Single Player versus Player One. There is a subtle difference, but does Xbox One lag behind in the single player space? Luke Lohr over at Xbox Enthusiast asks the question.
Halo 5: Guardians lead concept artist Darren Bacon explains that the game's marketing was completely seperate to the game's development.
The marketing wasn't the issue, it just felt 343 were so bothered about getting Halo away from being known as a Bungie franchise that they tried to introduce so many changes to counter this.
It felt like they were trying to replace Chief as a character thus the big push on Agent Locke (he even got his own mini series). Chief was even in less missions in comparison.
Introduced squads which forced single player gamers to be paired up with 3 AI players over drop in / drop out co-op.
Cortana was butchered, ruining that relationship between Chief and Cortana we all liked. Would have been fine if the twist was the Didact was secretly controlling her or something but nothing. Did she come back in Infinite? Nope. Killed off screen in a sudden 180 to her villainous turn and replaced by a copy since they knew they screwed up.
Expected you to have read all the novels and the like to understand who Blue Team were and their relationship to Chief, had no build up to the characters and it felt like they expected you to like them without it being earned.
Everything they did felt like change for the sake of change, to mark it was a 343 game not a Bungie one and it's hilarious as they tried to f*** around with the multiplayer in Halo 4 to make it their own before reverting things in Guardians.
I didnt mind the switching off between John and Locke... it reminded me of Halo 2 and having the Arbiter levels to trade off to.
The story was okay for me. They had to do something different as the first three games were done and there needed to be new story going in a new direction. I get the die hard fans may not have liked it, but playing it for what it is... its perfectly fine. Its a continuation of halo 4, which itself was a nice original take on the formula.
Now bring on the disagrees.
It reminded me of Halo 2 and I honestly dislike the switching in 2 and 5. The devs should of just had cuts scenes for the Arbiter and for Locke.
Booting the ur-Didact from the games was one of the greatest narrative mistakes they made (after bringing back a logic-plagued Cortana, of course). Even if you had to read the Forerunner novels to understand his history, he was one of the most complex characters in the series, and he should have remained as an enduring part of the universe.
I'm happy that he at least got a send-off in Halo: Epitaph, but it shouldn't have gotten to that point.
No issues it's just wasn't good story at least my friend it wasn't well written.
Yeah it says a lot about the management of 343 at the time that they could have a marketing campaign be so disconnected in tone and story from the game it's supposed to be about.
I'd imagine it would be frustrating for the developers that the marketing beats seemed far cooler than what you were stuck making. Maybe it would've been better if 343 just continued the story from their previous game but nooo they couldn't be bothered to do that even once
You are off your damn rocker if you think Infinite's story is worse than 5's. Just by cleaning up 5's worse elements off-screen makes it a default improvement.
Campaign wise Halo infinite was better due to setting. (Open world, different approaches, setting and mission tasks)
story wise Halo 5 was better. Infinite was literally all over the place. It's like they scrapped the OG story and tried to piece some sht together. They unalived important ppl off screen!!! (Spoiler free) Ruining the main plot of Halo 5 and infinite like wth!!! That alone made the "story" worse than 5. They have to reboot the series now or pull some story where these characters are still alive. (I believe the end reveals 1 is.)
@Beans i disagree with that last statement doing it off screen when that was the main plot and a huge deal is the wrong move. We legit should've got a boss battle that did that. It seem so unsatisfying and anticlimactic. We were suppose to get an IRobot/terminator type of ending and instead we get some off screen sht 😒 We couldve had Halo 4 level emotion, instead it was done as filler
@Coolbeans and @phillydonjawn
Infinites story was so disjointed due to the level design. It wasn't and in my opinion still not replay able. It felt worse then the ending to Starfield.
I'm saying this as a person who's still going through playing the MCC to finish out playlists, and has Ten's of Thousands of hours in Halo since CE.
The literal ending to Starfield or the closing missions? Because some of those missions were actually pretty great in my opinion. Especially Entangled.
Halo 5 had a worse story I felt than Infinite but I agree on its lack of replayability. The single PNW biome is tiring and everything not green and foresty outside is metallic and reflective inside.
Multiplayer is solid but lags behind 5 too I feel. At least it still does get some new content even as they're openly abandoning Infinite's tech for UE.
This Halo CE mod allows a new way to play co-op, but probably in the worst possible way.
This looks like cursed halo at its finest, love it. They need to bring mods to consoles.
Gears of War's creator has spoken out against the trend of turning established franchises into live services, urging developers to focus on single-player experiences.
Too bad he didn't have this opinion when he chased trends with Lawbreakers. Or when he chased trends with Radical Heights.
He learned from the mistake or he wouldn’t be advocating for more single player experiences. I find this refreshing in a world where we often see people so stubborn that they tend to double down on a mistake which results in making things even worse. Seriously, good for him!
@Popsicle
Oh for sure, better late than never. And better to somewhat own up to your mistakes, rather than just blaming your release window, or advertising partners, or gamers lol.
@Popsicle
Of course we will never know his intentions, but it's hard to believe he is just a naive agent that is learning from his mistakes.
He could have done one himself after Gears of War but he did Lawbreakers…look how that turned out.
Jawbreakers would have been a better name! Heck, I might just go and trademark that right now.
You're missing the point. His studio's short lifespan is what *inspired* him to make this comment in the first place.
Oh I know the point...I'm just stating the obvious and how stupid he was in the beginning to jump on a trend he had no real experience in. A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War.
He'd have been better creating something like Gears of War again, a great single player story and a good online mode.
-"A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War."
I mean... you're kinda muddying terms when Gears has always had a strong multiplayer component. Even if I grant you that, Cliffy B started cementing himself at Epic with Unreal Tournament, which was among the earliest shooter series to have "proto-GaaS elements" (downloadable maps, cosmetics, special editions that bundle stuff together). Lawbreakers and Radical Heights (were it finished) weren't major career shifts to him like they would be for, say, Fumito Ueda.
Regardless of that, it's still kinda useless to state the obvious when CliffyB himself made his comments with the benefit of hindsight already.
Look, these a-hole publishers can do this, in fact I want them to, so they can f*ck around and find out and fail hard scaring away everyone else from doing this live service push.
This industry is run by some of the dumbest corporate pieces of sh*t I’ve ever seen. They spend stupid amount of money with literally nothing that stands out from games from the previous generation (look at Arkham Knight to the $200 mill Suicide Squad comparison vids), you’re overpaying devs, and you focus on games as a service to milk consumers that a lot of them grew up off traditional games. We’re not idiots, we sniff this sh*t out and won’t touch it.
So, what’s your answer to not getting a ROI? Raise game prices and double down on GaaS so you can suck your consumers dry. That model only works for some games and even then how in hell do you expect it to work with multiple games!? They’re ruining the damn hobby with this corporate greed.
Cut back on dev budgets, cut back on how much your staff is getting paid, until sales for games bring in a profit. That’s the answer and make some games that feel like there’s passion behind them, not some cookie cut up game that feels like the entire existence behind it is to offer as little as it can with repetitive bullsh*t and selling off all this content throughout its life. It’s gross.
Games do bring in a profit, it's the greed that is killing the industry. Here is a fact, live service games overall make more, significantly more money than single player games
What you should be asking is executives not wanting continuous growth or firing them. Saying devs should be fired when those who are fitting the bills and setting unrealistic expectations would make things worse. What do y9u think would happen if they released say, 30 single player games and over half of them fail? You are going after the wrong crowd.
About time he learned. I guess he finally stopped blaming everyone else and took accountability for his mistakes and realized that people really don't care that much for trends or live service.
What?
Well, I get your point... In the near future there are SP driven games that'll release as you've mentioned.
ReCore, ScaleBound and Quantum Break..
XO has always excelled in MultiPlayer. That's because the games are made with MP in mind backed up by a solid network too.
I enjoyed Sunset OD Ori and Ryse and those were solo experiences. They have Mp components but I preferred playing alone. I wouldn't say the Xbox is lagging behind in the SP department. It's just a solid platform for multi-player.
The single player on all the flagship franchises e.g Crackdown, Halo, Gears of war, Forza, Fable etc. has always been amazing to me. I chose xbox over playstation mainly BECAUSE the single player on these games appeals to me so much. I absolutely LOVE story in games, especially in single player and I would say the Xbox exclusive single player holds its own very well and I hope the trend continues in Forza, Fable, Gears of war and Halo 5 (best single player imo) this year :)
It really doesn't have to be one or the other. Halo has great multiplayer as well as single player . Quantum break looks great next year
I've always found that playstation was the place for me for single player games but at the same time there are some amazing single player experiences on xbox.