@wahsobe: I knew Halo Infinite was in trouble when they had to bring Joseph Staten in because too much of the work had been outsourced and the leadership of 343 were too distracted by the Halo tv show, which we now know was terrible. I saw Staten in an interview say that when they brought him in, they asked him to spend some time with the game and get back to them. He played over the course of a few days or a week and they asked him if it was salvageable. That means Xbox had some serious doubts with the state of the game. I think Staten only got a year and a half to course correct.

I don't mind Xbox buying studio's, which is likely coming to an end with Activision, but I agree that I wish the Chief would have gotten the God of War treatment. I like Xbox's hands off approach and not trying to crush other studio's cultures to conform to their own, but I have a feeling their check-in process changed after being blindsided by the state of Halo Infinite.

Maybe one day the game will be great, but it's frustrating for a franchise that used to be known for launching super polished is being carved up and put out in chunks. Thankfully I didn't purchase the game day one, I would like to own a copy of Infinite one day, but not until it's completed.

@MigGui: It's possible, but trends move quick and Halo Infinite is not. One whole year on Season 2 is going to hurt them a lot. Reoccurring player counts have fallen well below Halo MCC.

They have said they are working on expansions for Campaign, the sad thing is it seems since Halo Infinite is supposed to be a platform for the next 10 years of Halo, all DLC will also have to be made for the Xbox One, meaning it will never look any better than what it already does(enless they develop two separate versions, 343 is struggling with one at the moment).

Some very odd and questionable choices they made for this game.

@wahsobe: I agree it's pretty disappointing. I am surprised at how long it has taken for 343 to get in gear. Halo Infinite was really the game that everyone could see needed to be a redemption and honestly, it's been far from it at this point. I played an hour of the campaign solo and decided I wanted to wait for Co Op, haven't looked back since. It was alright, but I've always been into playing Halo Co Op. I've put a few hours into MP, but there are so few maps that I got bored of it pretty quick. I was surprised it launched without a normal Slayer mode.

I don't know if Halo has simply run it's course or what, but my draw to it has lessened over the years. I would call Halo 4 good, but it definitely was no Reach and none of the games since have been either. We already know they had to bring in a director from the glory days of Halo to even get Infinite in a good enough state to launch. I can only imagine the mess he walked into.

I'm interested to hear more about this. I understand why Assassin's Creed moved into a more RPG direction, the franchise was getting stale, review scores were dropping and most importantly, sales were dropping. I loved the setting of Assassin's Creed in Egypt, but I could never get over not being able to one shot an enemy with the hidden blade if the enemies level was 'too high'.

There was something wonderfully fluid about the base Assassin's Creed combat. My friends and I used to just spend hours passing the controller back and forth as we attracted a group of guards to see who could last the longest against them. Another problem I had, starting with Assassin's Creed III honestly, was that the cities and landscapes were not really tailored for parkour.

If they can find a way to return to a more Assassin's Creed 1 or 2 era combat, making it harder hitting, more snappy and fluid, while also nailing some great fluid parker, I think I might finally start getting back into Assassin's Creed.

Probably won't watch it, but I hope all who want to see it enjoy it. The rise of streaming and seeing some of these old properties resurrected to mostly uneven results is starting to show me that 'Yes, you can have too much of a good thing.'

@mooglestar: Edibles probably would be a great experience for that game as well I would think. I also bought it awhile back and just recently played it, so many games to play, so little time.

Peter Molyneux is still in the game industry, but he's made an interesting transition to mobile gaming. He started his own studio called 22cans(cause there were 22 people I guess). He said he had gotten tired of big teams, there were over 150 people at Lionhead before he left and he didn't know a lot of them. He started in the 90's where teams were 15 to 20 people. He also got pretty engrained into Xbox management and said he was flying to Seattle a lot from London and it was getting hard on his family.

He wasted no time getting into controversy with his new studio either. Their first game was 'The Cube', which essentially had thousands of players at a time tapping little squares to get to the center. The one who finally one got a mystery prize of the being the God of Gods in their next game Godus.

Godus was an early kickstarter project and they raise a ton of money. Unfortunately like most early kickstarter game projects the game never reached what was promised, although I put a ton of time into it(I found out about it well after the controversy). There are a ton of articles on it. They have a new game called The Trail which is pretty neat and he's working on a new one right now. Both Godus and The Trail are free. He has grand ideas, but he has tried to scale back on crazy promises. There's a good interview with him on IGN Unfiltered from a few years ago.

I'm not too worried about RE4, if anything it'll just get a delay. I know Capcom heard some of the feedback about RE3 Remake and I'm sure they understand one of the most beloved games from their whole studio needs to launch razor sharp. I haven't checked out Lies of P yet, although I did see some of the hype for it around the net. I'll need to check it out.

@mooglestar: I love Ninja Theory, so when Xbox bought them I was super happy. Them and Obsidian have always been promising developers that seem to struggle with getting funding for their grand ideas. I can't wait to see what they do with Xbox's financial backing. Both developers have been hard at work. Don't know if you indulge in adult beverages, but Hellblade is a trip if you are bit tipsy playing it. I don't know any other way to describe it but an experience.

Yes, Lionhead is the studio who made Black and White 1 and 2(loved 2, played the heck out of it). They were both infamous and renowned for their Fable series. Peter Molyneux was the head of the studio and he was known for grandiose ideas that didn't always come to pass in the games. Some people hate him for it, I rather liked him.

Fable is a 3rd person action RPG where you can be a good or evil hero(a bit like Black and White). Lionhead was a UK studio and Fable was very British, the humor, the dialogue. Was playing Fable 3 again recently(Xbox's uprez and 60 fps program for backwards compatible was great for it) and it's still a lot of fun. Playground Games, known for the Forza Horizon series, has been put in charge of reviving it. Playground has been nothing but fantastic and they are a UK studio themselves, so I have no doubt the reboot will be incredible.

I'm curious too about RE4, because they said it is 'inspired', so just like the last two, it's not a 1 to 1 remake. I hope they make it bigger. As for Gotham Knights, I've always liked Red Hood, so I'm excited to get a game where you can go around cracking skulls as him. It could turn out to be a disaster, but I've enjoyed what I've seen so far.

@duggd1ggler: Yeah, it's cool, but that price is way off. I love looking at collectible figures, but I can never pay the prices asked for them. I also agree that these look exactly the same as the 90s ones. It reminds me of the Lion King toys Disney pulled out of storage when the CGI version released a few years ago. Nothing new, exactly as I remember them decades ago.

@mooglestar: indeed. I can't wait for Hellblade 2(just recently finished the first, it was an experience), Fable(bieng made by Playground Games is great, sucks that Lionhead is gone though), Avowed and of course Starfield. I think now is the perfect time to get a PS5 or Series X, the end of this year and next years games are starting to leave last gen behind. Looking forward to Gotham Knights and Resident Evil 4 Remake just around the corner.

Hopefully your PS5 order goes through, exciting time to get into this generation. I had an Xbox One X, I was glad to get an extra two years on it anyways, but the Xbox Series X is a big difference so far already.