Thanks to new video leaks of the new DLC Defiant Map Pack for Halo Reach, it can be confirmed that 343 Industries is the developer, were Bungie explicitly declared that Noble Team Map Pack was their last job with Halo Franchise and also thanks to the description in the video you can see that the footage was taken from inside of 343 Industries.
A 343 Industries former developer recently discussed major red flags associated with the studio due to horrible decision-making and leadership.
“they are creatively limiting” when speaking of management. That seems to be an issue for a good chunk of MS’s studios for the last decade. It’s not as harsh as “their leadership is cancer” statement but it’s really important to nurture creativity with video games and seems like an obvious issue within MS and especially 343.
Yeah but overall creativity is way down in the AAA market not many risk's are being taken.
M$ though has so many unused ip's like ninja giden and conker poor rare :(
But its all down to how much money a company is making sadly overall despite the failures of halo micorsoft is still stupid rich.
DEI is dragging profits down for those that follow it. Simple. Those narratives don't have a large market for gaming.
@DarXyde
Yes i said Ninja Gaiden though my spelling was bad MS has published it in the past but of course sega/koei also did so who owns the ip is always a debate
That being said it is another dead ip that once had a good run of games.
You talked about creativity and then proceeded to bring up old franchises just to contradict yourself immediately after.
We don't need sequels we need new stories and IPs. That's creativity.
Bro literally said DEI is what’s causing creative limitations and 343i have been selling halo short longer then that was in the conversation lol I swear these micro aggressions over inclusion with ppl trying to associate it to things failing and not the decades long issue of poor management and greedy practices is sad, pathetic and hilarious all at once.
Starting to believe these anti dei people ARE the poor management ppl trying to make themselves feel better online
Overall creativity down with the big publishers *
There fixed it for you. I've never felt there is a lack of creativity in the games I play but then again I can count on one hand the games I've bought from the big three publishers in the last five years.
Lex, look at a photo of the 90s devs, just a bunch of bros that actually look like they are having fun, guys like Cliffy were in charge. Look at the devs now, they look like they are just there for the checks and preach a message, it feels much more corporate. Gamers don't want to be preached to. I'm not against diversity, some of my favorite games are filled with people that arent just white men, games like Halo, Gears, Tomb Raider, Uncharted and many more.
@just_looken
I don't remember reading any article or hearing anything about Microsoft purchasing KOEI Tecmo or the Ninja Gaiden franchise. Microsoft does not own Ninja Gaiden they published the game that was it. And there was away to skate around the contract with Microsoft so KOEI Tecmo could bring the game to the PS3. KOEI Tecmo owns Ninja Gaiden they are the ones who can do what ever they want with the franchise.
@Notellin
Ahh another person that puts words in my mouth gets praise its like America in here.
Please anyone here on n4g point out were i said sequels?
Old ip's can be reborn same or even new characters with fresh ideas hello conker needs a fresh comeback a silly platformer game for adults.
There are so many old ip's never reused at least bungie is bringing back marathon for what ever that is worth but atleast that ip is given a second chance.
It's not like we can't see it ever since the shift to prioritise gamepass it's been all quantity over quality.
A mediocre game that ships and holds someone's attention for 20 hours is the same on gamepass as a incredible game that holds someone's attention for 20 hours.
It's clear up until recently they pretty much gave up on selling games until.they realised there's money to be made by selling games to PlayStation and Nintendo gamers that won't subscribe to gamepass. Like the marketing for halo infinite was abysmal with day one on gamepass being the only aspect pushed halo used to be a game that retailers would proudly promote and have midnight launches for but if you told me it didn't ship on a disc id believe it a physical copy of the game is almost non existent.
i know its the meta to blame gamepass
But remember there is ubisoft + ea access playstation plus collection deal then you got that nintendio game sub.
You are right in what you said but its more than Microsoft is going the way the netflix of gaming.
Hard to only blame 343. Microsoft have this franchise mentality and focus on what worked for them before and the fact that they also listen to that small loud section of their fans is a problem. Not saying they have to be like Sony or Nintendo but those companies don’t really listen outcries or demands but focus devs visions. so many Mario’s n Zelda’s out there but pretty much all different but some fans would cry so loud of Halo dares to try new things. I see some hope now with new engine, third person option etc
It's business managers like Phil Spencer butting heads with creative talented developers.
"It’s not as harsh as “their leadership is cancer” statement but it’s really important to nurture creativity with video games and seems like an obvious issue within MS and especially 343."
WTF? Didn´t MS just allowed 343i to do go through a complete team overhaul with new creative staff, new focus, new name and new engine after spent hundreds of millions on R&D for Slipspace?!
The dude, didn´t trashed MS or his former colleagues at 343i studio, he was talking specifically about the *leadership* and one person in particular, Pierre Hintze.
Then you turn and twisted his comments into some bs Xbox hit piece when in reality Xbox´s Matt Botty is encouraging Xbox studios to create *new* games and *new* IPs like Avowed, South of Midnight, Everwild, Clockwork Revolution, Contraband, Kojima´s OD, Project Mara, Fable, Perfect Dark, State of Decay, Flight Simulator, Age of Mythology, Blade, Towerborne, Gears E-Day... and more.
Then I look at Playstation´s Hermen Hurst forcing first party studios to work mostly on GaaS, Remasters, Remakes and Re-Releases and I know which company is allowing and encouraging freedom of creative for its developers.
So you can pretend and twist reality all you want, but you that I´d brought you FACTS!
Begins to spew nonsense while ignoring that many of Microsoft's ips have gone to point of not selling in high numbers anymore. Halo was a huge fail as it no longer rivals other media or competitor's ips. And lost features that used to be standard. Forza comes out and is pretty much forgotten compared to GT7. Red Fall was a fail. Star Field was a fail. And now games are coming to competitor's platforms just to pick up sales.
And YOU think it's just Pierre. Lol. What is 343 allowed to make besides Halo? There's no creativity in banging out a dead horse every couple of years. And then get worse at it to the point where they were shook up to fix a broken nightmare. Abandoning an expensive game engine instead of making it better. You don't see Naughty Dog abandoning their engine. You don't see Guerilla abandoning theirs. You don't see Polyphony abandoning theirs. They make theirs better.
Management is a problem from Phil all the way down Microsoft game studios. Or they wouldn't be getting their asses kicked consistently and selling games on other platforms. But keep on being the blind warrior. You don't restructure for doing well. It's when you're failing. Lol... Allowed... What nonsense. They were allowed.... Lol.
An ex speaking bad on their ex 😂
And they got rid of Bonnie and the other head at 343 so yes they done more then change their name.
Like why do we listen to people like this. If was so bad like he claimed why stay for 13 years lol.
have you already forgot the first game play of halo infinite then all the hype of the mp?
I say toss out this "new" game then give it a year or toss it on GP
Did you read Waltz's post?
He gives a pretty clear picture of reasons why he stayed.
You can say it's a jaded ex speaking ill of an ex, but if you finally break up with someone after a long time and give clear reasons for it, it sounds like someone trying to really commit to making it work but you hit a breaking point and as you leave, you share some insights: what kept you there that long (he says why) and what's very difficult to overlook (he says what).
If, after hearing that, people still want to work for them, no issues. But frankly, there is more evidence in support of his perspective than against it.
This.
Anyone that's worked for one company for a long time knows that it's not perfect all the time, there are always ups and downs, and there's a balance between the pros and the cons.
It's when that balance starts to tip and the cons start to outweigh the pros, I find you get to a situation where there's the 'stick that broke the camel's back', that one thing just reaffirms what you already knew - that it's time to get out, and you quit.
At the end of last year I left somewhere after 14 years, and almost every day I think about how it was turned into a complete shit show by incompetent, unprofessional leadership.
Sorry for the rant!
Seems every studio associated with Halo (Bungie, 343) is just simply toxic. Coincidence or not, I don't know but it sure explains why Halo has been underwhelming since 3.
343 Industries is hiring a Generative AI Lead to integrate AI into future projects, pushing the boundaries of innovation in game development.
Go join that team and be the part of launching a massive disappointment. Now you can help lol with AI to make it even more generic, apply now!
Pure Xbox writes: "Microsoft has appointed Alan Hartman as the new Head of Xbox Game Studios. If you're not familiar with Hartman, he's been part of Forza Motorsport team at Turn 10 Studios since 2005.
Over the past couple of years he's led as Corporate Vice President of Forza and Fable, and before this was the Forza Studio Head at Turn 10."
Seems like a solid choice considering Forza and FH have been the only high quality studio, consistently for Microsoft.
*Forza and FH are the most consistent high quality and this guy ran Turn 10. Playground did FH but still high quality. Let's see if he can get some quality production out of the rest
He´s been doing an excellent job ahead of both Forza franchises integrating those studios to work together by sharing knowledge, technology and manpower.
The new ForzaTech is amazing and I can´t wait to see what it can do for the new Fable.
Phil Spencer has been promoting a huge shake up at Xbox with new leadership hopefully full of fresh ideas!
I hope Alan Hartman as head of XGS to keep the focus on single player games and RPGs. Fable looks absolutely stunning, so we can expect Forza Horizon´s level of excellence for Playground´s first RPG.
I can´t wait!
What a nice reward for the latest Forza, which is probably the most mediocre of the lot so far.
@redgrave not an excuse an explanation for why this game has less features. Not my problem you don't understand how game development works or development in general. When you move to a knew platform some things need to be rebuilt from the ground up.
I am currently migrating one of our services we provide to our customers to the cloud version and having to rebuild a lot of the add-ons we had built for them over the years.
But go ahead and keep criticizing devs when no one here has any clue what it actually takes.
Still think Rod Fergusson would have been a good shout. He's got a track record of fixing stuff and I assume he's still at Blizzard.
Not heard of this guy but I feel like anyone is better than Matt Booty
I thought Dan Greenawalt was head of Turn10 though (although I noticed he didn't do the on stage stuff at e3 this year). Is he not there anymore?
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is the best news I've heard since the last piece of xbox news!
Go team xbox! Xbox will rule the world!
He's over overlooked The Forza games which have been consistently good through our the years. Hopefully he has the same eye for quality for the rest if the studios going forward.
How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?
“How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?“
Forza Motorsport declined after FM4. And this release was one of the worst in the series.
These are new videos and a totally new story, different from my other news revealing the Defiant Map Pack gameplay.
Looks nice! 343 might be the group that saves this franchise from the hell bound collision Bungie set forth.
looks nice, cant wait to get this map pack
343 can make the maps just as long as Bungie keeps bringing us awesome new modes and playlists for free! :]
everyone loves 343 but clearly they employ people who don't remember what an awesome time it was back when we didn't know shit before we were supposed to.
These days with all the patent findings and the ratings board findings and the leaked everything, I always know what to expect from games in advance.
Doesn't anybody miss having their fucking socks blown off?!