The Future of Halo into 2024

[Accessing]

For most, this thread might be kind of click bait for an otherwise unwelcomed rant of 343 Industries but I want to share all I know about the future without bias and really any negativity. 

Please, if you hate Halo just stop playing it you do not have to tell me (especially on a dedicated Halo website lmao.) I will of course not shy away from criticism but this hopefully isn't that and just an understanding of where Halo is today and where it is going tomorrow. 

WHERE IS 343 INDUSTRIES? 
To start, 343 Industries is under Xbox Game Studios exclusively developing Halo for Xbox Game Studios to publish. We know that Joe Staten who wrote most of the Halo story as we know today moved back up into Xbox Game Studios. He is still then, most likely apart of the approval process of Halo reaching us the consumer. Along with all other studios ,343 Industries was hit with job cuts and a hiring freeze. No new talent (well in my experience a hiring freeze means they stopped looking, not that they stopped accepting if you know someone already with good recommendation) and nothing new from a public relations standpoint outside of Pierre Hintze letting us know that either Halo games (Infinite & The Master Chief Collection are not going to be abandoned. Unfortunately Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Halo Wars DE & other games are all never mentioned and are by definition abandoned. 

 

WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH HALO INFINITE? 
While no official sources to cite this; from my understanding the current plan is to support Halo Infinite until it's economically safe to ramp up the studio. That all depends on the economy which right now is projected to have growing/maintained inflation and high interest rates affecting all kinds of operational costs. To us it is most relatable in the cost of electricity which has risen worldwide or even computer parts and machines which the studios would use to create the game. The rates are not coming down until at least 2024 and businesses that do not have Cash are scaling back to save in costs. 343 Industries as a business has scaled back and plan to deliver on the direction that Joseph Staten left it on with narrative events, content and more.  

Tashi and HCS shared that the business unit is prioritizing its cost to performance hosting this year, which is the suggested reasoning behind the HCS league no longer operating in Mexico, Europe and Australia/New Zealand as it did in the first year of operation. The reasons being the same, the advertising industry scaling back from supporting Esports tournaments hurt HCS, the bigger organizations some of them revealed to be failing or struggling to stay afloat needed to renegotiate contracts with players and shuffle around others and finally crowdfunding which needs to be a topic in its own hasn't been revealed exactly where the revenue is going but we can only guess that it is to sustain the business, both development and HCS units. 

 

WHAT TO DO AS A FAN? 
Its important this is understood, but I do want to add not to take this as truth and give sermons out to the greater community. As a fan myself this is simply my deduction of what is going on and I have no proof whatsoever or insider knowledge. From me to you, I am still looking forward to the narrative events and seeing how Halo Infinite will grow with the story and content planned. I am sad maybe we don't understand the legendary ending of Halo Infinite with Atriox or where did the UNSC Infinity go and all our favorite characters and even outside of the story the games desync issue, population issue (where all I can do is invite more people to play through Halo's challenges) and other game bugs that exist still being ironed out. The brighter side is that it IS being worked on and we do have a positive feedback loop with the Halo Support site to voice our problems. 

So I leave you with things that I do as a fan of the series that doesn't want Halo to die! 

• Play Halo when you can and find it fun, you are not forced to play but if you like the game you should play it when you can and especially with friends. 
• Support positive criticism and feedback, be attentive and try not to engage in silly stuff like #fire343 or stupid clickbait "ragebaiting" that creators do.
• If you like Halo and don't want to play the game consider finding other ways to support by supporting the communities around Halo, like this forum  
• Find a content creator in Halo that you like and open a tab for them, its okay if you don't like all of them (I personally can only watch a handful while the rest are annoying lmao) 
• Be okay with people not agreeing or subscribing to your ideas of Halo, in my 20 years around Halo its obvious not everyone can agree to the same things

 

[Anna Richards]

This is a great piece Shawn, I actually like Halo Infinite and its been hard to find more positive people around Halo. I think people forget that the negativity of others only feed into how they feel and think. But of course my feeds on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter don't show me much of any Halo things anymore and its probably for the best since I prefer not following gaming content on social media anyways.

[LITTLE LEVEL]

You know I having been taking a huge break from infinite recently but for whatever reason I want to play it again. Maybe its just I want a simple arena game for once where I don't feel like I have to play 24/7 to keep up with the battle pass and new content.

[Venture Jones]

Glad to see that so far it is looking better than expected when this was originally written I bet. Obviously with outside streamers (1G for example) helping bolster its "fun-ness". I think most hope or are in favor of season 5 being another great season, with the pace of this year so far. I expected it to be an opposite run, but glad Infinite is actually keeping ground and improving on it a great rate.

[Rat]

I haven't played Halo Infinite since I didn't have the money at the time. But anyway I would like to see Master Chief get a promotion to the next rank. Master Chief deserved the next rank. Even tho Master Chief denied the promotions many times throughout his career with UNSC. Honestly, I would want to see who would be taking the Master Chief spot but at the same time, I would hate to see Master Chief gone cuz we all made amazing memories with Chief throughout every game that has been made. I know some of you might agree or disagree completely but I think we can be happy for Master Chief if he does end up retiring from service as a spartan. I mean He deserves a happy retirement.