Two parts of the recent live stream from 343 have really changed the narrative in the community regarding Halo Infinite. First and most importantly Joe Statens honesty and bluntness regarding the state of the game and secondly the feedback and changes coming to customisation and the season 2 Battle pass.
Two things I’d like to say on this. (I’m going to try and stay positive)
They need to be doing this on a regular basis. This is such a powerful way of reaching out to the fans and customers they need to be hosting regular ask me anything sessions, publishing blog posts, and generally engaging way more with the community.
Also, this highlights just how poor the comms has been up to this point and also how bad some of the decisions were during the development cycle. Glad to see Joe back to steady the ship and turn this around. Perhaps this is unfair, but it feels like someone with knowledge, experience and passion has shown up to show 343 how it’s done. If I worked in marketing or community relations at 343, I’d be feeling sad right now. For months this is the kind of communication we have been asking for and finally someone has shown up to deliver it.
Now I appreciate that you can’t please everyone all the time but up until now it seems like no one was happy. So, this Mea Culpa is a step in the right direction. I hope that if there are further delays or problems, we get more videos where the developers speak directly to the fan base. Then follow that up with a blog post and get a few mods to reply directly to feedback in Reddit, YouTube comments and Twitter. The fans will appreciate the access and it will give the community something else to discuss. This really would be going above and beyond. I can’t think of another game studio that does this but given the importance of the Halo franchise to the entire Xbox brand I don’t think it’s out of line!
Also, I hope 343 management finally understand that you’ve got to dance with the one that brung ya. You make Halo games. If you don’t like it. Quit. Stop trying to turn Halo in to something it’s not by spending time developing hero shooters or battle royale games or whatever else you spent 6 years doing, (it wasn’t developing content, amiright) and trying out different ideas which aren’t part of the core halo experience.
There is nothing wrong with new modes and game types but not at the expense of the core experience. This must always come first. Yes, I appreciate that you cannot bring every feature from all previous games forward. If you did that, you’d end up with a bigger mess than the one you currently have but there are aspects of the game which are so core, so fundamental to the experience now that they cannot be overlooked and shouldn’t be drastically changed. Outside of Co-Op and Forge the next two obvious features are progression and customisation.
Why did these require reworking in the first place? Just lift and shift the mechanics from Reach or the MCC and job done. Anyone in the community could have told you this. I assume this was just another way you felt you needed to advance the old system, but it just hasn’t worked. These changes combined with the lack of content and poor communication up this point is how we ended up in this mess.
I’m glad they appear to be getting their act together and that the community is wising up to how long this is going to take to fix.
Two points to finish on.
Imagine they had spent 6 years developing a content rich game 6 months ago, including Co-Op, Forge, proper customisation, decent progression and 5 or 6 more maps, and now to go along with season 2 they announce they are releasing a BR or a hero shooter. The game would absolutely pop. It would be crazy. The hype would have been insane and everyone else playing other games would have to pay attention.
How long will this good time feeling last? How many weeks into season 2 will it be until fans realise that there still isn’t much content and its months until new stuff gets added? I hope everyone’s expectations are sufficiently stifled and we can keep expectations in check. We’ve got a long way to go.
Personally, I’m hoping for a mid-season content drop and a few surprises along the way!
Twice the bits 
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