HOPE For Halo YET!! - 343's Potential Restructuring
Alright, what’s up everyone? I felt a bit strange making this video, especially after the short I dropped yesterday. There’s a lot going on with Halo, 343, and just the internet in general right now. It’s pretty wild. Remember a while back, around October or September, when the whole ‘#Fire343’ thing went viral? Even casual Halo fans were tweeting it. Well, Bonnie Ross got the boot, and they had a major management shake-up. Everyone was acting like the hashtag worked and that we’d finally get the game we wanted. Then, they announced season three, the winter update, and highlighted Forge, and things seemed okay. But then Microsoft announced over 10,000 layoffs, and 343 was hit hard, losing up to 116 people. Some are even saying more cuts could be coming. Imagine working there, wondering if your job is next.
Bathrobe Spartan, who’s been a pretty reliable leaker in the community, dropped a thread about it. They basically said Microsoft wasn’t happy with the direction 343 was going. I saw tweets from ex-developers saying it was Microsoft’s fault for setting impossible deadlines and stressing the developers out. Anyway, according to Bathrobe Spartan, these staff losses won’t impact the plans for Halo Infinite. Apparently, Halo Infinite is still a priority for Microsoft, and they want 343 to be more agile. All the planned content for this year, the seasons, modes, and elements, are still on track.
Forge is managed by Skybox Labs, maps and content by Sperasoft, and modes and elements by Certain Affinity. So, it’s not the end of Halo Infinite multiplayer. We can still grind and try to reach Diamond, hopefully. These layoffs aren’t the only losses for 343. With positions transferred and external contract workers not renewed, they’ve lost about a third of their workforce. That’s a lot. The departures mainly affect the teams in charge of visual and narrative content due to diverging visions within 343. They had two goals: pursuing the narrative universe versus the studio’s financial needs. Basically, they need to make money.
A small team had plans for Master Chief’s adventure, supported by Joseph Staten, proposing short DLCs leading to a larger campaign extension. But they’re cutting the DLC and won’t pursue the narrative universe because they don’t have the budget. They need to make money, and that means focusing on the store, multiplayer, and battle passes. Narrative solo content hasn’t offered strong player retention or viable monetization. It makes sense; most people play the campaign once and then jump back into multiplayer. They’re going to micro-transaction the hell out of Halo to make it profitable, focusing on armor cores, colors, and effects. They don’t want to continue producing narrative solo content for Halo Infinite at this stage. Maybe in a few years, but for now, it seems like the lore is too rich to ignore forever.
Faced with financial expectations that Halo Infinite didn’t meet, 343 had to act. These layoffs result from Microsoft’s preparation for a possible recession, the high operating cost of the studio, and the multiplayer-oriented strategy for Halo Infinite. I’m a multiplayer guy, so I’m glad they’re doubling down on that. 343 won’t disappear, but the game development part will be outsourced, mostly to Certain Affinity. This is promising if you’re a fan. We’ll still get updates. 343 will delegate content production to external studios, like they did in season two. This will continue in 2023, so Halo should be around, and we should get seasons three and four.
In 2020, Xbox Publishing approached other studios to design new Halo experiments, delegated but supervised by Xbox Game Studios and 343. These studios will have access to resources from 343, including the Slipspace engine. So, they’re sticking with Slipspace. 343’s only development role will be to maintain Slipspace, while Certain Affinity and others work on it. It’s crucial that the game feels consistent, so the core mechanics need to be the same across the board. This could lead to more Halo games, exploring different ideas. We could see an ODST game, a Halo RTS, or even a Halo mobile game.
With Microsoft acquiring Activision, they want to get into mobile gaming. Activision has Candy Crush and other mobile games that make a fortune on DLCs. A Halo mobile game seems likely, like COD Mobile and Warzone Mobile. 343 could bring on another vendor to take on a Halo mobile game, and it doesn’t need to be on Slipspace. They could use Unreal Engine. In summary, the main changes are the loss of internal game development capacities at 343 and the opening to make Halo a franchise that can be distributed. Job losses aside, if you’re worried about the direction of Halo as a game, it seems like it’s going to keep going. 343 will be a licensing company, and Certain Affinity, led by Max Hoberman, will focus on the game. Max was one of the main guys behind the original Halo, which should make old-school fans happy.
Will we get a battle royale? I hope it comes out this year. I really hope they keep coming up with new game modes and expanding the game. It sucks that we won’t get more DLC and campaign stuff, but take what you can get. If Halo starts making Microsoft money again, they’ll probably outsource the hell out of it, maybe even outsource a whole different company to take over the campaign.
Keep in mind, this is all rumored. Microsoft and 343 haven’t made an official announcement, but Bathrobe Spartan has a pretty good track record. It gives us something to hope for instead of just saying Halo is doomed. I’ve invested too much time in Halo to quit now. Anyway, hopefully, this was helpful. This is just a quick gaming update. I’m not going to become a gaming news YouTuber or a Halo rumor-monger. I just wanted to share this. Peace.
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