In Halo, “the sandbox” often refers to the weapons and vehicles on a map at any given time: all the toys you have to play with. But for a whole other set of Halo fans, that sandbox is the game itself. Be it through Forge or ambitious modding projects like SPV3, playing with the very core of the game itself is part of the legacy of the franchise. Now, Microsoft has made that even easier after publishing a thorough collection of modding resources for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. And as a surprise, some of these resources contain some never-before-seen images from Halo 2’s development way back in the early 2000s.
Today, Microsoft released official documentation for Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s mod tools, specifically Halo 2 and Halo 3 (other entries in the series are expected to receive documentation at a later date). As spotted by Halo modder Kiera on Twitter, some of the documentation for Halo 2 contains material directly from Bungie circa the early 2000s. With it are a few development images that few have seen until now.
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
What’s cool about these images is that they show off the inner workings of Halo 2’s engine. One of these images illustrates the “screenshot_cubemap” command. I’m not going to entirely pretend to know what this does, but based on the documentation, it’s for use in generating reflective surfaces, like we see in the old documentation photo provided.
Image: Microsoft / Kotaku
Another neat pair of images shows off debugging information, listing data for when a model is using specific weapons or playing out various animations.
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
Like many behind-the-scenes shots, these are hardly glamorous. But they are cool nonetheless. The development of Halo 2 is a tale of high ambition at the cost of abusive crunch, much of which has been talked about openly. Various materials from the game’s development have been seen before, while others remain out of reach, like the legendary 2003 E3 demo (which 343 has recently pondered finally making playable). Today, a little more has seen the light of day.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 drops on October 28, though if you preordered it, you’ve likely already gotten some through some of the campaign. But ahead of the game’s full release, which will give folks full access to the multiplayer component, some are decrying the game’s skill-based matchmaking (SBMM).
Modern Warfare 2 is Infinity Ward’s latest entry in the Call of Duty series. A reboot of 2009’s eponymous title and a direct sequel to 2019’s rebooted Modern Warfare, this new shooter sees you hunting down various high-profile military ops to prevent global catastrophe by…shooting them in the face. It’s a solid game with some impressive visuals that Kotaku staff writer Claire Jackson said gets sluggish after a boring start. But while there are some problematic elements in the game’s campaign, that isn’t what has the community riled up. Nah, it’s the not-even-out multiplayer component.
Read More:Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II Is A Precision-Made Boredom Machine
Popular streamer Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar is seemingly at the center of the discourse around Modern Warfare 2 and skill-based matchmaking. In an October 23 video, he said that while he’ll “be here” when the game launches in full this weekend, he’ll only stream the game for “a day.” He’ll still grind it off-stream for the camos but clarified he can’t stream Modern Warfare 2. The reason? Skill-based matchmaking apparently sucks the enjoyment outta the multiplayer experience because he’s playing against highly skilled players that body him, and he isn’t having fun with the established “meta” and the “good guns” folks regularly use. His solution? Create two separate playlists: a Quick Play one not based around SBMM and a Ranked one that is.
“If SBMM wasn’t a thing, I would stream multiplayer,” he said. “SBMM—I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, man—is, I dare say, killing video games.”
TimTheTatman
Skill-based matchmaking is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a feature usually employed in multiplayer games that pairs you with other players around your skill level. Only level 10 months after a game launched but still wanna check out the multiplayer component? No problem. SBMM should—heavy emphasis on the “should” here—match you with other folks that are also level 10. Getting better at the game and leveling up at a rapid clip? The game’s SBMM should—again, heavy emphasis the word “should”—recognize this, placing you with others that are equally improving their skills. It doesn’t always work out this way, but that’s the general idea behind the methodology.
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However, much like TimTheTatman, folks online aren’t—and haven’t been for a minute now—too happy with the feature’s implementation in competitive games. A cursory glance at Twitter pulls up multiple people decrying skill-based matchmaking. Some have brought up how competitive shooters back in the day, such as Halo 2, apparently didn’t have SBMM and were still great fun. (A former Halo designer was quick to counter that point, though.) Others have said they straight-up hate the feature. A few, like gaming collective FaZe Clan, have questioned whether skill-based matchmaking belongs in Call of Duty games at all. Most seem to agree, however, that SBMM is ruining the game for them in some capacity. But, of course, SBMM has been in games for a long while now.
Read More:Modern Warfare II Makes You Aim Your Gun At Civilians To ‘De-Escalate’
Kotaku reached out to Activision and TimTheTatman comment.
There’s some irony to the complaints here. If one player has hit prestige, frequently ending matches with some insane kill-death ratio, then they should obviously be placed with other equally dominating players. They shouldn’t be given the opportunity to jump into non skill-based lobbies to crush folks still learning the ropes. It’s like a heavyweight boxer packing a ton of muscle taking on a lightweight half their size. Like, that’s a clear unfair advantage. If you wanna be the best, you gotta beat the best, right? Like Twitter user headfallsoff aptly asked in response to the SBMM discourse: “What would Goku think”? Yeah, he’d be disappointed.
Worlds sometimes collide in the most expected ways. Destiny, a series of first-person shooters developed by Bungie and first released in 2014, is getting a slew of weapons from Halo, a series of first-person shooters developed by Bungie and first released in 2001.
Rumors around a crossover have swirled for some time now. Bungie turns the big 3-0 this year, and is planning an in-game Destiny 2 event “that pays homage to the adventures we’ve shared.” Initial promotional screenshots sent analytical fans into a tizzy over whether or not character silhouettes indicated inclusion of Halo-inspired firearms, like the quintessential battle rifle. Plus, not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s a new Halo out this week, one that seriously oozes original-trilogy vibes (when the series was under Bungie’s purview).
The stars aligned just a bit too neatly for anything short of, at the very least, a crossover on the scale of an end-credits stinger from a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. A trailer for Bungie’s 30th anniversary event confirms as much:
Among the fray, you can make out four weapons that are unmistakably lifted from Halo, further detailed on Bungie’s site:
The Forerunner, an exotic-tier sidearm, is clearly the all-powerful pistol from Halo: Combat Evolved.
The legendary-tier BXR-55 Battler is a burst-fire pulse rifle akin to the burst-fire battle rifle that first debuted in Halo 2, which has gone on to become a series staple.
The Half-Truths sword, also legendary, is the iconic energy swords often used by high-level Halo enemies. Though enemies wielded it in the first game, players couldn’t use one until Halo 2. It’s also become a series staple.
The Retraced Path is a legendary-tier trace rifle that maps to Halo: Reach’s focus rifle. (The focus rifle is fundamentally the same as the beam rifle from other Halo games.)
Bungie says all of these items are all part of the “Dares of Eternity” event, which is free to all players. Other additions—including the return of the fan-favorite Gjallarhorn rocket launcher—are only available to those who pick up the Destiny 2 30th Anniversary Park.
The battle rifle corollary even has a near-identical crosshair to Halo’s battle rifle.Screenshot: Microsoft / 343 Industries / Kotaku
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Bungie, which was once wholly owned by Microsoft, went independent following the release of 2007’s Halo 3 in 2007. In going indie, the studio left the rights for Halo with Microsoft, but went on to develop and release two more games in the series for Xbox: Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. Following the release of Reach, Microsoft established a new studio, 343 Industries, intended solely to keep the Halo machine churning. In the years since, 343 has released three full games—2012’s Halo 4, 2015’s Halo 5: Guardans, and this year’s Halo Infinite—alongside a collection bundling pretty much every Halo prior to Halo 5.
Earlier this year, Xbox head Phil Spencer told Axios Gaming that, under his leadership, he thinks Microsoft could’ve held onto Bungie, but fully acknowledged why the venerable studio would’ve wanted to go its own way.
“At the time, they had big ambitions. They had sold their business for a certain amount of money. They saw what Halo turned into,” Spencer said. “And it’s like, ‘OK, Microsoft benefited more than Bungie did from the success of Halo.’ There’s no other story that can be written there.”
For the past year and change, Destiny 2 and all its expansions have been part of Game Pass, Microsoft’s Netflix-for-games subscription service, significantly lowering the barrier for entry for some 18 million subscribers. But that changes this week, when Bungie will pull Destiny 2’s expansions from the Game Pass library, as the hype cycle revs up for February’s release of The Witch Queen expansion.
There’s a new Halo out, the first in more than half a decade, but all anyone can talk about is its contentious battle pass. The convo has now hit a point of cacophonous saturation, prompting a top creative on the game to openly acknowledge complaints about Halo Infinite’s progression, and state that addressing them ranks as a top priority.
Sigh. All right. This has gotten out of hand. Halo Infinite’s battle pass is totally fine, you guys. I’d even go so far as to say it doesn’t need the total overhaul some say it does—certainly not compared to some of the other pressing issues with the game, and certainly not yet.
Two weeks ago, if you somehow missed it, Halo Infinite came out of left field. Though the full game still won’t be out until December 8, developer 343 Industries surprise-released the multiplayer mode—technically “in beta”—on Xbox and PC. Pretty much everyone agrees: On the fundamentals, it’s a blast, a ridiculously polished first-person shooter that somehow both feels new and carves out space as a return to the golden age of arena shooters.
The bulk of criticism has been directed at the game’s meta-progression system. Like most games based on a free-to-play model (the campaign is priced at a premium, but the multiplayer mode is free), Halo Infinite features a battle pass. By earning experience points, you can level up, unlocking rewards tied to each rank: stuff like new visor colors, helmets, armor “kits,” armor attachments, shoulderpads, knee pads, emblems, and post-battle stances, alongside various single-use items that can help speed up the process. The free model grants you marginal rewards; paying $10 earns you cooler gear, and more of it, than what you’d get with the free pass. With both, earning 1,000XP boosts you to the next level.
The catch is that leveling is largely based on completing hyper-specific challenges, rather than performing well. Right now, completing a multiplayer match in Halo Infinite gives you 50XP. (You don’t get a bonus for winning.) Knocking out a challenge—say, getting 10 kills with the stalker rifle, or winning three matches of capture-the-flag—can net you anywhere from 200XP to 400XP. You’re allotted 20 challenges per week. Once you complete them all, you won’t get more until the week resets (on Tuesdays). You’ll have to rely solely on 50XP bursts to work toward ranking up.
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Screenshot: Microsoft
Critics contend that the current structure begets glacial progress. You could knock out your weekly challenges and rank up at a steady clip for a bit. But once you’ve finished all of your challenges for the week, it’ll take you 20 matches to increase just one level. (Judicious use of XP boosts, which double the amount of XP you earn for an hour of real time, could theoretically cut that down to 10 matches.) The chatter reached a head over the weekend, as evidenced by a Reddit post that’s been upvoted more than 6,600 times as of this writing, headlined, “Do not undersell that Halo Infinite is a new industry low.” The post largely cites concerns with Infinite’s free-to-play model.
There are a hundred levels in the battle pass for the first season, “Heroes of Reach,” which is scheduled to wrap up some time in May 2022. Let’s put that in perspective: There are 23 weeks between now and the start of May. (343 hasn’t given a specific end date but has said you’ll be able to continue working on battle passes from previous seasons after the respective season ends.) While fully acknowledging that I no doubt play more than the average player, I’m currently 24 levels into the battle pass—that’s 12 levels a week, a rate that’ll see me hit the finish line in less than two months.
How would most players stack up against 100 levels? Microsoft hasn’t publicly shared the average battle pass level among Infinite’s player base, so it’s hard to tell. Anecdotally, I see a lot of players rocking the (kick-ass) EVA helmet, which is earned at level 10. Staying steady at the minimum rate there, five levels a week, you’d hit the end of the battle pass in 18 weeks—more than a month before the first season is supposed to wrap.
Some players want 343 Industries to inject some nitrous into the model by allowing various forms of faster progression. One option on the table: medal-based progression, a system that was in place for previous Halos. Were that model applied to Halo Infinite, earning, for instance, killing spree (five kills without dying) or killjoy (ending an opponent’s killing spree) medals would grant you more XP at the end of the match. Most commonly, you hear people advocate for some sort of win-based progression.
One refrain—and it is legit—is that, the way Halo Infinite currently works, there’s very little incentive to play to win. If one of your challenges tasks you with racking up 15 gravity hammer kills, you’ll naturally focus on finding a gravity hammer over securing the ball in a round of oddball. To that end, some players have suggested granting a small victory bonus—maybe you’d get 75XP or 100XP for winning a match, instead of the typical 50XP—which would both speed up the leveling process and potentially spur players to focus on actually winning the game, rather than their own personal suite of challenges. (For what it’s worth, I’m of the mind that, yes, a small victory bonus would be quite nice.)
Whether or not you believe that full completion of a battle pass should be a badge of honor solely reserved for the most dedicated players, Infinite’s pass, as it stands right now, is designed to be completed by those who are even moderately engaged each week. It’s a system set up to steadily reward players over the course of months. No one’s going to finish it within the first few weeks. That’s not the point. Mathematically, you’ll get to the end eventually—as long as you stick with it somewhat.
This week’s capstone challenge prize: The “willow tea” armor coating.Image: Microsoft
And it’s not like the most devout players can’t earn badges of honor that denote their particular level of devotion. There are indeed some rewards that are likely out of reach for players who dabble. Completing all of the weekly challenges will give you the opportunity to knock out a “capstone challenge,” typically a bit tougher than the standard fare. Once you finish that, you’ll earn that week’s cosmetic reward—which, to my knowledge, is not available via other means. This week’s challenge, “get five killing sprees in Fiesta PvP,” was a doozy, a true time commitment in that it was purely based on the gods of random-number generation. (As an apology for resetting the challenge structure days after release, 343 granted the first week’s prize, a gold visor, to all players who logged in between November 23 and November 30.)
More egregious is the recently launched “Fracture – Tenrai” event, a sort of a battle pass within a battle pass. While the event is active, some challenges are designated as being tied to the event; every one of these challenges you complete increases your rank in the Fracture – Tenrai pass. (The experience you earn goes toward your standard battle pass.) The event is scheduled to occur during six different weeks between now and the end of “Heroes of Reach,” in the spring. The way it currently works, you can only earn seven levels for each week. In order to complete all seven levels, you’d have to play several hours during each week the event is active.
All of the rewards in the battle pass are free, but you can only purchase the coolest-looking cosmetic accessories in the store for an extra cost. Most of those can only be applied on the Yoroi armor, which is earned by hitting the fifth level of the event’s battle pass. In other words, you could conceivably spend money on a cosmetic item that’s limited to one set of armor and miss the window for earning that set of armor, essentially rendering your purchase useless. Uh, yeah. I’ve got nothing there. That’s just weird.
When reached for comment, representatives for Microsoft didn’t have anything to add on the topic.
Challenges with an orange flag help you progress through both the standard and the event battle pass.Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
But, look, this entire conversation misses the key point: Halo has never been about this stuff. Since the days of Halo: Combat Evolved, in 2001, Halo has always been about the game itself—about winning matches just to win, about sharpening your kill-death ratio, about messing around and having a blast with fun-feeling vehicles and weapons you couldn’t find in any other game, then pairing them with ridiculous match parameters, all in the effort of meshing creativity with competition. (See: Grifball going from a joke to a bona fide game mode.) Though you could always tweak your look, playing Halo was never a matter of being so preoccupied with changing your visor color. As reporter Gene Park noted at The Washington Post, the chatter today has highlighted a stark divide between how we played games then and how we play games now.
I’ll admit that yeah, at first, I bristled at having to complete challenges to level up. But I quickly came around. The challenge-based structure has changed how I play Halo, and for the better.
My instincts were to fall back on Halo Infinite’s starter weapons, the ones I know best: the pistol and the assault rifle (or the battle rifle, if we’re talking that white-knuckle ranked mode). But the battle pass’ raft of weapon-based challenges nudged me out of my comfort zone, forcing me to experiment with the entire arsenal. I now get a kick out of nearly every gun on the roster, save for the ravager, which ran the table during this summer’s technical tests but has been noticeably nerfed for the full game.
Contrary to some of the more widespread critiques, I’ve actually found myself focused on winning matches because of the progression system. It’s a sharp diversion from my previously laser-focused goal of improving my kill-death ratio (which, maddeningly, isn’t tracked anywhere, even on Halo’s stats-tracking halowaypoint.com site). Even if I personally don’t need to win the strongholds game I’m in, I’ve got it in my head that at least one member of my team is working toward a challenge that requires victory, so I’ll play to win, rather than to hone my KD, as I have in every other Halo. Pay it forward, and all that. As a result, I’ve found myself playing, and even thoroughly enjoying, modes that aren’t the series-standard slayer deathmatch mode.
Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is of course not bereft of issues—its menus are confusing, partying up with friends is a mess, cheating is reportedly rampant on PC, there’s no way to see your KDA ratio, the options for custom matches are severely limited, and the ravager is functionally useless—but the battle pass is by no means the worst of it. I’d say it should remain the way it is.
Well, for now. My thinking is that Halo Infinite players should let this play out over the course of the first season. The folks at 343 Industries have poured years of work into this game; they deserve a chance to see if their vision clicks or not in the long term. Considering Halo Infinite is the foundation of what’s intended to be a ten-year game, there’s plenty of time for change. If season two rolls around in the spring and the community is still irked by this structure, then sure, it could use (and should receive) an overhaul. But to loudly and widely demand significant change two weeks after release strikes me as reactionary.
Also, you can play Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode for zero dollars.