Former 343 Employee speaks out about Halo Infinite(Crunch, game over ambitious, cut content, etc.)

[Biosnake]

Thanks to random0_point for finding and translating this.

A former 343i employee (Skybox Artist) shared some insight on Halo Infinite. (video is in mandarin, so I tried to translate his words into English)

• His overall feeling on Halo Infinite: "In fact, I think the finished product will still be great. The story is a big improvement, and the gameplay is much richer, though the development cycle is too long. Don't expect it to be an epoch-making masterpiece."
• The company executives were overly ambitious. They wanted to make Halo Infinite a semi-open world game, so the engine needed to be changed significantly. They had to make the game and develop the engine at the same time (Due to engine defects, many workflows were not ideal, though they are now much more improved than before).
• Last year's disastrous demo was because many engine features were not fully implemented at that time.
• For a variety of reasons, the game content compared to the original idea has been cut (same for multiplayer). "This has led to some things I've made over the years that no one will probably ever see."
• The team at 343 (especially the low-level employees) works very hard, and many of them have experienced working overtime until the early hours of the morning in the past few years. (Crunch confirmed :(
• Now he works at Certain Affinity, still doing some HI outsourcing work, and he feels good to be out of 343's baggage.

Source:
我如何進入343 又為何離開 - 回顧 10 年的遊戲美術生涯_哔哩哔哩 (゜-゜)つロ 干杯~-bilibili (around 10:00 time stamp)

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I think we already had assumed a lot of this but there are some new nuggets of info in there.

edit:

 

[Matush]

 

[Wrexis]

For a variety of reasons, the game content compared to the original idea has been cut (same for multiplayer). "This has led to some things I've made over the years that no one will probably ever see."

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As long as that's specific to the game itself and not the storyline. I don't want to finish the fight in Halo Infinite 2.

 

[Raigor]

They had to make the game and develop the engine at the same time

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This is the biggest issue a lot of games are facing when they start from scratch and build a new engine.

FF XV and Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from this.

 

[pswii60]

Schreier has an article on 343 ready to go I believe, but waiting for closer to HI launch I guess.

The positive news is that going forward, as a result of the acquisitions, MS will be nowhere near as reliant on Halo so that ridiculous pressure will surely ease in time. But it must have been challenging times for sure.

 

[Orion117]

Bold of them to give exact details of where they work/worked.

 

[NotLiquid]

Rebuilding huge chunks of the game in a COVID-environment within a year, crunch would've absolutely been assumed.

 

[GooberDooberCBC]

This is really sad to hear about so many studios treating their employees like this.

 

[Borman]

This is the biggest issue a lot of games are facing when they start from scratch and build a new engine.

FF XV and Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from this.

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It's not a new issue either. Big ones even on PSP are Silent Hill Origins and The Elder Scrolls Travels: Oblivion, both of which were started with an in-house Climax engine that was under development, before switching to Renderware months into development. The former was nearly cancelled and radically retooled, and the latter was cancelled entirely.

 

[lost7]

Sad to hear about crunch. But I fo expect the game to be really good when it comes out

 

[MysticGon]

Such a shame. Phil doing work building a squad but his efforts may be for naught if the individual teams can't get their shit together.

 

[StarsAreStuff]

I feel like mentioning that you left 343 for CA kinda makes you easier to identify?

 

[R dott B]

Sheesh…

 

[OneTrickJeffrey]

Sounds like Halo 2 all over again

 

[Scottoest]

This is the biggest issue a lot of games are facing when they start from scratch and build a new engine.

FF XV and Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from this.

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They didn't start from scratch. Slipspace is a heavily retooled evolution of the Blam! engine from earlier Halo titles.

 

[giancarlo123x]

Stop fucking crunching

 

[pswii60]

This is the biggest issue a lot of games are facing when they start from scratch and build a new engine.

FF XV and Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from this.

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Yeah, making an engine today is clearly a vastly more complicated undertaking than it was in previous generations. So much to consider, especially when having to support PC too, never mind cross-gen.

 

[nihilence]

I thought they were supposed to have more time for engine and pre production to avoid working with the train on the tracks.

I know things change and evolve. But every Halo game seems to have a period of hell.

 

[Arkeband]

It seems like every game that tries to change its genre into "open world" turns into a massive clusterfuck, outside of BotW, which managed it by throwing away a lot of its old trappings and being it's own thing, whereas these try to keep everything the same and also make impossibly huge worlds to spend 200 hours in.

Halo's strengths lie in its multiplayer, not its world or level design.

 

[Dead Man Typing]

Sounds so similar to Cyberpunk. Don't build a super ambitious game on an in development engine.

Rockstar Table Tennis showed us the way years ago.

 

[Trago]

The bit about engine features not fully being implemented makes sense since the announcement trailer showed off better visuals.

 

[SCUMMbag]

Fuck crunch. AAA development isn't worth it right now. Developers need unions.

 

[Kevin360]

This doesn't seem very reliable. I feel like I could write up something similar just by guessing how development has been going, on any big game for that matter.

 

[Raigor]

They didn't start from scratch. Slipspace is a heavily retooled evolution of the Blam! engine from earlier Halo titles.

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Even if they didn't start from scratch it's still something new for them, Cyberpunk 2077 engine was the evolution of TW3 engine but they still had several issues in tailoring their existing engine to a completely new title.

 

[rrc1594]

I feel like mentioning that you left 343 for CA kinda makes you easier to identify?

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His face is on camera lol

 

[Indy in the Fridge]

I'm still excited but it sounds like Halo 5.5 in terms of evolution in the series.

Halo 1 aesthetic with the same benefits and limitations of their most recent game.

Also, I wonder if last year's demo featured any of that cut content? The semi-open world was pretty apparent in the demo with the world map showing you different missions you could take on at any given time. I wonder if they ended up having to reel it in for a more linear experience?

 

[Wereroku]

Rebuilding huge chunks of the game in a COVID-environment within a year, crunch would've absolutely been assumed.

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Past few years doesn't equal only COVID crunch. They were crunching before that as well.

I thought they were supposed to have more time for engine and pre production to avoid working with the train on the tracks.

I know things change and evolve. But every Halo game seems to have a period of hell.

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When leadership wants the engine to do things it wasn't originally made for it doesn't really matter what you already have made. Clearly sounds like management tried to change to much to fast.

 

[panda-zebra]

This doesn't seem very reliable. I feel like I could write up something similar just by guessing how development has been going, on any big game for that matter.

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If it is, then someone's not going to be happy with them that's for sure.

This is the biggest issue a lot of games are facing when they start from scratch and build a new engine.

FF XV and Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from this.

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Imainge how much fun it was at SG&E doing this and creating and improving the hardware platform at the same time as well as finding Google's internal way of doing things wasn't compatible with game development and tehy had to come up with their own Google-certified systems.

 

[Zombine]

All I wanted was new lore, prettier animations, new guns, and the Chief.

 

[StarsAreStuff]

His face is on camera lol

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lol I didn't click the link just read the OP

 

[Lashley]

 

[rrc1594]

Why isn't this a rumor and taken as fact lol

 

[Ombala]

Such a shame. Phil doing work building a squad but his efforts may be for naught if the individual teams can't get their shit together.

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It's his job too see that the studios are managed too.

 

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

Oof at years of crunch. Wow. Like not unexpected but still.

do we know what kinda wages low level employees get? I know Seattle (well Bellevue) isn't cheap. I'd hope it's closer to 50k+.

 

[reclaimerzzzzz]

As long as that's specific to the game itself and not the storyline. I don't want to finish the fight in Halo Infinite 2.

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I don't think "finish the fight" is a goal anymore. This article is from 2013 for example, it's going to go on for as long as possible.

Halo's Reclaimer Trilogy expanded into a 'more of saga'

Halo's Reclaimer Trilogy, which began with 343 Industries' Halo 4 and was originally planned to extend to entries 5 and 6 in Microsoft's flagship first-person shooter series, has been expanded to...

www.polygon.com

This is the biggest issue a lot of games are facing when they start from scratch and build a new engine.

FF XV and Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from this.

Click to shrink...

Santa Monica had to face the same obstacle on God of War, and basically all of BioWare's games since Mass Effect 3. Even Guerrilla Games, except they made a decision to use ShadowFall as a test bed before jumping into Horizon. I'm sure any developer with a proprietary engine had to deal with challenge at some point and, in some cases, continue to deal with.

 

[JINX]

This is all easily believable and makes sense, also fuck crunch.

343 has commented about working on their tools over the last few years, recently in the last Inside Infinite they also commented on it:

 

[N7Commander01]

I have to admit - revealing yourself onscreen and identifying yourself while leaking information on a game in dev

And for info that isn't really that, you know, crazy or revealing is kind of weird lol

 

[Wereroku]

This doesn't seem very reliable. I feel like I could write up something similar just by guessing how development has been going, on any big game for that matter.

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He is showing his own face on camera. I highly doubt he is making it up. It's ok to admit your favorite companies have issues sometimes.

Why isn't this a rumor and taken as fact lol

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Because he isn't hiding his identity. Hard to dispute the takes from an identified employee. Unless you mean they are making it all up for some reason.

 

[Crumrin]

It is always sad to hear that employees (especially low-level ones) continue to be exploited and subjected to excessive workloads.

 

[THEVOID]

Fuck crunch. AAA development isn't worth it right now. Developers need unions.

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All IT needs unions. 40 hours a week doesn't apply tbh.

 

[Lumination]

Having "cut content" describes about 99.99% of all developed video games.

 

[zedox]

This doesn't seem very reliable. I feel like I could write up something similar just by guessing how development has been going, on any big game for that matter.

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Pretty much. Nothing even said is what one would say is out of the ordinary.

Having "cut content" describes about 100% of all developed video games.

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fixed.

 

[Bradbatross]

Other than the crunch this sounds really good. He gave a reason for why the demo wasn't too hot and he expects the finished game to be great.

 

[headspawn]

I mean, practically every big production game ever is going to have ambition put in check by reality and cut content, that part isn't really shocking. Even the reasoning he says for the demo being what it was... is exactly the reason 343 already stated.

Water is wet.

 

[Scottoest]

Even if they didn't start from scratch it's still something new for them, Cyberpunk 2077 engine was the evolution of TW3 engine but they still had several issues in tailoring their existing engine to a completely new title.

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I didn't contest any of that - just stated a fact. Slipspace wasn't built from scratch.

 

[Xwing]

Sounds like Halo 2 all over again

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I don't think any development period will ever match Halo 2 in sheer clusterfuck-ness. Due to scrapping large portions of their pre-production work, they basically built the game in less than a year with duct tape and coffee fueled binges.

Modern game dev is bad, but I don't think it'll ever be quite that bad.

 

[SpottieO]

I made this comment in the Xbox thread but this seems pretty positive aside from crappy crunch.

 

[Precious Tritium]

Yeah doesn't sound like the game was delayed for a year just to polish up the graphics.

 

[Raigor]

Santa Monica had to face the same obstacle on God of War, and basically all of BioWare's games since Mass Effect 3. Even Guerrilla Games, except they made a decision to use ShadowFall as a test bed before jumping into Horizon. I'm sure any developer with a proprietary engine had to deal with challenge at some point and, in some cases, continue to deal with.

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Yes, and even Capcom despite having skilled engineers, they didn't manage to have Phanta Rei up and running alongside Deep Down at the start of the previous gen but thankfully they turned the ship around with RE Engine.

A lot of studios relying on UE4 and soon UE5 are making smart choices.

 

[Scottoest]

Crunch is a plague on the industry, but that gigantic wart aside, this all sounds pretty standard for a game in development. Good to have confirmation that demo last year was straight-up missing features.