View: https://twitter.com/pardontomfrench/status/1598807050741768192?s
Be interesting to see who takes up the role
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Tom French, Multiplayer Creative Director for Halo Infinite leaves 343
- Thread starter Slayven
- Start date
View: https://twitter.com/pardontomfrench/status/1598807050741768192?s
Be interesting to see who takes up the role
Sad to see him go. He was a huge part of Halo 5 Forge being what it was. And Halo Infinite has the best MP since Halo 2 for me. Content and other stuff is still an issue but its some of the most fun I've had in a FPS since MW 2019.
And MS has a hiring freeze in place so they can't even hire people to replace the departures.
343 needed a shakeup of leadership after the last decade where every game they released has been deeply compromised in some way
Apparently, yes. Not that that would matter much when it comes to replacing a lead.
Will always remember this dude for his dope sense of style and being the lead on The Saboteur :)
Great news for Halo.
Good luck to Tom for whatever is next for him. Halo 5 was the best MP FPS of all of last gen, that's one hell of an achievement.
Good luck to Tom for whatever is next for him. Halo 5 was the best MP FPS of all of last gen, that's one hell of an achievement.
I don't think you want to hire Senior level staff and Directors as contractors, unless you want the knowledge to leave when they do
Don't really get the concern here. He did great work in building Infinite's MP, him leaving doesn't mean the game is suddenly going to play bad. The bulk of the work is done, I'm sure plenty more can pick up and keep adding to the sandbox for the lifetime of the game.
Here we go.
Halo Infinite is a bad game and 343i are a horrible dev team
Also
OMG, Halo is bleeding talent every day, this is not good for the series.
Halo Infinite is a bad game and 343i are a horrible dev team
Also
OMG, Halo is bleeding talent every day, this is not good for the series.
People in thread will balk at how many leads and senior leaders were leaving my previous company haha.
The bulk of the work really isn't done at this stage... they'rre literally in a period which will either kill Halo Infinite MP or give it a second chance imo
So many senior devs, producers have left by now. Every single time one leaves, we get told "oh it's nothing, it's just one." Sure, if you only count them individaully and pretend it's isolated
So many senior devs, producers have left by now. Every single time one leaves, we get told "oh it's nothing, it's just one." Sure, if you only count them individaully and pretend it's isolated
Hoping for the best for this team. I want Halo to be great! Hopefully they can start righting the ship in the new year.
Yeah Im grateful for Tom's work on Infinites MP. Its a blast despite content/technical problems. He was able to ship Forge and see the community unleashed which is nice. Had Bonnie stayed on board longer like she planned initially, the both of them probably would have announced their departures together.
Remenber when there was news around leads and senior personel leaving the studio during the development of Halo Infinite and there was a lot of doom posting around the development being incredibly troubled and then all of the doomposting turned out to be true?
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I mean we are also told that the leadership at 343 is horrible and needs to be replaced
You're not wrong, but it's going to take a lot of time to train up people to be in leadership or senior roles if they weren't ready for it. Without knowing more about where their design staff is in terms of being prepared for this kind of thing, it's hard to say.
The concern is not that the game is going to suddenly play bad, it's that the amount of tribal knowledge, skills and confidence amongst the team can be dramatically impacted by this many leads and senior level staff leaving. Unless they had people ready to step into those shoes (which is never a guarantee) then it's going to take time to train them up to fill the roles. That can mean things get delayed, especially since they have a hiring freeze as someone else mentioned.
Unsure of what all the hiring freezes are for as the economy is still doing fine, businesses altogether hired 263,000 more people just this week, retail sales are still up
Some specific people keep trying to say things are bad but I don't see it
343 has had quite a long time to try establishing itself as the developer of Halo into the future of Microsoft's continued interest in video games, and frankly they just haven't gotten there outside of wishful thinking, internally and from their fans. Infinite is the closest they've gotten to the heights of the Bungie games, and it still fell short in a number of ways.
If nothing else, the departure of key personnel is the canary in the coal mine here; there have been and there are ongoing issues internally that we're just not fully privy to, and these issues have affected every 343 developed Halo from the word 'go.'
Obviously, Tom French isn't responsible alone for the problems with Infinite, but he was leadership, and clearly whatever they're doing over there just isn't working in terms of game development. I'm not particularly sorry to see him go, even despite his impressive accomplishments. There has to be a fundamental, from the ground up, restructuring of 343, because somewhere along the way I feel like the "understanding" of what made Halo special in the past was lost. Hell, maybe it was a fools' errand to begin with, to create a studio with the sole purpose of both preserving and adding to a legacy.
If nothing else, the departure of key personnel is the canary in the coal mine here; there have been and there are ongoing issues internally that we're just not fully privy to, and these issues have affected every 343 developed Halo from the word 'go.'
Obviously, Tom French isn't responsible alone for the problems with Infinite, but he was leadership, and clearly whatever they're doing over there just isn't working in terms of game development. I'm not particularly sorry to see him go, even despite his impressive accomplishments. There has to be a fundamental, from the ground up, restructuring of 343, because somewhere along the way I feel like the "understanding" of what made Halo special in the past was lost. Hell, maybe it was a fools' errand to begin with, to create a studio with the sole purpose of both preserving and adding to a legacy.
Some you will read a news like "343 is shitting down" and will post this same shit. Like surely there's surely something going on inside 343 for all if these leads to leave.
Best of luck to Tom.
If you've been following the Xbox OT, you would notice Obsidian, Compulsion, Machine Games and others have started hiring lately.
😂 right on time....Doom 'o' clock.
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This was my sentiment, it may be a good think ultimately to get some fresh blood in. I know people think halo infinite multiplayer is the best since halo x, however I wonder how many of those people slept on halo 5 multiplayer - that was fantastic too.
The whole Halo Infinite project has been a failure on so many levels. They are in desperate need of a complete overhaul at 343, it's already started to happen with Ross leaving and now another one has departed.
I get the impression they were pushed rather than jumped. Regardless this game was/is a shell of what it should have been.
I get the impression they were pushed rather than jumped. Regardless this game was/is a shell of what it should have been.
He did a phenomenal job in the role. Infinite's multiplayer is fucking brilliant at a core design level, it's the junk around it that's not so hot. But when you're in a game with a good team and a sound connection there's nothing quite as enjoyable. Interested to see where he goes next.
Hiring freezes generally allow replacement for people leaving
The leadership in suits, not the leadership in dev. Big difference.
A bit unrelated, but still, I can't tell you the amount of time I've been called out before release for expressing concerns about the lack of variety in the campaign environments shown during marketing. People kept saying "they're obviously hiding a lot" or "eh, one biome makes sense, it's coherent for an open-world".
lol that was the biggest flaw of that campaign in the end.
Sometimes doom and gloom is real.
Not saying it is here or not, but I never understand why others need to correct people about that or something.
