Just why... why did you make the choices you made? Was it your intention to finally kill off a beloved franchise, or were you just irresponsible? Did you go in just screaming about profit margins and the silly saps who were gonna shower you in gold, 343?

Well... seems like there were plenty of showers of gold to go around... 343 towards its fans, the fans back to 343... it's a sad state of affairs to be involved with. Luckily, I didn't spend any money and got away with just an 87 hour time sink, hours not representative of actual playtime. It feels like a shell of the game we'd anticipated, a demo for what's coming Holiday's 2022, not a well polished game ready for release.

The game isn't a mess... but... I remember an interview I watched with ole Bungie creator of CE and he talked about how the game is just capturing the same 30 seconds of fun over and over again. This tries that formula, but in the weirdest way possible, it tries to give you the exact same fun for 30 seconds over and over again. In terms of an initial rush of fun, yes it succeeds for a time, but the sugar crash you feel afterward if just depressing.

Design-wise, I'm not entirely certain what they were thinking. Sure the character models looks fine and the scenery and all that is good to look at, but many of the more subtle design choices were just mucked up with a seemingly brazen disregard for intuition. The menus can be a nightmare to operate and move around until you just learn by clicking through the thousand options that do essentially the same three things.

Then there's the technical design choices... hope you like de-sync, rubber banding, and completely unexplainable hit box issues. If not, then you're gonna face some real frustration with this. I benefit from the last one quite a bit, and it makes me seem like I'm better than I am, but I suffer the penalties of the other two far too often. For some reason I love to pull the trigger on the BR for complete misses, but the game rewards my consistency with missing by giving me super bullets and head shots where none existed.

The one I get penalized the most by, is because this game exists in the Wanted universe and we can now bend bullets around corners. I don't think I'm a fanatic about this on any game, a step or a half second around the wall... I understand I'm still in the danger zone due to the technical limitations of what we have... but... full seconds where I have enough time to feel safe and begin trying to strafe back out.. but gasp... I've been taking damage non-stop and before I even step back out to get murdered... I'm already dead. Rockets blow up in your chest and you'll run away is another crowd-pleaser I'm sure..

Finally, the choices that kill franchises... do you want to only play a certain map, or maybe a specific game type in ranked? Find a different game! That's your choice! Certainly sounds like a business decision to keep people around for a long time. Gut basic features that are the reasons for the franchises sustained success like co-op campaign, forge mode, all lumped together with some rather loathsome map selections. It just feels like a hollow representation of what it should've been with all the resources behind the game...

I'll likely play the game again with friends... and like I said it's not that it doesn't have fun in it. It's just that there's a great deal of refinement and remapping that the game needs to go through to reach a state that feels like it properly competes for my time.

Just why... why did you make the choices you made? Was it your intention to finally kill off a beloved franchise, or were you just irresponsible? Did you go in just screaming about profit margins and the silly saps who were gonna shower you in gold, 343? Well... seems like there were plenty of showers of gold to go around... 343 towards its fans, the fans back to 343... it's a sad state of affairs to be involved with. Luckily, I didn't spend any money and got away with just an 87 hour time sink, hours not representative of actual playtime. It feels like a shell of the game we'd anticipated, a demo for what's coming Holiday's 2022, not a well polished game ready for release. The game isn't a mess... but... I remember an interview I watched with ole Bungie creator of CE and he talked about how the game is just capturing the same 30 seconds of fun over and over again. This tries that formula, but in the weirdest way possible, it tries to give you the exact same fun for 30 seconds over and over again. In terms of an initial rush of fun, yes it succeeds for a time, but the sugar crash you feel afterward if just depressing. Design-wise, I'm not entirely certain what they were thinking. Sure the character models looks fine and the scenery and all that is good to look at, but many of the more subtle design choices were just mucked up with a seemingly brazen disregard for intuition. The menus can be a nightmare to operate and move around until you just learn by clicking through the thousand options that do essentially the same three things. Then there's the technical design choices... hope you like de-sync, rubber banding, and completely unexplainable hit box issues. If not, then you're gonna face some real frustration with this. I benefit from the last one quite a bit, and it makes me seem like I'm better than I am, but I suffer the penalties of the other two far too often. For some reason I love to pull the trigger on the BR for complete misses, but the game rewards my consistency with missing by giving me super bullets and head shots where none existed. The one I get penalized the most by, is because this game exists in the Wanted universe and we can now bend bullets around corners. I don't think I'm a fanatic about this on any game, a step or a half second around the wall... I understand I'm still in the danger zone due to the technical limitations of what we have... but... full seconds where I have enough time to feel safe and begin trying to strafe back out.. but gasp... I've been taking damage non-stop and before I even step back out to get murdered... I'm already dead. Rockets blow up in your chest and you'll run away is another crowd-pleaser I'm sure.. Finally, the choices that kill franchises... do you want to only play a certain map, or maybe a specific game type in ranked? Find a different game! That's your choice! Certainly sounds like a business decision to keep people around for a long time. Gut basic features that are the reasons for the franchises sustained success like co-op campaign, forge mode, all lumped together with some rather loathsome map selections. It just feels like a hollow representation of what it should've been with all the resources behind the game... I'll likely play the game again with friends... and like I said it's not that it doesn't have fun in it. It's just that there's a great deal of refinement and remapping that the game needs to go through to reach a state that feels like it properly competes for my time.