HOPE For Halo YET!! - 343's Potential Restructuring
Alright, what’s up everyone? I felt a little weird making this video because of that short I posted yesterday. A lot’s been happening with Halo, to 343, and honestly, some really weird stuff is going on across the internet right now.
One of the strangest things is this whole ‘#Fire343’ movement that started months ago, around September or October of last year. It went viral, even people who usually love Halo were tweeting it. Obviously, it didn’t end well. Then, Bonnie Ross gets the boot, they shake up the management, and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, the hashtag worked! Justice!’ Now they’re gonna give us the game we want. Then they follow it up with announcements for Season Three, the Winter Update, Forge, and all that. Seemed like things were looking up.
But then, Microsoft announced over 10,000 layoffs, and 343 was hit hard. They’re saying up to 116 people lost their jobs. Some are even saying more cuts could be coming. I wouldn’t want to work at Microsoft or 343 right now, knowing my job could be next.
Bathrobe Spartan, who’s been a pretty prolific leaker in the community, dropped a thread. I don’t know if you guys follow Bathrobe Spartan, but you should. Turns out they’re mostly a French account, doing French posts and podcasts. Luckily, with the internet, we can translate their thread and keep up with what they’re saying. Their track record seems pretty solid right now, so it gives us some hope.
Basically, Microsoft wasn’t happy with the direction 343 was going, or the direction Halo was headed. I even saw tweets from ex-developers saying it’s Microsoft’s fault for setting unrealistic deadlines and stressing out the developers. But anyway, what did we learn from Bathrobe Spartan’s thread?
Apparently, these staff losses won’t impact the plans for Halo Infinite. Halo Infinite is still a priority for Microsoft; they’re not ready to give up on Halo itself. They want 343 to be more nimble. All the content planned for this year – the seasons, modes, and elements – are still on track. This includes all projects associated with Halo Infinite, worked on by 343 Industries and external studios. Forge is managed by Skybox Labs, maps and content by Sperasoft, and modes and elements by Certain Affinity. Sperasoft seems to be handling more of the art and store content. So, the multiplayer isn’t ending, we can still play, grind, and try to reach Diamond.
These layoffs aren’t the only losses for 343. Between positions transferred to other teams within Microsoft and non-renewal of external contract workers, 343 Industries loses one-third of its workforce! That’s a lot of people. But, these departures mainly impact the teams in charge of producing visual and narrative content. This is a result of diverging visions within 343: pursuing the narrative universe versus the financial needs of the studio.
Basically, they want to keep making stories, but they also need to make money. A small team had established plans for continuing Master Chief’s adventure with short DLCs leading to a larger campaign extension. But, they’re cutting the DLC. They’re not pursuing the narrative universe because they don’t have the budget. They need to make money, and the store, multiplayer, and battle passes are the way to do it. Narrative solo content hasn’t offered strong player retention or viable monetization.
When you play a campaign, you play it once. Only die-hard Halo players constantly replay it. Most players, including myself, do the campaign and then jump back into multiplayer. So, campaigns aren’t offering strong player retention, which isn’t surprising, and they don’t allow for viable monetization. It seems like the goal is to micro-transaction the hell out of Halo to make it profitable. Armor cores, colors, effects – all that good stuff that goes into a live service game. They don’t want to continue producing narrative solo content for Halo Infinite, or Halo in general, at this stage.
Maybe they’ll go back to campaign mode eventually, but not in the next few years. The lore in Halo is so deep and rich that they’ll probably want to continue it eventually. 343 faced financial expectations that Halo Infinite didn’t meet. These layoffs are a result of Microsoft preparing for a possible recession, and the high operating costs of a studio with unachieved financial objectives. They find multiplayer being the key sticky factor with Halo, so that’s what they want to focus on.
So, 343 Industries won’t disappear, but the game development part of the studio will be erased. A lot of people hated the direction 343 was taking the game, and now they won’t be the ones developing it. That’s mostly going to Certain Affinity. Certain Affinity took over a lot of development in Season Two, and it seems like 343 Industries will really just be the top head of Halo. They’ll outsource a bunch of stuff to Certain Affinity and other studios to keep things going.
In 2020, Xbox Publishing had approached other studios to imagine the design of new Halo experiments, delegated but supervised by Xbox Game Studios and 343. These studios will have access to resources from 343 Industries, including the Slipspace Engine. So, it seems like they’re staying on Slipspace. 343 Industries’ only development role will be to maintain and keep Slipspace running. This would lead to more Halo video games that could explore different ideas and approaches.
We could see an ODST game, a Halo RTS, or even a Halo mobile game. With Microsoft’s move to acquire Activision, they really 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, especially with this new direction of 343 just managing the license and bringing on new companies. A Halo mobile game doesn’t need to be stuck on Slipspace; they might just do it in Unreal.
In summary, the main changes are the loss of internal game development capacities at 343, and opening up the franchise to be distributed. Job losses aside, as far as the game is concerned, it seems like it’s going to keep going. 343 is just going to be a licensing company, and Certain Affinity, led by Max Hoberman, will focus on most of the actual game. Max was one of the main guys behind the original Halo, so this should make old-school Halo fans feel good. I hope they can keep coming up with new game modes and expanding the game. It sucks that we’re not going to get more DLC and campaign stuff, but hey, take what you can get. If Halo starts making Microsoft a ton of money, they’re going to outsource the hell out of it.
All of this is rumored. Microsoft and 343 haven’t put out an official press release, but I’m going based on Bathrobe Spartan’s track record. It gives us something to hope for other than Halo being doomed. I’ve invested too much time in Halo to just quit. Anyway, this was a smaller, quicker video than my normal ones. This is my gaming update. I’m not going to become a gaming news YouTuber. I just thought I’d share this since I had that sad short that didn’t really go anywhere. Peace!
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