Halo Infinite - a proposed GaaS game with a 10 year plan based largely around historic Halo multiplayer arena combat - confuses the ever living shit out of me on many levels. I suppose my controversial opinion is that the very idea of it is equally ignorant of its potential as it is flawed.
I just can't get my head around the concept of it and how or why people would continue to engage with the game for another 30 or 40 battle passes worth of the same when it exists in such a narrow and increasingly marginalised space in the current and evolving gaming landscape. Simply put, why is the PvP portion of this game now a F2P, battle pass and paid MTX affair? And when the decision was made to go this way, more importantly why does it all revolve around this small facet of what is Halo Infinite as a whole when there is potential and opportunity for so much more?
I doesn't look like many of the other current paid and F2P GaaS titles in what it offers, it appears distinctly old-fashioned and limited in scope. It sits alongside a paid Halo Infinite campaign boasting its own "open world" playground - why wasn't this the focus or at least something of equal relevance as the basis for an ongoing game experience to be formed around? The campaign will have an unspecified number of additions made to it in future from what I understand - nothing firm, nothing we know much about - but it is in no way connected to or leveraged by the live service... to me that's baffling.
Big open world full of massive possibilites left for the tumbleweeds to roll on through and the stuff they want you to keep coming back for, engage with regularly, spend money on, for 10 more years, is all based on decades old variations upon a theme shooting each other in little maps. 🤷♂️
In terms of GaaS potential, surely the biggest strength of Halo Infinite is that campaign world and expanding upon it (biomes, destinations, anything to mix it up - stuff you're probably doing anyway if you're continuing the story) with the kind of content that could be created to exploit it and bring it to life as a living, evolving space... kinda where GaaS stuff thrives. Yet you can't even co-op that stuff right now. Instead, Halo Infinite the live service game is confined to a small selection of bespoke PvP maps and modes. PvP with maps, I mean that's just standard stuff, right? Stuff that's been around for many, many years. You put some new maps out, people play new maps... it took 6 years to craft this ongoing serivce game but no part of that was planning how the open world could or should be exploited in an ongoing manner? Just those game modes in return for trinkets, eh? That's some half-arsed GaaS.
I don't particularly want go use the D-word, but I'm gonna have to use the D-word. You're always going to get compared on some level or other to one or more of the successful/juggernaut GaaS games and that one is the closest there is if you're selling something ongoing with recurring payments and MTX when you're calling yourself a live service FPS. A seasonal re-up F2P FPS GaaS that relies heavily on its sublime gunplay variety and pure, raw fun mechanics... Destiny. I posted in the past that I wrongly assumed Halo Infinite would end up having a bit more of the Destinies about it than just being more good old Halo with a more convaluted monetisation, it just seemed as obvious as it was inevitible. I imagined it'd leverage its open world in similar ways that Destiny does with its locations. Blame me? In Destiny I see a game exploiting every facet of what it is and what it has when it comes to the variety and value it offers for your recurring and one-off MTX payments. I don't see any of that with Halo Infinite and I can't understand why. It's a poor proposition as a GaaS. Halo Infinite wants to be a one, wants all the revenue and engagement opportunities of a modern GaaS, but does nothing with the wealth of assets it has in its locker. It's just PvP, not even all that much of it, with a fairly awful game-screwing, challenge-based battle pass strap on. It could be so much more, and without compromising what the PvP is and means to the faithful (and I'm fairly cartain it hasn't managed to achieve far on the whole). Halo needs to go to new places or resign itself to a continued decline after once being the pinnacle xbox franchise IMO.
Destiny's Crucibe and Gambit clearly aren't on the same level as Halo multiplayer, I'm not suggesting that at all. There's no fair comparisson there, it's a whole different level of thing. Mid at best, shit-tier in some ways and definitely largely ignored for years on the development side. But it's just PvP... "just"... it's not the be all and end all. A tiny fraction of the whole, and as that tiny fraction it serves a purpose. Basic as it is, and to be fair there is variety and something for players of various persuasions/skill levels (The rotating modes, Trials, Iron Banner, Gambit), Destiny's PvP and PvPvE are a blip in what is the Destiny GaaS. Patrol, Strikes/Battlegrounds, seasonal activities, public events, lost sectors, replayable story missions, nightfalls, raids all in an array of biomes/locations, whatever - the list goes on and any and all of that can work towards your seasonal pass progress and overall character/build progress. You can play whatever you want from Destiny and end up in the same place, progress the same larger goals, work your way up the 100 boxes of season pass. Couldn't Halo Infinite do things like this to open itself up to more than just a dwindling first person arena shooter PvP crowd? Especially when so much effort has been expended on crafting the sandbox?
I'm not suggesting Halo Infinite become a clone of Destiny, not at all. But surely if you want that revenue, you want that engagement, you want people coming back day after day, week after week for the next decade, you've got to look beyond - far beyond - having people shoot each other in little box maps for stickers and tassles and lean into all that good work you did creating the world of the campaign to offer more.
