What is up with Halo Infinite?

Maybe Master Chief should have stayed gone.

Once again, I am not the Halo fan that some others are, dripping with praise and endorsement for the decades old space shooter. But I have always been a spectator of it's antics. Bungie have, several times over, managed to create games that have fundamentally altered the industry around them in drastic, and one time supremely harmful, fashions. They invented the standard for first person shooters, created the expected norms of Online ecosystems, and then introduced the world to live services and condemned the entire industry for the next decade. (thanks for that one, guys.) Thus I'd have to be a fool not to look at the brand which they left behind when they went to Destiny, just to see if their legacy is still being upheld in the manner that they would respect and want. After 'Guardians' there has been questions about whether or not 343 is up to take to take on the huge responsibility of leading Halo, and recent months have bought that even further into doubt.

The first and most obvious sign of things not going exactly according to plan at all times was of course the delaying of the game from the release date of the Series X to some unspecified future time that, given the chaotic state of 2020, we may never reach. (I'm joking. Probably) Now some might say that this was to be expected given the absolutely lackadaisical marketing the game was receiving, implying that things were not shaping up to a fashion which could be bragged about, but it still does conjure some worry when Microsoft cannot bring themselves to get out a Halo game to coincide with the birth of their new game's console. It's just unseemly. This extra time will undoubtedly help the game out, there's no debate, but it has caused an extended gap wherein excitement needs to be built up for the game once again through slight info drops, so I wonder what 343 have to tease for this bold new direction on the Halo franchise.

And they've already caused an uproar again. (How do you even manage to do it that fast?) This time with something as easy and innocuous as customisation. In a Halo game. What in god's name could you possibly manage to get wrong about customising the appearance for a first person character? Well, everything, it would seem because people are livid right now. And curiously enough this all seems to trail back to the way in which people received the news that the armour colouring system was changing. For those unfamiliar, this was the particularly rudimentary way in which players could charge the colour and patterns on the protagonist's armour so that they could mix and match. It was simple and uncomplicated, and honestly just a little bit outdated given all the character creators that have spawned over the years. Even if it's completely out-of-bounds to make your own hero for these games (as it very much is with Halo) they could have done some basic revitalisations to this system if they really cared. And I guess 343 kinda did?

What they've done with the system, and forgive me if I get confused at their weirdly uninformative stance on the matter, is marry the independent colouring, pattern making and material deciding aspects into packs that can then be provided to the player wholesale in an as-of-yet-undisclosed manner. So whereas before you could make any piece of your armour whatever pattern and material you think would look good, now you have to get a pack which will decide that combination for you, but only on one specific piece of armour meaning you'll have to get several packs in order to be cohesive. (That last part seems to be what people are most confused about, I can't seem to make sense of it all either, but it sounds pretty much like Destiny's Shader system shamelessly stolen.) Now this has allegedly been done in order to make it easier for 343 to design skins. (Not sure why they even need to, to be honest) but before you leap to their defence it may help to take a look at the example they've already provided of their handiwork.

In some misguided attempt to assuage fears and assure folk that this is for the best, 343 decided to show off some new gun skins for people's classic Halo favourites, these skins themed in a curiously familiar pattern of lime green with black accents. (Oh no, they didn't.) Yep, this is the Monster Energy Drink themed Halo Skin, and instantly 343 lost 50% respect with the community. Do these companies really not comprehend how tacky it is to do brand deals with skins in your game? Had they blinders on when Marvel's Avengers was ruthlessly mocked for the exact same thing? Or was this deal in place long before them and 343 eavesdropped on all that backlash whilst biting their nails nervously? If nothing else this does set up something of a gross precedent for what other 'skins' 343 is planning to cook up for the community instead of letting them get creative on their own. (But hey, you can recolour the Warthogs now. yay.)

I think that people have become most concerned, in the wake of this news, about how these 343 designed colouring packs have the potential to be monetised. Although I don't believe anything has been officially stated on that matter, when you start throwing about brand deals it's a little bit of a 'all bets are off', sort of situation. What's to stop some sort of promotional deal being thrown in, just like for Avengers, where you have to dig through cans of Halo-branded Monster Energy in order to get the codes for your Halo Skin. That's not exactly unheard of in the gaming world, Call of Duty does those sorts of promotions to this day. Or maybe they'll just straight up sell these skins in some in-game store. (Because people just love being sold cosmetics in their single player games.) This whole situation raises a lot of eyebrows.

Almost as many eyebrows, in fact, as the news that Halo Infinite's Director, Chris Lee, has up and left the company out of the blue before the game is anywhere near done. Now we've talked recently about how high level shake-ups in the middle of game production is usually, and historically, a bad sign, but when we're talking about the freakin' Director jumping ship then that opens a whole new can of worms. How bad can things be for Mr. Lee to dip now of all times? Now to play devil's advocate, this is around about the time that Halo Infinite should have originally launched so maybe he's been planning his departure for a while and just didn't want to postpone, but there's no denying the move is, regardless, going to cause some turmoil. (Isn't he potentially sacrificing a credit by leaving in the middle of production? That's a pretty big knock for the ego to take.)

So I refer back to the question that started this blog, what is up with Halo Infinite? It seems like the black sheep of Microsoft's line-up right now that literally no one wants to spare a chance, least of all Halo fans themselves. This game got torn apart during it's gameplay reveal, and is getting torn apart in marketing, it's all enough to make some wonder if people even want another Halo game at all! To their credit, 343 have announced that the multiplayer mode for Halo Infinite will apparently be free-to-play, which is an unprecedented move that I'll surely take advantage of, but that's one silver lining obscured by a deluge of grey skies, for which it's becoming increasingly difficult to see past. Only time will tell if all of these upheavals will propel Halo into the modern age or further sink the brand into steady irrelevancy. (Here's hoping for the former.)