked version of the blam engine aka the same in-house engine bungie made for combat evolved. This is the first time halo is going to be made in a different engine.

[@Ledout-c3y]

Which is not created by them...i wish they had the expertise to produce their own brand new efficient engine like Guerrilla Games with their DECIMA° engine.

[@ThatHaloGuy020]

​@@Ledout-c3y well one of the reasons why they moved to unreal was because lots of developers already know how to use it instead of coming in to 343i and needing to learn blam or another "in-house" engine which is one of the reasons infinite took so long too produce content along side the amount of contract work that game had, so many people coming and going.

[@milesprowerdavis7658]

They took Halo out of Halo, and yes, they are stroking the shaft.

[@JAIMEGARCIA-gw9re]

the gunplay for Infinite was fun. I just didn't like the open world design. I thought it was just boring.

[@BEEPINGNERDS]

It was the lack of features that made the latest Halo games bad. Halo Infinite launched without split screen Co-Op and Forge. If they had at least these two features at launch, the game may have had better feedback.

[@JeannieLove]

Microsoft, and by extension Xbox, uses contractors so they're replacing people like every 6 months. Because the old engine is proprietary, they had to spend half that time training people on the engine. With UE5, they can look for people with experience and others can learn the engine before working on Halo.

[@kyouninja]

This channel is like MoistCritical but with actual footage and more energy, I think it'll go far 🙌

[@bebospartan1173]

Halo infinite I enjoyed but other than that the last 14 years of halo haven’t been for me. I enjoyed infinite for about a week that’s about how long it took me to finish the campaign. I’m really big on the lore specifically from the original trilogy and recent stuff has been upsetting. But very since the leadership shake up at 343 they have been kinda on a course correct bringing back things like the forerunner human connection. They have been updating and fixing infinite and their mistakes and I believe that the new studio could bring us back on course for good halo stuff. That being said I will remain cautious but now I’m a little more optimistic on it.

[@jurassicjam2156]

They effectively killed off 343 and created Halo Studios with a different team for the most part. I'm quietly hopeful that they can get it back on track, but I'm not going all out until I see what they can do.

[@Anonymous-Digits]

Every Halo has had an entirely different team lol. The Halo Community is filled with idiots. Halo Reach had an entirely different team than Halo 4, while Halo 4 did have the lead of Halo Reach in charge (Joshua Holmes), it was an entirely different team. Halo 4 had an entirely different studio than Halo MCC, which was Saber Interactive. The redevelopment of Halo MCC after the abundant failure of Saber Interactive's Unreal Engine 4 (which lead the migration to Unreal Engine 4.25) was lead by Sean "Dersky" Swidersk, yes the Halo pro, in 2016. Halo 5 had an entirely different team working on the entry than Halo 4, with the leader of that entry being Tim Longo, Brad Welch & David Ellis. David Ellis should sound familiar, as much like some others in "Halo Studios", ended up staying to work on the next entry, and he was one of the 10% that "always stayed" with each new team. Same with your typical "community" team. Contrary to Halo 4, Halo 5 had a "pro team", but that pro team all quit in 2016 after being "not heard". One of which, Dersky, went onto pressure the studio to fix Halo MCC, and he lead that charge. Yes, this is here Pierre comes from. Halo Infinite, again, had an entirely new team, outside of about 10%. Halo infinite started without a creative director, and with a pro team for play testing (like Halo 5, thus permit a large quantity of bugs to be fixed), but Halo Infinite post 2020 ended up receiving Joe Staten as the creative director, and removed the Pro Team for playtesting. The "Pro Team" turned into the comp insights team, who just was a liaison for HCS to the developers (the separated esports division that isn't apart of 343). The "play testing" moved over to a community-lead team, coined as Forerunners, post launch known as "pilots", who would use it as ways to manipulate the game direction into what they wanted. An example would be the numerous 'critical halo takes youtubers' being part of this team. One of which coined Halo as being called a "hero shooter" because the original matchmaking design had a ranking system (you know, like halo 2 and halo 3 had). They are the ones who asked for sbmm to be manipulated entirely, adjust how weapons work, and change how games are played. Eventually they're the ones who playtested maps, playtested forge, and some of them turned into forge console members, who were a group of youtubers who had access to forge before and after the release of halo infinite, who requested forge be delayed "until custom games browser" can be added. You know, such great people to use that as fuel to blame 343 for what they asked for. The trailer showed like 3 people that were working there before. And although the biggest difference "now" verses then is that they entirely now outsource more staffing (lol), the Halo community unironically think that's a good thing. I'm going to laugh when we get an MCC v2 and the community blames it on "pro players" like they do everything. It's actually sad. I really hope this team doesn't keep listening, it literally has one of the founders of HCS as the lead, Elizabeth, hopefully she just realizes that people don't care that heavily about whatever the 'halo community' wants and wants a Halo that is like Halo 1, 2 and 3 again, rather than a mirror clone of halo reach for the 4th time in a row (because the community wants halo reach with halo 3 graphics).

[@JamesLFilms]

If they went multi platform and went on the Switch 2. They would be printing more money than the federal government. Make Halo Great Again! Let’s go!

[@bombasticbadassbrigade3552]

The only 343 campaign that I didn't enjoy was H5. Halo Infinite was solid. H4 was very good (from a narrative perspective)...

[@jacobbible3024]

Psychonauts 2 Forza Horizon 5 Hellblade 2 Starfield Hi Fi Rush (rip) But yeah Xbox only made Halo this gen 🙄

[@EvanMerkes1]

It's not really a rebranding. Bonnie, Frank, Kiki, all the key players that single-handedly made Halo a mess are gone and out of the company. Pierre helped lead the team that fixed MCC when it was released in completely broken state. So I am cautiously optimistic. They definitely couldn't keep the 343 name, there is just too much negativity associated with it.

[@adamc2451]

Melissa Boone. Look her up, that’s all you need to do to make a decision on where this has a possibility of going.

[@zackattack1188]

Stroking your WHAT?! 🤣

[@HonestToCritic]

I see this as confirmation that future Halo games will be on all platforms. They created Slipspace engine with the notion Halo would be exclusive to Xbox. Now that their games are going to be coming to PS5, and possibly Switch 2. They're switching to a more universal engine... 🤷

[@fusingentree3928]

most devs and higher ups in studios are not the same so pretty much its a new team with few old devs still

[@DarthMeh117]

Slipspace is an upgrade to the BLAM engine that all the halo games have been made it. They spent millions revamping the engine for infinite. During infinite’s development the team struggled to use slipstream due to technical debt due to the engine being so old. Think how Bethesda refuses to move on from there engine. The team reportedly begged to move to Unreal during development of Infinite but upper management refused to budge. There was also issues with Microsoft only using contract workers for the 18 month period to avoid paying benefits.

[@sunewjenkuzo2835]

my issue is that most of the heads of this studio rebranding are all people that worked in marketing and they don't have much game dev experience sooo if they are the leaders I have my doubts. They let me down after hyping me up so many times through videos like these and their trailers.

[@hael6t418]

i liked infinite, obviously lacking in certain departments, but im all for the unreal engine change. hell give me a halo wars 3 while your at it ;)