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shikamaru317 5 hours ago
trunkswd said:
shikamaru317 said:

Jeez louise, if this source of Rebs Gaming is legit, Halo Studios was a complete mess. Cronyism in hiring practices was talked about by this source 2 days ago. Those leaks about Halo 1 Remake and Halo 7 being in development at the same time since 2022, false, Halo Studios paused the main series for 5 years to do a remake of Halo 1 and apparently planned to keep it paused for much longer than that. When Bonnie Ross got replaced by Pierre Hintze in 2022, he was apparently somehow worse than her, and she was pretty bad.

Halo Studios was planning to do Halo 2 and 3 remakes before Halo 7, with short 5 mission singleplayer campaign plus firefight novel adaptations releasing in the off-years between Halo 1 and 2 Remake and between 2 and 3 remake and between 3 remake and 7, starting with a Halo: First Strike standalone campaign + Firefight missions in 2027. None of those projects were in full production before the layoffs began. Halo 2 and 3 remakes had a small team working on their preproduction, Halo: First Strike would have had a larger preproduction team on it since it was planned for release so soon, and Halo 7 had just been pitched to Asha about a week before she decided on the layoffs at Halo Studios and handing Halo over to Activision. 

The studio meanwhile, once with 350+ devs in the wake of Halo Infinite, has dropped to just 30 developers across several rounds of layoffs, the largest being this latest one. No project currently greenlit. The remaining 30 developers, which include Pierre Hintze and his inner circle, are researching AI tools that can ease development workloads so that a smaller team like them can make a larger game, and trying to find possible 2nd party partner studios that could assist them with an Unreal 5 remake of Halo 2, which they will pitch to Asha when they finish the research and make their presentation.

Halo Studios was going to somehow make an entire game in a year to a year and a half? That isn't happening with today's development cycles. All those plans sound delusional.

Don't get me wrong. I'd LOVE for Halo: First Strike to get its own game. Plenty of content in the novel to have a full length Halo game. But the prequel levels showed the current (former?) team isn't good at creating entirely new levels. Sure, IMO 343 Guilty Spark was fantastically done and the other levels in 2nd half of the campaign were improved. But they also aren't entirely new levels. 

For the Halo 1 remake I would have done things differently. Changed things up a bit more rather than having the first half of the game being 98% the same as before. And rather than 3 random prequel levels I would have added new levels based on the novel like Alpha Base. Basically a new level or 2 between levels 2 and 3, and 3 and 4. Plus added the other cut content from the original game like the wildlife. 

I also would have implemented at least a basic Firefight mode. Take certain areas from the main campaign (Ie. one of the areas where you rescue the Marines in the 2nd level) and turn them into firefight areas. Doing this would require far less work than creating new levels for the mode.

Yeah, the one thing I did like about Halo Studios' plans is that Halo: First Strike adaption, but yeah, even with only 5 missions and firefight there is no way that wouldn't take them at least 2.5 years to make.  But yeah, game adaptions of those first several books would have been nice if they gave them the proper time, First Strike, The Flood, Contact Harvest, Ghosts of Onyx were all great. 

Edit: But like Rebs just tweeted, sad though it is they we're losing a First Strike singleplayer campaign, what the hell was Halo Studios planning on doing that was multiplayer? It looked like they had no multiplayer plans in place after Project Tatanka, the battle royale, was cancelled last year, until Halo 7 possibly as much as a decade from now, after Halo 2 and 3 remakes and 3 of these book to game adaptations, that is a crazy long time to have Infinite and MCC be it for Halo multiplayer offerings, and I'm sure that is why Asha did what she did, she wants Activision to make a very profitable Halo multiplayer offering that rakes in money like CoD usually does.

Last edited by shikamaru317 - 4 hours ago

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G2ThaUNiT 4 hours ago

If there was one thing that doesn't make me feel much from this business reset, it's the Halo IP finally getting ripped away, for the most part, from 343/Halo Studios. 15 years of mediocrity, chasing trends, and never once releasing a full product that was universally loved. There was always some aspect of their releases that was rightfully divisive.



You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind

trunkswd 4 hours ago
shikamaru317 said:
trunkswd said:

Halo Studios was going to somehow make an entire game in a year to a year and a half? That isn't happening with today's development cycles. All those plans sound delusional.

Don't get me wrong. I'd LOVE for Halo: First Strike to get its own game. Plenty of content in the novel to have a full length Halo game. But the prequel levels showed the current (former?) team isn't good at creating entirely new levels. Sure, IMO 343 Guilty Spark was fantastically done and the other levels in 2nd half of the campaign were improved. But they also aren't entirely new levels. 

For the Halo 1 remake I would have done things differently. Changed things up a bit more rather than having the first half of the game being 98% the same as before. And rather than 3 random prequel levels I would have added new levels based on the novel like Alpha Base. Basically a new level or 2 between levels 2 and 3, and 3 and 4. Plus added the other cut content from the original game like the wildlife. 

I also would have implemented at least a basic Firefight mode. Take certain areas from the main campaign (Ie. one of the areas where you rescue the Marines in the 2nd level) and turn them into firefight areas. Doing this would require far less work than creating new levels for the mode.

Yeah, the one thing I did like about Halo Studios' plans is that Halo: First Strike adaption, but yeah, even with only 5 missions and firefight there is no way that wouldn't take them at least 2.5 years to make.  But yeah, game adaptions of those first several books would have been nice if they gave them the proper time, First Strike, The Flood, Contact Harvest, Ghosts of Onyx were all great. 

Edit: But like Rebs just tweeted, sad though it is they we're losing a First Strike singleplayer campaign, what the hell was Halo Studios planning on doing that was multiplayer? It looked like they had no multiplayer plans in place after Project Tatanka, the battle royale, was cancelled last year, until Halo 7 possibly as much as a decade from now, after Halo 2 and 3 remakes and 3 of these book to game adaptations, that is a crazy long time to have Infinite and MCC be it for Halo multiplayer offerings, and I'm sure that is why Asha did what she did, she wants Activision to make a very profitable Halo multiplayer offering that rakes in money like CoD usually does.

The first handful of Halo novels are really good at expanding the lore. But without going too far like some of the later ones do. Considering Halo Studios/343i's track record I have little faith the level design would have been good in a First Strike game. 

As far as multiplayer I would have made a separate game for that. With seasons that last 3 months or so adding new content and levels. With standard Halo arena PvP, Firefight modes, and a mode similar to Helldivers. And when a new game came out make a season or 2 based on that game that adds levels, weapons, skins based on it. A Halo hub with all the Halo games accessible in it would also have been nice. So you can easily switch between them. 

I am curious what Activision will do with Halo. I hope it still feels like Halo and isn't just Call of Duty with a Halo skin on top. 



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