532
Xbox lays off 268 more employees, merges Obsidian into Bethesda and puts Activision in charge of Halo (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
192 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

At least we will get another Fallout from the hands of Obsidian right? Right?

top 97 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 225 points 1 month ago (2 children)

"I wonder what will happen if we put all of our eggs in the same basket?" - Famous basket-dropper.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
    • [–] 151 points 1 month ago (38 children)

    Activision in charge of Halo? That's a deathblow if ever I heard one.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 38 child comments
    •
  • [–] 106 points 1 month ago (10 children)

    Post bungie halo has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion, the series has survived the last 16 years on reputation alone.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 54 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Post Halo Bungie hasn't fared much better....

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I enjoyed destiny and destiny 2 but you could definitely feel them slipping, especially the fumble where they straight up removed parts of destiny 2.

    Tried marathon on a free weekend and it was fine but there are so many other games that are better than fine and doing similar things. The only thing it had going for it was the bungie gunplay which is still as solid as ever.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Them removing stuff from Destiny 2 is why I stopped playing.... Took me awhile to get the expansion and by the time I did they removed the content that expansion added, making it impossible for me to catch up with the lore and wasting my money.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Halo infinite was pretty huge though, wasn't it? Granted one being the only stand out isn't saying much.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    It was.....ok. it had a good reception but no staying power because it was ok at best. They stopped working on updates too, i think a year into the 10 year project or whatever it was supposed to be.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I haven't beat the story because a well-known bug with a door not opening near the end of a mission fucked me and my co-op friend, and we didn't want to do the last 30 minutes all over again.

    There are a lot of bugs in infinite - enemies not spawning (breaking missions), doors, the LOD being the minimum even though I am standing on the ground (so in addition to it looking like crayola ass, physical objects like walls don't align with the visual representation... during a shootout... or a mission...)... and this was a year or so after launch. There are other issues too but it's been a couple years and I'm just angry at this point. Half-assed if I've ever seen it.

    I spent thousands of hours in CE and around a thousand in 2, on pc. MCC was exciting, since I finally got to play 3, ODST, and Reach. 4 is awful, and with the state of Infinite (and apparently 5), it's no wonder they are recycling the good games. But it's definitely over, like a washed-up rock band or a one-hit-wonder singer. And it's all Microsoft's fault.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    the LOD being the minimum even though I am standing on the ground

    This is why I didn't finish it. Weirdest thing about this bug? It bakes into the save. Seems to be hardware dependent, too, I only saw a few other reports of it and they were all on AMD cards from what I could tell.

    I looked it up and asked about it, and the community consensus? "It's not a bug, your hardware is too weak!" Yeah, okay, I'll just go play some fucking RoboCop Rogue City.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Infinite was a solid base that they just didn't do anything with. The campaign felt incomplete and the multiplayer took years to get to the number of features that Halo 3 launched with, but the bones were good. If it had launched in a more complete state and the new campaigns were actually developed, it probably would have been great. However, Microsoft's stubborn insistence on only using contractors and only for six months at a time made the whole concept untenable. For that matter, it's driving the entire company into the ground.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    This is what I was thinking. The short term contactor thing is also why the new Forza had the exact same issues during development and launch. Anyone with any real working knowledge is kicked to the curb as they are hitting their stride so no wonder why features are broken or missing and everything feels disconnected. The fact that they are managing 'important' IP with temps shows how much they care and if that isn't changing, the corporate restructure is for nothing.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    On the bright side, Activision is quite capable of making the exact same game over and over again and consistently. Their knowledge of beating the dead horse is borderline necromancy. Can't say the same for 343.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Oh it is straight up necromancy and Black Ops might be necrophilia.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    "what if we did halo [iteration], but with zombies? what do you mean they already have that? they did it when?! great, how the fuck do we innovate now? can't we just add shooting some brown people and call it halo: space black ops?" -Activision ceo, tomorrow

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 14 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    CODification here it comes. Couldn't be worse than the current state of Halo though?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Halo became what it is now because they tried to turn it into CoD, so it couldn't be better either

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I would argue that it probably does give better odds for it at Activision. They already have CoD. They don't need to turn Halo into CoD. They can just use Halo to do something new.

    I think I remember that they made a CoD with like mech suits or something, and a lot more movement mechanics, and it wasn't received well. That's basically what Halo is. Now they can go fully into that without CoD players complaining that it isn't CoD.

    I don't have much faith in this, but I do think there's better odds for a better Halo with Activision probably. 343 didn't get it. Activision may not, but doing something new has to be better than continuing to fuck things up over and over.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    343 has been trying to do "something new" (chasing trends, mostly) every time they didn't remaster an existing game, it's not necesssarily going to work out.

    At this point Halo is just a brand, a franchise, a trademark to be slapped onto whatever the IP owners want to do with a popularity boost - the story (/ lore / narrative) has been brought to hell and back and to hell again, and the gameplay has been bent so much with each title that it doesn't really have an identity anymore either.

    CoD players won't like it because it's not CoD, Halo players will play it for a few hours because At Least It's Kinda Fun I Guess™, everyone else will be like "Halo? Like, the one Jesus had?", and whatever contractors Microsoft/Activision will hire won't be given enough time, space or resources to cook something that is more than mediocre.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    I mean something new as in let someone else have a try. 343 has been failing constantly. Letting them keep trying probably isn't going to solve the issue. It's worth trying literally anything else than having them keep at it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    Activision doesn't only publish Call of Duty though. They publish all kinds of games: Sekiro, the Tony Hawk games, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, etc.

    Way more potential than what 343 had. I mean, 343 was purposefully NOT hiring former Bungie-era Halo employees. The important ones, like Marcus Lehto, Marty ODonnell, heck they only brought Joe Staten to get Infinite "back on track" and then promptly kicked him to the curb too. 343 definitely deserved this earlier, I am gonna be honest.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

    The games you mentioned ring in my head as mid-2000s highlights, with nothing more than blatant money grabs published in the last decade. Not very indicative of a healthy studio imo. They may have once been capable of turning out good games, but that was roughly in the era 343 was turning out good games too good Halo games were being released as well

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Sekiro is the exception to that, but that's more on FromSoft than it is on Activision, to the extent that it actually hadn't registered in my mind that Activision was involved with that game at all.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    but that was roughly in the era 343 was turning out good games too

    What, HALO 4?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    Halo 1-3 were 2001-2007, which counts as early- to mid-2000s. Halo 4 was 2012, in the early 2010s

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Bungie made 1 2 3 ODST Reach, 343 made 4 5 Infinite. 343 is established to handle the IP when bungie separated from microsoft.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago*

    My point is that Activision isn't a studio. It's a publisher. I read Activision said they are forming a new studio for Halo.

    I mean, I didn't bring up all of Activisions classic games like Pitfall, just the most recent games they have published since those are most relevant to the topic.

    "the era 343 was turning out good games too"

    Ok but that never really happened. Ensemble made Halo Wars and Creative Assembly made the sequel which were decent IMO (the first being better IMO). Every other game with the Halo brand under 343 was garbage. Forget about Spartan Strike and Spartan Assault? 343s first game was Halo CE Anniversary, which was horrendously bad, so I suppose it is poetic in a way that Halo Studios, which only survived long enough to drop a single game, would die with yet another rehash of Halo CE.

    Except for maybe Fireteam Raven, only because I never had the chance to play it, 343 never had an "era of making good games." Halo 2A was pretty good but it launched in the very broken MCC which took them years to fix.

    4,5, and Infinite were the absolute low points of Halo, with Infinite being the best of the three only because of the art direction. But they are all far below Bungie-era Halo games.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 47 points 1 month ago

    Fallout with ads from Obsidian.

    There's no saving these IPs now.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 36 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    Halo to become Call of Duty In Space in 3...

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    The only people in the world left that understand the lineage of Halo, and that Halo is all about the combat dance, and elaborate encounters, and that every enemy in the level is a chess piece that needs to be placed with utmost care, is Id Software.

    Id, freshly equipped with everything they learned from resurrecting DOOM, is the only studio skilled enough to possibly save the Halo franchise.

    Too bad Microsoft obliterated them last month, too.

    Oops!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • [–] 35 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    What exactly is their plan? Just collect IPs so they aren't being released on other platforms?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 32 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    It is a very old strategy for monopolies to buy up competition when there are no anti monopoly protections so they can kill the competition, it's how Microsoft was founded.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Founded? I know they did this as they grew, but founded?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Not quite. The founding is actually worse.

    Bill Gates was shown, in good faith, a tech demo by, I think IBM but I may be wrong with that, for a new graphical user interface they were planning on releasing soon, and he just stole it and released windows, before they could get their product to market.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I looked it up as I was curious.

    Apple and Microsoft both licensed some interface stuff from Xerox and they were both working on a windows like OS.

    Apple was ahead, and gave them a sneak preview.

    Then I guess MS wanted to do something like that and told Apple they'd give them time a frame they wouldn't release anything in (like a year or two later after apple released it) and then they said fuck it and released it early.

    Then Apple sued MS.

    So MS stole good parts of windows from Apple.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    You can make good games to make people buy your games or you can destroy competition to make people buy mor games.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    You can’t destroy competition in gaming though. Even if Doom is owned by Xbox, a Norwegian kid in his basement will reinvent the boomer shooter with an idea that sells hundreds of thousands. And even if they’re bought out, they care too much about the idea and their supporters to enshittify immediately, and another dev is just around the corner.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago*

    Yeah so historically PlayStation has had a lot of exclusives (Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, The Last of Us) that would be the deciding factor for a lot of players. So Microsoft wanted to ensure that Xbox/PC could synergize and compete against Sony by buying a stake in a ton of game studios, either to have their own exlusives or at least delayed release for PlayStation. But between bitcoin, AI and enshittification the gaming industry is in shambles so they're cutting overhead.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 80 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Microsoft Is the worst thing that ever happened to computers

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 27 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Ehhhhh, if we could see into the multiverse ball, maybe. I'd fucking hate to see a timeline where Apple was the dominant consumer-grade OS producer through the 90s and 2000s.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    It's more a matter of practices rather than product. Microsoft killed the competition with every underhanded tactic they could use, they atrophied the PC ecosystem, the damage they've done is incalculable, and now that they don't have the same power anymore, it seems that doing damage is still their main objective, dedicating even more resource to achieve it

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 26 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    Activision is also overseeing Age of Empires as well... Couldn't let Sony outshine you in "who can shoot themselves in the foot hardest" could you?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
    • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Xbox is dead

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
    • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    So is Halo Studios/343 just.....dead now? Seems like they're dead if they don't have Halo. Kind of in their name.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    They made awful games so who cares. I don't think even Activision could have made it more like a Call of Duty clone than 343 did.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    So since the company has dissolved. There was an idea to make it like a COD game... and an idea to make it like a minecraft/fortnite game... after so many years it turned to just make a halo something game because having 300 contractors alongside the studio ended up costing too much.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    at least double fine got out... well i don't want to say "before" microsoft started gutting everything but at least they got out

    also daily reminder that the xbucks you spend on xbox fund genocide

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    They got out because they actually have a following they can count on. If they didn't think they could survive being independent they would have closed as well. Luckily Tim knows how powerful their brand is and that they can just run a crowdfunder to get back on track.

    Anyone reading this, go donate if you want to help a games company that is dedicated to art instead of profit. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/amnesia-fortnight-2026-indie-reboot

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 21 points 1 month ago

    well, R.I.P. Elder Scrolls 6.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Rip obsidian, I enjoyed pillars, avowed, and pentiment

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Pentiment surprised me by being one of my favourite games I have played in years. There have no doubt been better, or more engaging, or more thought provoking games that I have played, but I struggle to think of many with as much care woven throughout it.

    It made total sense to me when I later learned that Pentiment was Josh Sawyer's pet project, one that he had been hoping to make for years. Apparently he basically said "let me make this game, or I walk", and because of how Xbox gamepass affected funding stuff, he was allowed to make this cute, quirky game. Apparently they even had an on-call historian to ensure maximum authenticity.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Yeah that game was great a lot of people slept on, there's another adventure game coming out soon "slime in the ice machine" that looks like it might be good too and I think Josh Sawyer is working on a fallout game hopefully they get the time to make it what they want.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 18 points 1 month ago

    Mainstream is dead

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 18 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Nooo not Obsidian! Fuck off, Microsoft.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • [–] 17 points 1 month ago

    Lol, smells like desperation from here.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 16 points 1 month ago (5 children)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Nah, they'll still somehow limp their way into the next generation because Sony is trying to one up MSFT in bad decisions.

    If they just sat back and did nothing, then it'd would definitely be over lol.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Imagine your job being making games, and finding a way to ruin that. Both of the big console teams have shit the bed simultaneously. Truly awe inspiring, the collective dipshettery we get to witness.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago*

    Good thing popcorn is cheap as I need more of it to watch them constantly doing stupid things.

    None of it really matters to be because I am never going to buy a console anyway, largely because of shit like this. I'll just enjoy watching.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    The next generation is the problem. With the component pricing being stupid up they're having to put off releasing the new consoles. They're raising the prices on existing hardware just to match the component crunch, so they're not getting the mid-late generation bump of people buying the hardware once it's come down in price, and the people willing to buy new hardware an a high price already bought this generation's comsole.

    Xbox bled money buying studios for gamepass, then failed to get casual people subscribed to gamepass, but the hardware people who bought new $70 games a couple times a month started spending way less money on Xbox due to Gamepass because of all the day 1 releases. And the Series S held back everything by being wildly underpowered.

    Meanwhile Sony burned billions betting on live service failures back to back to back (Microsoft did this too, but to a lesser degree).

    And now their "new console generation" parachute/reset is fucked due to hardware costs. They know they can't make an even halfway decent "next-gen" console under $1000, so now they've burned mountains of money and don't really have a plan going forward. And now they're amputating limbs to create the illusion of cost-cutting.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments
    view more: next ›