27 January 2024 , 07:00
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As Microsoft’s big bet on making its most celebrated IP a so-called ‘forever game’ comes to an end, the time has come to reevaluate just how many live-services titles the industry can handle.
It started so well. Microsoft, knowing full well it had to go big with the next entry into its beloved Sci-Fi FPS series, invested heavily in Halo Infinite. Here was an instalment that wasn’t Halo 6, but rather one pitched as the future of the franchise, making its intention to stick around for the foreseeable explicitly known via the bold ‘Infinite’ moniker in its title. Following a year-long delay that saw it miss the Xbox Series X’s launch, however, cracks began to show and it was never really able to recover. This live service take on Halo continued to stagger despite the solid nature of its gameplay – and arguably the best multiplayer suite we’d seen since Halo 3.
The game’s future was confirmed earlier this week when developer 343 Studios announced during a live stream on YouTube that, starting Tuesday, January 30, Halo Infinite would be dropping the season's model. We didn’t know it at the time, but last October’s Season 5 will be the game’s last. It’s a decision players were unprepared for. Going forward, the studio intends to shift to “Operations” which will offer 20 tiers of free unlockable rewards every four-to-six weeks. Read between the lines, however, and the clear intention is to spend less time on larger content drops, as 343 Studios turns its eye to new projects.
“We’re making a shift in how we’re approaching Infinite going forward,” explained Halo senior community manager John Junyszek, in the most recent Halo Infinite update posted on YouTube (at 1:03:42). “The gist of it is, we’re kind of no longer referring to seasons. We’re shifting away from seasons.” Remaining Xbox players of Halo: The Master Collection, another 343 Studios game plagued with online issues in the early years of its life, will find that this is a familiar-sounding approach.
While I’m happy to see that Halo Infinite isn’t totally being left out in the lurch, it’s gutting to see a franchise as enormous as this fail to reach its full potential. Microsoft’s decision to shadowdrop the multiplayer for free on Xbox Series X|S and PC at launch – not requiring anyone to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass – felt like a smart decision, one designed to get people playing the good stuff in both new and classic modes. Fast forward three years on, and it seems that the live service model is one that 343 Studios just isn’t able to support.
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The sad thing is that Halo Infinite’s multiplayer was a vast improvement over Halo 5: Guardians and even Halo 4 before it, returning the focus back to fast, frantic skirmishes, alongside fun weapons and a decent collection of maps that worked expertly for the objectives intended to be played on them. Halo’s nature to emphasize shooting from the hip rather than down the sights still gives it a different flavour to, say Call of Duty, and me and friends would routinely jump into matches regularly because of it. The main issue, if I had to name one, was with Halo Infinite’s progression, which always saw cosmetics unlock at a snail’s pace. It was disheartening.
That said, as someone who doesn’t have a ‘forever game’ like Warzone, Fortnite, or Apex Legends on the back burner at all times, this decision won’t particularly harm me. I for one am excited about the prospect of Halo returning to the concept of numbered titles released every few years (if indeed that’s what 343 has planned); it’s a great way for the studio to focus its attention fully on reinventing mechanics and overhauling systems to more effectively make improvements feel substantial. Halo will no doubt continue to stick around – and when it does I hope it comes back with a bang. A hypothetical Halo 6 absolutely can providing everything is prepared out of the gate.
The wider issue is with live service games in general. Several times this past year have we seen instances of free-to-play multiplayer shooters struggling to find an audience big enough to sustain them. In some instances, they’re cancelled before they’ve even had a chance to try, as was the case with Hyenas from Sega. Combined with Sony’s decision to outright cancel its multiple-only spin-off of The Last of Us, it feels like companies are starting to learn that all this investment is better spent doing their own thing rather than coming for a slice of the Fortnite pie.
If anything, I applaud 343 Studios and Xbox for giving it a good go with Halo Infinite, but recognising that the future of the franchise ultimately lies elsewhere. “We have additional teams now that are accelerating towards the future working on brand new projects,” Junyszek later went on to say in his statement. “There are a lot of things cooking here.” Whatever 343 has cooked up next will pique my interest more so than whatever ‘Halo Infinite, but better’ ever could have. Just because Halo Infinite’s fight may have finished, doesn't mean the entire franchise has to be.