Tbf I'm being mean to the Pros, there was Reddit threads voting to have Bandit Evo starts as well and a lot of pre-launch hype for the Bandit Evo as a starting weapon from the general Halo community. Worth watching this thread to see what feedback is given.

Bandit EVO Discussion & Feedback Thread : r/CompetitiveHalo

LASO?! Classic?!? Ooooooh boy!

Fucking LASO Firefight KOTH.

They better not have an achievement with that, Lmao.

Firefight Classic? It isn't listed as KOTH...Jesus if 343 has a Classic Firefight mode as well...

The Halo World Championship 2023 hit 159K Peak Viewers during the summit clash between FaZe Clan and OpTic Gaming. Both teams had at least three entries on the list of five most popular matches at this Halo competition — including their clash from the Playoffs' Upper Bracket Semifinals — pointing to their popularity and the hype created when they clash.   

The Halo World Championship 2023 ended as the second most popular tournament in the discipline of all time, behind only the HCS Kickoff Major Raleigh 2021. This means it has become the most followed world event of all time, which is significant motivation for the organizers to continue innovating and a big thumbs up to the tweaked format for the season that was seen this year.

The Halo World Championship 2023 Was a Roaring Success

Surasia already teasing Season 6!

I'm also not really warm with the Bandit. It's not bad or anything but it feels kinda weak, not sure why but when you shoot it feels like the weakest weapon in the game or something.

Idk if it's because I play Infinite on MnK, but the Bandit feels fantastic for me. It only takes 3-4 hits to knock out a shield then the final bullet to the head. Although I do agree it shouldn't be the starting weapon in ranked. I can picture it feeling slow overall just going from a faster burst to semi-auto. 

Okay, I was looking at the Bethesda drops post-acquisition and I noticed a couple things. The first drop was this.

All aside from two released on Xbox and PC Game Pass at the same time, whilst Activision-Blizzard has barely anything released on Windows Store (do they?), so one factor could be that Activision-Blizzard has to port a lot of shit over to Windows Store or integrate Game Pass into Battle.net

It's difficult to find a complete list but at minimum, Dishonoured 2, Fallout New Vegas, Prey, Skyrim, New Order and Youngblood were on Game Pass already once before while Activision-Blizzard has barely supported Game Pass at all.

The next drop happened in June (3 months after the first drop).

So maybe 3 months-ish is the rough estimate of how long it will take to start seeing some of these.

The CMA fucked everything up and led both Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard to have doubts if the deal would even happen and I very much doubt, known Game Pass hater, Bobby Kotick, would have set aside things to work on preparing for Game Pass releases for a deal that up until only a couple of weeks ago, they were unsure would even happen, so the work starts now.

Also, I'm guessing things like Tony Hawk Pro Skater will have to be discussed with Tony Hawk, Lol. Sekiro will have to be discussed with From Software. Anything else with licenses.

You know Bobby was probably like "I ain't working on this shit until we're owned by Xbox" and Xbox can't work on it because they don't own ABK yet, while Zenimax was always on the Game Pass train and likely prepared months before closure.

I'm not saying that it is weak but it doesn't feel as powerful when you shoot. That's what I meant. The "feels like the weakest weapon" was an exaggeration though

The bandit is the scopeless DMR isn't it? Yeah, I hate that thing, I can usually kill somebody with a pistol faster at nearly all ranges. Thing really needs a scope.