How to Mishandle a Franchise | A Halo: Infinite Retrospective 

After all this time, I feel really fucking bad for Joseph Staten. The man was brought back to his creation to try and wrangle the 343 clowns only to eventually be told to take a step back and basically had his good graces with the community used against us by having him deliver *all* of the bad news

To the ones who beta tested, were ready for a new Halo dynasty, but had to step away from disappointment... we were there o7

"Mishandled?" Bro, with Infinite, they might as well have literally shit on the franchise, and then wiped their ass with it. And then set it on fire. And shit on it again. Mishandled is putting it *very* lightly.

Halo Infinite should be a case study of why corporate executives need to keep their damn hand out of the pie. So many years 343 spun their wheels because no one in the director's chair had a damn clue what to make of this game, but knew it had to have _season passes!_ Or _cash shops!_ Or an _open world!_ All the while, the fundamentals were being sorely neglected, because none of the higher ups gave a damn; they're all just games, right?

That part where all the friends are walking around remembering their friends forge houses was beautiful. Honestly made me miss a lot of ppl right there.

Nah, Bonnie Ross did more to harm Halo than help it. I truly believe it would have been better to just leave Halo alone until they got someone competent

Let’s not forget they didn’t even have mission select for a $60+ campaign. God bless y’all and stay hydrated.

Halo will never recover from the exodus of Bungie.

This video was so well done, I didn't even realize I was watching a smaller creator. I'm excited to see more

"I HAVE TO PAY FOR BLUE!?" -Some angry guy named Joe.

343 has proved incompetent. We need a studio change full stop. Retcon Halo 4, 5, and infinite. Give Halo 3 and the original trilogy a real fucking sequal.

In my mind, the games ended with reach. I like a lot of the lore that has been added since reach, but the games themselves have been one mismanaged mess after another.

It cracks me up (in a good way) that even though ALL Halo music is available to use, videos like this use all the old stuff. 😂

here's my take: bungie blazed a trail for almost everyone else to follow 343 never made anything unique, and only ever followed the trail that everyone else had made Halo 4: make a Halo that plays like CoD Halo 5: make a Halo that plays like futuristic CoD/Titanfall Halo Infinite: Make a Halo that is overmonetized like CoD

343 took 1 step forward and then took 100 steps back

The only Halo content we get these days is videos about retrospectives, introspections, and questions. So interesting to see the Halo vs Star Wars discourse. Star Wars fans are pissed, Halo fans are heartbroken

The thing about having the shock weapons is that it used to take skill to line up a charged plasma pistol shot to disable a vehicle, but now you can literally snipe vehicles out of the sky.

Armor cores were never a good idea when Reach’s customization existed. I also rather disliked Spartan AI’s and Spartan chatter

Campaign was one of the most bare bone pieces of crap I've played in a while

but the biggest fools of this story, is the whole fanbase that blindly believed in 343i from the start... i've never seen so much people without dignity

A battle pass that doesn't go away is just called a progression system in any other game or point in history. I don't know why games get praised for this nowadays.

I think the main thing that stopped infinite, was lack of pregame lobbies, and lack of partying up. There's no reason to keep playing

This deserves to pop off. Really good stuff

I’m have never, seen a video that so perfectly captures my feelings about the journey of this game. Bravo

I'm honestly glad that I never spent any real money on this game. Even after they started bringing the game closer to how it should have been on launch, something was telling me in the back of my mind that they weren't going to sustain it. It's really sad. I've been a Halo fan since the beginning, and seeing my favorite franchise get treated with such little care is frustrating beyond belief. I don't have faith that 343 is ever going to put out a good Halo game.

"343 didn't earn Halo, and that's why they don't give a shit." I heard that in Crowbcats video about the MCC debable, and it rings true here. The multillayer is fun, but lacked variety for a long time. Customization is better, but it's still restricted. The campaign is fun, but a soft reboot. It runs fine now, but for far too long was plagued with crashes and piss poor optimization. Upper management fucks shit up, and the devs spend time fixing those things rather than focusing on what, for the longest time, was considered the peak of player expression and choice: Halo (be it forge, customs, firefight, multiplayer, co-op, theater). Why? Because they didnt. Earn. It.

I'm tired of 343's new maps, just being forged maps.

The idea that anyone could or would defend 343 studio’s systematic dismantling of the halo franchise since Reach is mind boggling.

That Stockholm statement... I don't know what to say other than that it's the most accurate way to describe, not just a Halo fan, but any fan of a dying franchise. This fact crushes me, & will probably continue to crush me, as long as game dev companies continue to see video games/franchises as a business rather than a fun pastime.

Bonnie Ross, Kiki and Frank are the three that killed Halo. They did everything opposite to help the franchise. Multiple promises that were broken and the classic “we are listening to the fans!” excuse.

im 100% serious when i say this, i though you were a really big creator when i watched this video. seeing you have 1.5k subs blows my mind, this is very very good. keep it up! i look forward to more!

Another Halo game and still no Playable Elites it’s honestly such a tragedy especially since the Elites in Infinite are some of the best looking of the entire franchise.

Hate to say this but I feel so good that Halo Infinite died and failed the way it did, imagine if 343 got away with this and all the microtransaction BS, it would’ve been a precedent of what they can get away with, either we get A GOOD HALO GAME, or we get none at all.

"I don't want Halo to die" - Nah man, we need to let go. Halo should have ended with 3 and Reach, and that's it. Everyone watching the franchise knew Infinite was gonna be a dumpster fire from 200 miles away, and it played out exactly like every other 343i entry up to this point. Like a shitshow. Furthermore, I'm really tired of companies trying to squeeze IPs for everything they have and don't have, ruining everything.

Can’t believe people stuck around for this game after the first three months after release proved there was no content coming after six years time worth of possible development time. I got to Diamond and dipped. So boring and missing features standard on others… before 343 came about… yeah I had been screwed since 2012. I knew what was coming. Nothing good enough would be done if I’m six years they couldn’t provide all the basics.

This is high quality as hell. The part where you were talking about forge, snd playing around in your childhood home honestly was a little moving. It reminded me of playing Halo 3 with my uncle, surviving Infection on Sandtrap as hordes of jet-black elite zombies slowly overwhelmed the Elephant we were camping on. I think it was that exciting memory that made me fall in love with Halo, Sci-fi, and Horror.

The amount of outright lies they told running up to release pissed me off so much. 1. Forge at launch - no 2. split screen guaranteed - never 3. getting rid of micro transactions - now they're worse 4. "the only BR halo needs is the battle rifle - now there's project tatanka (i know it's basically cancelled but still) 5. it's going to last 10 years - yeah sure it is. Halo needs to be taken away from 343 and other studios need to get a chance at making spin offs or something. also blur studios should have made the cut scenes again.

I really would go back to being rated M. The absence of blood splatter and all that really makes the game feel cheap and makes it seem like there’s a huge lack of detail.

Halo infinites HARD sbmm killed it for me even in social game modes like damn im not trying to go against the top hcs team every other game

I knew it was a failure since closed beta but nobody wanted to hear it then.

its been over a decade since 343 has made a content complete mainline halo game on release.

I live relatively close to microsoft HQ and almost never had ping, they were lying about desync for over two years, thats what killed it for me

Halo infinite post season 5 is like digging up gold and stopping the mining operation right before hitting diamond veins and deciding to become a dirt farmer.

Halo 2 launched 3 years after halo 1 with all its features intact. Halo 3 launched 3 years after halo 2 with all its features intact. Why are we getting half finished game demos as games? Development cycles are way higher than ever before and no complete games come out anymore.

People can (and rightly should) argue all they want about how monetization has impacted modern gaming, and how in the Halo franchise you could see this starting to take hold most noticeably in Halo 5. But in relation specifically to Halo, not enough people talk about how 343 has slowly followed in the footsteps of other game devs in making the series too sterile, anti-social, and devoid of any true personality. When you market a game series that was always designed as a co-op space epic with largely casual multiplayer instead as a competitive shooter, when you remove once core features like pre-/post-game lobbies and proximity chat, when you consistently over promise and under deliver, when you follow gaming trends instead of striving to be the series that sets those trends…you’ve lost the plot, the community, and your ability to caretake a franchise that deserves so much better. If Microsoft wishes to have any hope of saving Halo, the franchise that essentially built up their reputation as a gaming company and not just a hardware/software corporation, their next entry must be developed to feature-completion at launch, must have sensible monetization (as much as we all would like to see it monetization in AAA isn’t going anywhere), must recapture the uniqueness of what makes a “Halo game”, and must put people that care about the series not only on the dev team, but in all levels of management from the top down. Then, and only then, can Halo as a franchise have a realistic shot at recapturing much of its former glory in the H2/H3/Reach days. If the next Halo game (not necessarily including the rumored CE remake) has even a fraction of the same problems Infinite and MCC had in their first year, the series is dead as we know it.

Microsoft has squandered everything they ever had. They never recovered from the xbone.

I started in 2001 with Halo CE when I was 8 years old… looking back on the travesty that is 343’s tenure on Halo and childhood shows like RvB basically being irrelevant after season 13 (they ended it in a way that was good and where you can draw your own conclusions though which is also good)… it really feels like a big part of my childhood is dead. What the sad part is, is that I’ll continue to watch as one of the core franchises of my childhood is going to continue to be mishandled and paraded in front of me as I wonder what could’ve been. Same with Lord of the Rings…

The communities lack of introspection is impressive

I left before season 1 was finished. Haven’t touched it since then, and I don’t care. Halo shouldn’t have continued after Reach. The games meant much more than 343 can comprehend, and every entry they made squandered that good faith.

This perfectly encapsulates how I feel with Halo Infinite, ty

Genuinely one of the best videos I have watched talking about this game you covered everything that went wrong so well. I remember trying to convince more of my friends to play this game and failing because of how little there was to do and eventually gave up during season 4 I had actually forgotten about the game for a while until this video popped up. I wish that Microsoft/Xbox would actually invest in this franchise because I remember having such a great time in the game and it couldve been one of the best Halo titles if they had given it more time and not rushed the release

Forge as a game dev tool was neat. Beyond my high school dropout brain's comprehension, but still cool. For people who understood and used it, I'm glad. I just think Forge should've stayed a gamemode where you and some friends could dick around with props and vehicles and slam each other into walls with giant mile-long floor props that are moving at mach-30. Good video, dude.

A note to the community that I hope people remember in years to come: just stay negative. Don't provide positive feedback. Microsoft and 343i always slack off when they receive praise for anything, and don't learn at all. I am literally encountering people in the Halo community who claim that there never was peace with the Covenant, forgetting that a UNSC military victory was impossible. I am also encountering people who don't understand that Halo was a profoundly religious series, from the music to the ODSTs to the references to Genesis, and people could play as the badass alien Elite forces. Halo died in 2011, but the groundwork for its fall was laid long beforehand. The only advantage Infinite has is the AI spawning in Forge, and AI matches, which we had back in 1999.

I really wanted to like this game. I had walked away from Halo after how much I disliked 4. I skipped 5 entirely, and got MCC very late in it's life cycle (like, just before Infinite's beta late). I wanted to "Come Home" to a game that was similar to the old style, which is what Infinite seemed to be selling. I played for about a month before giving up. The maps were what killed it for me. Not just the lack of variety, but the weapon spawns. No one ever seems to talk about them, but those boxes on the walls in the spawn areas that had random weapon that cycled per match were such a bad idea. It felt like you could never "know" the map because the weapons were always different. Used to be you would know where you could get a battle rifle or a shotgun, but in Infinite I felt like there was no way of knowing and it really bothered me. There were a lot of problems with the game but that one always stood out in my mind.

Class content, you deserve more subs

The game is less than 3 years old haha a bit early to use the term “retrospective”

Im so sorry for all the devs (i know you are watching and reading) who genuinely cared, past and present. It's so hard seeing Halo burned and crushed, turned to ashes. The good ol days have gone but man... so glad yall were part of it. Thanks team, huge respect to you all

6:06 Halo infinite is no longer the only game that offers a battle pass that’s permanently accessible. Deep Rock Galactic’s most recent update offers this, and every season pass is 100% free.

You know, I met Kiki Wolfkill at the Halocon in Philly. She was actually pretty cool and easy to talk to. They had a VR halo game with team deathmatch that was neat. I told her if they plan to continue with VR tech, it would be really cool if they made a Flood horror game for VR. She laughed and said, "Well we have to get Infinite out before anything else." I should have known right then that this game was never going to launch completed. Even one of the heads of the company was worried about Just getting the game out. Honestly i feel bad for all the 343 employees. But ultimately its Microsoft's fault for putting that team together to make Halo. And its 343's fault for making their own verison of Halo. I do hope a different company gets placed in charge of continuing Halo. Cuz im sure 343 could make a good game. As long as its not a Halo game

I thought they could not go lower, until i saw the store bundle and remember Spartan Surplus... An Op for mark IV was turn into a $10 bundle, it isnt even worth 10 🤦. They promise Surplus for July and then dipped, gave us Anvil and sell the armor for $10. At this point mark IV felt so lacking with Barely free customization apart from Spirit of Fire

Love the fucking video keep going strong, I have so many memories of halo games!

I hate Spartan cores and paying for colors. Vehicles suck now and that was a big thing Halo had over other shooters.

It pisses me off that we might have to wait another like 3 years at least for the next Halo game.. I've been waiting for a good Halo game since Halo 5 came out. I was 15 at the time.. I'm gonna be close to 30 by the time the next game comes out, and we don't even know if it's gonna be good. Big sadge being a Halo fan..

Ha. Ha. Ha. I told Microsoft that the UI for Halo Infinite was pretty decent back in the Beta, but really I was being polite, I couldn't think of anything else that I could be positive about. The introduction to the training mode being set in Britain felt like a deliberate attempt to address what I said years earlier--let people from the UK work on the campaign, but the cutscene itself was as bad as Mass Effect 3 doing the same thing. I even thought we'd get to drive the Warthogs locked away, and there would be new additions along with new weapons added to the sandbox. Look, 343i are never going to release couch co-op at launch for a Halo game. Isolated, unhappy people spend more money.

Man, really well put together vid man. Great journey to go through. I gotta figure out how to get my audio your level to.

343 should be shutdown at this point.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So far 343 has fooled us like four times at least. I can't comprehend how people had any faith in this garbage studio. And now some youtubers are trying to hype the next entry (halo 7 or whatever). When Bungie was done with Halo they took the soul with them, and left the corpse for 343.

I've hated Infinite since Halo 4 if that makes any sense. Garbage people can't make quality things, everything they do will always indirectly impact the quality, this has been the state of Halo since after 2012. Everything from not understanding competetive or fun gameplay, exploiting players for money, mediocre fanfic story full of retcon and subversive propaganda. 10+ years of people high on copium telling me that I am a hater and as annoyed as I am bc of the community's cope, I am very happy that it seems that peope are finally realizing this since these videos are popping up everywhere. One of the biggest issues with Halo IS NOT 343, it is the garbage community who said "don't be a hater" these people act like saints, like they are above you morally but they are the people who enable devs like 343.

For me Halo Infinite is like the gaming version of Game of Thrones season 7. Its sad to see a beautiful series end so tragically. I played every game in the franchise but stopped playing about a year ago and sold my xbox shortly after. Probably will never play again...

It's cool hearing your good times with Forge and friends in Infinite :) I love Halo but hadn't played Infinite in a while, so your video reminded me and I logged in today! It was fun playing Toy Story in Customs Browser, and Squad Battle! The new Multi-team playlist is cool but I wish more players used mics. The game is in good shape with content, so I hope 343 & Microsoft understand better what we need at launch. -- The Halo series still has a lot of potential but launches needs to be amazing and complete, and the roadmap should have reasonable speed too. That is really hard in modern times but it is possible, and its what Halo needs.

Something I've said since the game was announced: Halo: Infinite Disappointments

I did NOT wanna watch this video, cause I knew it was just going to break my heart. I knew that he was going to talk about every little thing where my faith and trust was chipped away. I’m sorry boys. I kept faith for 12 years…I’m done.

F2P is the worst. It was fun for like 2 minutes but once the cheaters started arriving it got boring quick. Veterans can easily tell between legitimately skilled players and cheaters who play like noobs but have way too many "lucky" moments or somehow always know where your team is.

This is one of the best videos I’ve seen covering everything for Halo Infinite. This really should be a love-essay that 343 and Microsoft listen to. I think you covered this so well and straight forward with the vast majority’s feelings, it would be a great tool of recognition for 343 and Microsoft to learn from. I’ve been a Halo fan since I was 7 years old. I’m not being doom and gloom but it’s really hard to stay hopeful, especially when this video so eloquently showcased the rollercoaster it’s been. Without good management, without good direction and with too much pandering, I really have no faith that this IP, its lore, and its possible success will ever truly be respected or reached. I’m one that thinks that Halo 4 was great, especially the campaign, and I also agree that the ideas and balance that Infinite came with may be the best thing Halo has seen since its first ever social multiplayer experience in Halo 2. I say this to state that I know there’s so many 343 employees and creators who love, respect, and understand Halo, and I know they can do it justice because they have. Just seems like they’ll never be able to flush it out in a truly great fashion until the management acknowledges they have completely botched this, or if Microsoft takes a leap of faith and diverges from the gaming trends entirely and carves their own path, one in which Halo can truly succeed on. Great video!

Good vid man. You’ll go far!

"they wanted a cash cow. but they forgot the cow... and by extension the stable."

Great video. Got me all depressed again. Thanks!

Bravo brother great vid.

Stockholm syndrome with a product. I feel that

"Behold....Behold...You are not beholding" 😂

I'm just going to be honest. Listening to this brings me to the brink of tears. It's all just such a tragedy

As much as I loved Halo Reach and 5 multiplayer there’s no denying that the signs were written on the wall after halo 3

Wow, great video!

Pretty well done video. Sums up alot of my thoughts.

As long as R+*rd O'Connor is there the lore and story are ruined As long as 343's Producer (forgot his name) the whole game loop and art style will be ruined because he "doesn't like guns" Basically as long as 343's managment and directors who say "No bungie peopple" are still there Halo, is fucked (To clarify I ain't saying Bungie is better, it's the principle of thinking you're better than your predesesors, sorta how it happend with the forerunners in Frankie's lore lmao) A game made by people who didn't wanna continue the legacy but "fix it" will never go anywhere. As someone who's worked with less than compitent directors in the past it's horrid, and I feel bad for the grunts working on Halo, but 343 gotta go and let the team members find a job in whatever new studio is hired But if they get their way with the reboot of CE it's game over, Halo will become irrecognizable and will move from Xbox to Playstation. Stop defending 343, stop putting all the blame on MS, even tho they're also at huge blame, bring that # back

You leaving out the fact they cut seasonal story content with the MP is actually a testament to how bad this game actually was. That was a HUGE fail and you forgot it because of all the other stuff.

Watching 343i mishandle a beloved 20+ yr. video game icon is like watching them reinvent the wheel.

They have well and truly killed it The community has gone from angry and frustrated, to sad and now To completely apathetic And apathy is death.

The funniest thing is, is that Bungie couldn't make stable weapon balancing in any of their games but 343 could. All I'm saying.

At 16:55 you claimed this Pierre dude and his team fixed the MCC. As someone that still very actively plays MCC, I can assure you it is nowhere near being fixed and will never be so long as 343 exists as a studio. Do not let them persuade you into believing they actually righted their wrong because they definitely have not. Sure they updated the game but it still has an unbelievable amount of issues that have been ignored for years. Don't give 343 a pass on something they ruined and never fixed, and especially don't spread the misinformation claiming that they did fix it.

The full release will save Infinite! Forge will save Infinite! Season 2 will save Infinite! The Winter Update will save Infinite! Squad Battle will save Infinite! Season 3 will save Infinite! Season 4 will save Infinite! Infection will save Infinite! The custom browser will save Infinite! Season 5 will save Infinite! Firefight will save Infinite! The match composer will save Infinite! Content Update who fucking knows will save Infinite!

Halo died with reach. RIP Halo CE-Reach. From the beginning...you know the end...

Great video!! Would love to see more like this. That first line really hit the nail on the head. Disappointment is what I feel when/ if I load the game up nowadays. It sucks. What a great franchise has become reduced to over the past decade…

As soon as I finished the campaign on Legendary, I stopped playing. I don't do game passes and micro transactions.

Helldivers 2 also doesnt have expiration dates for its battlepass... Its also a better sequel to halo odst then any of the number company halo games.

As a Halo Veteran of the Good Ol’ Days, I thank you, sir, for this video. Had me going down memory lane when Forge got brought up 😂😂 Super funny, well-written video! ❤😎

great vid!

@1:28 Whoa, whoa, whoa on the "we just didn't see it yet." A lot of us warned the community and we were dismissed. Dismissals mean nothing if it means securing sweet sweet bragging rights.

Ahaaha... No. Bonnie ross and her cadre that abandoned bungie, while reach was still in development pre release, are directly responsible for every decision that followedit was her choices that lead to the artstyle change if halo 4 and beyond. Her and mr O'Connor's who made a worse narative. She did not keep the flame lit. She was trying to snuff it out, and failing that. To turn the flame of hope into an ice sculpture.

I was a beta tester. Hell I even got in on the Xbox Insider Testing. I was so excited for this, everything I was playing was astonishing. It felt so smooth, the gameplay was phenomenal. I was hooked and head over heels in love with Halo again. I got my friends in on it. Halo was back baby...and then it wasn't. My disappointment is still immeasurable. My friends no longer want to play any more games that come from 343i. I've also completely lost faith in Microsoft and 343i to produce Halo any further. They had it. They absolutely had it. They absolutely fumbled harder than any of their other entries. It really sucks. I don't even really want multi-player anymore man, I just want the campaigns. It's my favorite part of Halo. It really makes me sad to see it squandered like this, over and over. The amount of story left out. The way they skipped SO MUCH and stuffed it all into books! WE COULD HAVE PLAYED THAT 343/MICROSOFT! The ODST story line, the introduction of Locke, the Didacts story, the 6 month war that led up to the beginning of Infinite, the expansion of the Spirit of Fire crew's fight for the ring. It's soul crushing to say the least.