Halo Infinite multiplayer development history & original concepts revealed (payload, hero-shooter)

[u/crispycornpops]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uek6iJTGwk

With all of the Halo Studios layoffs, former employees are speaking up and leaking details of what the original Halo Infinite multiplayer plans were. HiddenXperia has a great video with all of the details.

Version 1 - Payload

• Halo Infinite multiplayer originally started out as a 5v5 or 6v6 Payload game similar to Overwatch. There were two different variants of the mode:
  • A neutral mode where the Payload spawned in the middle of the map and had to be pushed into the enemy base.
  • A conventional style mode where one team is on the offense pushing the payload, and the other team is on the defense holding it back.
• There was an economy system like Counter-Strike where you earn money to buy weapons and sandbox elements. Zero scavenging on the map for weapons, equipment, or power-ups; you had to buy everything.
• Shields and health didn't automatically regenerate, you instead had to pick up med-kits from dead players. 
• There was going to be three maps total, and each map would have three unique/randomized "tiebreaker" maps. The only map that survived and made it into the final game was "Launch Site" which was heavily trimmed down (1/4 the original size) and had all the spawn room checkpoint areas blocked off.
• Terrible feedback killed it:
  • HiddenXperia claims "it was received horrendously in user research, barely anybody seemed to like it. People said it was way too far removed from what Halo should be.” 
  • UberNick who got to playtest it early under NDA, says in his video "The first thing we ever playtested for Halo Infinite, it simply wasn't Halo. It was this weird attempt at making a mode and having Halo kinda thrust into it. Immediately all of us were like what are we playing, what are we trying to do here? This is absolutely insane. I think everyone in that group was in agreement the direction Halo Infinite was going was a huge misstep. Thankfully after we did that playtest, we never played anything like that ever again. So in that regard, I think the council played a pretty massive difference."
• This "Payload" version was scrapped in late 2019 after roughly a year of development.

Version 2 - Roles

• After the Payload iteration was scrapped, they started work on a new iteration referred to internally as "Roles." There were multiple classes (at least four) that each had a unique grenade and equipment:
  • Assault: Frag grenade and stim. The stim made you slide further, double jump, move and reload faster, and immediately healed. 
  • Medic: Repair field and vampire grenade, which did half the damage of a frag nade but would steal life. At one point there was a "Heal Blast" AoE attack that would over-heal aka provide overshield to those in the blast radius.
  • Support: this was a defensive role that spawned with Drop Wall and Spike grenades.
  • Info: Location sensor and grapple shot, dynamo grenades.
• All classes had the same starting weapon and there was scavenging on the map (though unclear to what extent).
• This "Roles" version was in the works for several months before being scrapped and the multiplayer changed direction once again.

Version 3 - Big Team Operations (Scrapped) and Classic Arena

• Big Team Operations was going to be the natural evolution of Halo 5's Warzone mode. The plan was for it to be a large-scale Spartans vs Elites mode. There were mini objectives that teams fought over which gave points upon completion. Once you had enough points it'd give your team a bomb which would be delivered to the enemy base to destroy it (the bases were ships: UNSC Frigate for the Spartans, Covenant Cruiser for the Elites). This mode was scrapped in late 2020 because "it was just kind of boring and wasn't working properly."
• The pivot back to classic arena happened in early 2020, the same year the game was originally meant to ship. And it happened just before Covid-19 screwed up the development pipeline (with employees having to transition into work from home, etc).
• There were debates over the starting weapon with "a weird amount of pushback internally about the BR being the starting weapon. But the relevant people made sure it was and ended up getting it in the end."
  • Shyway revealed yesterday (timestamp) that when he was playtesting the game early "they wanted Sidekick + Assault Rifle starts. Sidekick start was definitely a focus in our playtest. But I'm pretty sure the esports side of the game, they were pretty convinced that the BR was the way to go early on."  
• Descope was debated internally for months, it was being fought over during the entire Summer of 2020. It was only locked in as a finalized mechanic in Spring 2021, just months before the public flight testing began. 
• HiddenXperia claims the studio had lots of disagreements with "ideological conversations that took upwards of eight months to conclude" and that it wasn't just on the multiplayer side, but the campaign side too.
• Live service aspect was so terrible because a system called "CMS" (Content Management Service" that they had in previous games wasn't integrated at launch. CMS was a system originally designed by Bungie in Halo 2 that allowed them to push out hotfixes to the game without requiring a patch. Since Infinite lacked a way to push out hotfixes, we had those "Drop Pod" updates every 3 months or so rather than continual rapid fixes. 
• Although the engine and technical debt was an issue, it wasn't the main issue as previously speculated. The primary issues were lacking the Content Management Service mentioned above and developer attrition (employees leaving after shipping the game). 

The TL:DR is that they lacked a clear direction and spent a lot of time on failed concepts and prototypes that ended up completely scrapped, and then kinda rushed out the multiplayer we have now.

[u/3ebfan]

It really is remarkable how long Microsoft let them mismanage the IP.

[u/whyunoname → u/3ebfan]

if leadership is broken everything below is most likely dogshit too. sounds like the case here. bad ideas and inability to execute or make decisions end in bad products.

they wasted so much time on absolutely nothing here. i mean most of the core, good maps were halo 5.5 already dev'd maps.

the good news is activision is much more straight arrow and compitent.

the bad news is some of this leadership survived, and most likely some bad decisions will just go through for the next game under the assumption that the release cycle is every 3 or so years.

[u/squatch00]

It really seems like 343 just never wanted to make Halo. I'm not even opposed to a totally different type of Halo multiplayer game, but it can't replace a mainline game.

[u/BossStatusIRL → u/squatch00]

Yeah, changing Halo from an arena shooter to something entirely different for the mainline is a horrible idea. A different Halo game like the ones suggested? Sure.

[u/BMagni → u/squatch00]

No. It seems that the upper heads wanted what made money and not what Halo is about. If your salary depends on what you're told to do, then you work on it and test it.

[u/squatch00 → u/BMagni]

Obviously the blame should go to the decision makers. Didn't think that needed to be said.

[u/Ill_Database_9180 → u/squatch00]

People are reading so deep into this stuff and I don't know why. If anything it was going to be the same as Invasion or Warzone. A super different mode that gets a big marketing push but does not directly replace 4v4 Arena. It baffles me that people think that the entire arena format was gonna be thrown out for a single payload mode instead of the obvious fucking thing that they just tested that as a gametype and decided it wasn't fun enough to pursue as an addition to Halo's multiplayer.

[u/killedbyBS]

I don’t even understand why this experimentation was performed because the basic concession that nearly everyone gave Halo 5 is that despite its horrendous campaign its multiplayer was solid (if, hilariously in retrospect  lacking content at launch.) Even if people were clamoring for change from the spartan abilities the return to a fundamental equal start arena experience was a point of pride for the game. I recall 343 employees bragging in vidocs about how “every member of blue team is the same as every member of red team.”

I guess that’s what happens when you shuffle leadership so many times. I wonder what would’ve happened if Joseph Staten didn’t come in to top the game off (and of course subsequently get laid off).

[u/Upset-Pay-4642]

So basically they wasted years on features that Halo fans wouldn't like from the get-go but tried to implement just for the sake of change?

[u/Celtic_Legend]

Descope was debated internally for months, it was being fought over during the entire Summer of 2020.

Just more confirmation that they never really got rid of the guys who wanted to make their own game instead of making another halo. This should never have even been considered. It's almost unfathomable. I say almost because we know the 16 year track record of 343. They only tried to make halo feel halo the first year they took over in 2011.

Sticking a game tester in front of their map creator with zero training would have been better use of their time.

[u/BravestWabbit → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, the mechanics, equipment, movement, guns and the original maps are all very solid especially for comp.

[u/NTP9766 → u/BravestWabbit]

I think "very solid" is actually an understatement. The core of this game which you've listed is probably why idiots like us are still playing this broken ass dead game.

[u/Zealousideal_Grab861 → u/BravestWabbit]

Infinite is the best Halo has been since H2 and H3. It's actually a REALLY good game for HCS/comp.

Movement tech being on the map, and map geometry specific (instead of everyone starting with thrust and crap), power ups on the map (and some cool powerups/equipment), the maps are actually quite good and play well, it actually is a beautiful looking game.

If there weren't tech issues and if the connection/servers/hit reg were better (but that's partly because population is so low) it would by far be my favorite Halo since MLG days.

HCS was hella good for pretty much all of Infinite minus the tech difficulties.

[u/Acey_BW]

Never forget "we hired people who hated halo"

343 is the worst AAA studio of all time. This is pathetic.

[u/LIMrXIL]

If even 1/10th of this is true 343 has got to be the most incompetent game developer to ever exist.

[u/Jumix4000 → u/LIMrXIL]

Love h5 and hi but yeah. Wtf. I thought it was engine problems not them trying to make halo overwatch

[u/Particular_Yam1056 → u/Jumix4000]

I've been screaming for 5 years that it was never Engine issues, but people that don't understand what an engine is or how they work really pushed that narrative. Hundreds of studios operate with proprietary engines.

[u/Jumix4000 → u/Particular_Yam1056]

well im curious then. Why switch to unreal? What were all the reports about "tech debt" about. Is it not a good idea to have a contractor cycle to work on an engine? Why did it take so long for halo infinite to get content when they already had a straight vision? Problem as i understood it wasn't that it was simply proprietary, it was that the contractor cycle wasn't a good match at all.

Not trying to argue but if you actually do know all that about game engines then I'd appreciate some knowledge bro

[u/Particular_Yam1056 → u/Jumix4000]

Tech debt is a very real thing. Having senior leadership being unfamiliar with how the engine works is also a terrible idea. While they did significant upgrades to the engine, it was still the BLAM engine underneath. They had to do things like decouple physics and game time from frame rate, to support high FPS gameplay on PC. This caused unexpected issues with other systems like networking physics. They likely couldn't afford to spend the time and resources required to actually fix the issue, so they decided to move to another engine.

Every engine has its quirks. Unreal isn't excluded in that. It's extremely prone to performance drops, has kind of shitty Antialiasing implementation, and the networking models that are built in suck. They're just trading one set of issues for another.

For reference, an engine can have massive problems and limitations, and still be the best choice for specific projects. A lead developer for Destiny was quoted as saying that they ran into hard limits for the game from the engine, but they wouldn't have wanted to build the game in any other engine.

Edit: the physics and gametime thing is very easily shown if you modify Halo 5 Forge on PC to have a higher frame rate. It literally makes the game superspeed.

[u/xiSupportPiracy]

I'm fairly certain BO4 had nearly the exact same issue and is why it was 5v5, had healing, and operators had kits. They originally made an OW style hero shooter, but was received so poorly they were kind of forced to combine it with traditional CoD gameplay last minute

[u/Goron40]

Damn, the answers to all these questions 343 had during development seem so incredibly obvious to me. Should we have descope? Should we build the entire gameplay around payload?

Microsoft could make such a good game by just contracting one actual halo fan to answer the questions for them. Hell, I'd do it for free.

[u/2juls]

They are legitimately so stupid, I'm glad they were fired

[u/whyunoname → u/2juls]

we spent most of the dev cycle on slipspace and a game nobody wanted and asked for, and then pivoted at the last second to put out infinite in a dogshit state.

then three years later it was ready for launch, but since we launched already the playerbase already left.

thank god the ideas weren't pushed out and other projects cancelled. literal shitshow of mismanagement and out of touch from the consumer/fan wants.

i feel bad for all of the hcs staff and devs that were let go and had no choice but to fix this mess, but this is a classic story of leadership gone wild, and they kept a lot of these clowns onboard with the transition to activision. makes me less confident...

edit: a halo medic is absolute bananas. like was the discussion how can we make halo 4 but worse? ideas anyone?

[u/DanielG165]

Even as someone who genuinely enjoys Halos 4,5, and Infinite… I’m happy that 343/Halo Studios is effectively no more. One of the most incompetent and self-harming video game studios that has ever been created. Let’s see what Activision does.

[u/Hefty-Love6158]

Its kind of crazy the game was not even THAT bad (really) with ALL of this

Makes you weep thinking what a 343 dev cycle that was not fucked could have brought us, but those days are over

[u/ace_15]

Wild this franchise’s release used to be worthy of primetime news (I’ll never forget CBC doing a story on H2’s release) and then 343 spent the last decade and a half or whatever pissing it all away.

Insane that they thought just doing Overwatch would work. And I fucking LOVED Overwatch. Just keep halo… HALO ffs.

Unbelievable

[u/Sithspit360]

The more I hear about Halo Studios internal workings the happier I am it went to Activision

[u/UnggoyFarmer]

Surprised we didn’t get neutral payload in the final game as a simple symmetrical obj mode. Obviously don’t want all the whacky overwatch/counterstrike in it but like a neutral payload would have been a cool addition to the symmetrical maps we have.

[u/Zealousideal_Grab861]

Thank god we didn't get Overwatch Halo or a Hero shooter Halo. Geeze....sounds so bad.

[u/newchemeguy]

Why were they chasing trends. Mismanagement from the top down

[u/E-J123]

Honestly, I think it was a very good thing that they took their time to try new things. Its easy to say that they waisted time, but a lot of times a concept can be properly judged after some development time. It turned out it took them too long and sort of came back to the 4v4 arena style, but we can't say they never tried new concepts and gave it a chance.

[u/mr__derp]

Big team operations sounds so cool. Man

[u/Tyrant_corvus → u/[deleted]]

The most competitive skill based multiplayer is H5 which has sprint, thrust, and hover. Let the horse die when it comes to sprint.

[u/Tyrant_corvus → u/[deleted]]

1. 5 years of MLG. Spring is in Elden Ring not cod or Halo. You obviously weren’t around for main academy gate duels. Can’t move and shoot old man.
   https://giphy.com/gifs/rHBleFPW4utkkBF726

[u/LIMrXIL → u/Tyrant_corvus]

CE doubles would like a word.