Funny. Phil Spencer is over here trying to get Helldivers on Xbox and my thought is always “why don’t they do their own fun and unique idea?” Turns out the suits just shoot the fun ideas down. Not shocked.
hai_world
superficially it may have been similar but the reality is the execution of Helldivers is palpably better than any 343 has made. when 343 devs express regret because they could have made Helldivers the reality is not one that aligns with their output.
to quote the Social Netwoek: “if you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook”
J-R-D
This is such a vague thing to say
“We were gonna do the popular new game idea first but we didnt”
Whatever theyd end up making wouldn’t necessarily capture what makes Helldivers so fun. Studios always have “ideas” but making them a reality is a different story
And since its Halo, it’d be a AAA production full of AAA things. What makes Helldivers so good is that its purely an arcadey game where gameplay comes before things like expensive cinematics, story, characters, etc. It’s also a sequel to the first game and conceptually similar to it. They just had the budget and support to bring it to life in a way not possible 10 years ago.
It’s simple and engaging and AAA games aren’t necessarily approaching game design the same way a small indie studio is.
CozmoXVI
As if it would be as good as Helldivers
Kangarou
That’s a nothingburger. Pitches die all the time. AAA Games take 2-3 years to make, and everyone on the 40-250 person team probably has 3-4 ideas each.
Boredatwork709
I don’t get all the love for helldivers 2, I enjoy the gameplay for what it is but with the lack of individual progression, very little customization, and pretty repetitive. The moment to moment gameplay is good but it just feels shallow to me.
Aromatic-Quiet5171
>We must have pitched 20-30 game ideas over the 12 years I was there that would have totally worked in the Halo universe. Many SP & MP ODST themed ones. Some galaxy-spanning, some more intimate…and one that was really dark. lol.
I think people need to remember that “pitching a game idea similar to X” does not mean that it would have ended up being a good or even remotely comparable game if it was approved. He says here himself they pitched 20 – 30 game ideas… should they all have been approved??
It’s pretty easy to look back in hindsight and say “we wanted to make a game like this”. In reality their “ODST Helldivers” idea could have just ended up being a live service, online only Halo game (which would have just pissed everyone off).
Boredatwork709
Wouldn’t an ODST game similar to helldivers just of been one of the firefight modes from any of the past halos just expanded into a full game? I think it was 5 even had calling in ordanice drops
MikkPhoto
Everyone can be a smartass after but not before sadly.
peterpan080809
It’s got the point I’m pretty sure Halo fanboys can quite easily make better games than what Microsoft and 343 can do these days…
(Ofc ODST, Reach and Halo 1-3 are all the gold standard).
SuperKrusher
I can see that. ODSTs are basically the same type of trooper as in Helldivers. I doubt it would have been pitched as third person or with similar enemies, but I can see some similarities.
TheDadThatGrills
I believe this based on the custom game modes I used to play. God, they really had the industry by the balls a decade ago.
Jhawk163
Here’s an idea.
Halo ODST.
Basically just make it firefight or whatever.
Terrible_Donkey_8290
Considering the halo devs have fumbled the bag ever since they got it from Bungie I don’t think they would have made a game half as good as helldivers 2 tbh
Chance-Range2855
Microsoft as always absolute shit
SuperToxin
Yea Microsoft doesn’t make the best decisions.
skcyte
I mean Lost Planet kinda already does it way before until they botched 3. Hoping today Capcom would revisit LP.
plonkman
MS are really fucking the dog. It pains me.
Puredepudim
Would that work, though? A lot of the fun of playing Helldivers comes from the Starship Troopers style of parody: the propaganda, the overblown patriotism, the way you are “spreading Managed Democracy”, etc. That would never work in the Halo universe, there would be too much drama about a perceived lack of respect towards Bungie’s work.
So at most you could get Helldivers gameplay with a serious tone and, while that could be fun, it’s just not the same.
wiedmaier
Can we just have another game with a soundtrack like ODST?
0Taken0
Well maybe if it didn’t take a full clip to kill an elite maybe it would be fun😂
laker-prime
This is why I love independent studios who have 100% full creative freedom. They don’t need to get “approval” from upper management who knows jack shit about what players want. To them it’s all about playing it safe rather than innovating, it’s all about how to nickle and dime for extra profits rather than releasing a great game. The suits have become clueless…and it’s not just Microsoft, this goes especially for other publishers like Square Enix, Ubisoft and plenty of other companies as well.
It’s why it’s such a breath of fresh air when you hear these giant success stories from companies like Larian who don’t answer to their corporate masters. Larian’s recent award speech says it all: https://youtu.be/e2D1nbINot4?si=8UhR9kmwaHU6PxHE
DaftGorilla
Phill Spencer and Xbox should be fucking embarrassed with how they let their poster child that put Xbox on the map in the first place just sit and rot. Not even mentioned at any xbox press events like it doesnt exist. Letting the IP turn into one dimesnional boring games instead of exploring other possibilities since ODST. The heads of the snake are the problem. 343 cant do anything but be told what to do by Microsoft and all they want is MTX to be pushed.
thecman25
The game would’ve bombed anyways
Egosnam
This is what happens when MBAs get their greedy hands on successful franchises.
Bar_Har
PvE co-op shooter has been my favorite genre since Deep Rock Galactic came out. I’ve been so annoyed that Halo basically left firefight by the wayside when that was IMO the best multiplayer mode in the series.
lazzzym
Just because something is pitched like something… It doesn’t mean it was going to be good.
mrfixitx
As much as I love halo and have been playing it since the original Xbox I don’t think Bungie, or 343 could have captured the lightning in a bottle that is Helldivers 2.
A lot of it’s fun an appeal is how over the top it is. You are a disposable hero put through a 10 minute training course. Your own ships crew comments how they love watching helldivers die fighting for the cause. Plus all of the voice lines that are hilarious but only work because of the setting.
Mean_Peen
This made me laugh.
I feel bad for them sure, but it just reminds me of my uncle who swears he invented the inkjet printer but just never wrote it down lol
XxTommyTheGunxX
Great, but when would that game have came out… I think Helldivers 2 is popular cause it’s filling a void in the market. The games now are all so similar. Something like Lethat Company blew up because it was different. Helldivers 2 is different. While Palworld was a game that was multiple games melded together it was still different. You look at skull and bones or the newest COD. They are just old and tired concepts. Sure HD 2 and Lethal Co. Have some outdated or not necessarily polished parts. But we’ve been playing games that are half finished “early access” games for over 10 years. Also, both games were not at the 60 or even 70 dollar price point. Gamers are voting with their wallets right now. I think it might actually work. Sucks that tons of studios will lay off staff because the game they made was outperformed because higher ups don’t understand what gamers want right now.
bafrad
Just doing an ODST “Similar to Helldivers” would not get the same results as Helldivers 2. This is a pointless “what if”.
Dangerous_Donkey5353
With the success of hd2 what’s to stop them from just doing a halo version of it on their own. They have everything they need to put it together already.
DriveOn
I think Starship Troopers is the comparison he wanted to make, not Super Troopers lmao
TheMilliner
The headline reads like; “Halo has fallen out of favour, so quick, make a claim that we had the idea first and grab some headlines to get people thinking about this dead franchise again!”
X-432
Honestly the right call. The idea sounds good but why would you greenlight more games when they couldn’t even deliver Halo Infinite in a reasonable time and when they did it still felt half baked
Fethah
Now is their time to re-pitch it
Turbulent_Visual7764
I wouldn’t mind another ODST game but I got one better.
A proper Fall of Reach game, where we play as SII candidates of Blue Team, and we begin from a point that is before they received augmentations. Back when all they wore was just the ONI black ops suits and helmets. Towards the middle of the game we will eventually get MKIV Mjolnir, which had a reactive coating and no shielding tech, increasing raw health but still no shields, or perhaps maybe even adding a secondary armor health bar that acts not as a shield, but armor resistance and once depleted, you begin losing major health for each subsequent shot. In-between battles, chief can maybe refit back at base and repair it. This would slow gameplay down to being more tactical, as like with ODST, you wouldn’t be able to just go out there and mow gaggles of Grunts down, or take on multiple Elites at once.
Ok_Bar6741
ODST HellDivers clone would be so awesome. They need games like that to bring Halo back to life tbh.
Shifty830
Of course, the Halo universes potential remains unrealized.
sokkamf
That could’ve been a fun idea
iratethisa
The halo universe so desperately needs new leadership and fresh ideas. There’s so much there. Give us a Spartan Jerome story or another odst protagonist that fights along side a commanding spartan npc. I want something beside chief at this point. He’ll make a horror survival game where you play as a standard marine on a invaded planet. Maybe a game that plays like the conquest mode on the og battlefront 2. Start a space battle that moves down to the surface
baron-von-spawnpeekn
I’m just going to put my opinion on the table here:
Halo games being limited to just small scale arena shooters is a complete waste of the setting.
We’re talking about a setting with a comparable level of complexity to contemporaries like Warhammer 40k, and for the longest time all we’ve gotten is the same linear campaign, arena shooter game for 20 years now.
The story behind the development of Halo Wars is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. It was the only true spin-off the series ever got (Reach is a prequel and ODST is an interquel which as good as it is, is a glorified expansion pack for Halo 3). And it was looked down upon by Bungie as “whoring out the franchise”, and that perception seems to have been carried on into the present. (Though to be clear I put most of the blame on Microsoft, not 343. Obviously I don’t have all the insider info but this seems to be a case of Microsoft being allergic to taking any risk with their poster boy franchise).
Just imagine a Halo analog of Helldivers, Battlefield, or Planetside. The setting has all the pieces necessary to make it work great but with the way things are now I doubt we’re ever going to get one.
DougDimmaDoom
How similar? lol anyone could say something like this. They’re jealous
Le1jona
Good
Next time they have fun idea, they might not shoot it down like that
46 Comments
Microsoft doesn’t make good halo decisions
Not surprising
i remember playing a similar mode in reach
Funny. Phil Spencer is over here trying to get Helldivers on Xbox and my thought is always “why don’t they do their own fun and unique idea?” Turns out the suits just shoot the fun ideas down. Not shocked.
superficially it may have been similar but the reality is the execution of Helldivers is palpably better than any 343 has made. when 343 devs express regret because they could have made Helldivers the reality is not one that aligns with their output.
to quote the Social Netwoek: “if you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook”
This is such a vague thing to say
“We were gonna do the popular new game idea first but we didnt”
Whatever theyd end up making wouldn’t necessarily capture what makes Helldivers so fun. Studios always have “ideas” but making them a reality is a different story
And since its Halo, it’d be a AAA production full of AAA things. What makes Helldivers so good is that its purely an arcadey game where gameplay comes before things like expensive cinematics, story, characters, etc. It’s also a sequel to the first game and conceptually similar to it. They just had the budget and support to bring it to life in a way not possible 10 years ago.
It’s simple and engaging and AAA games aren’t necessarily approaching game design the same way a small indie studio is.
As if it would be as good as Helldivers
That’s a nothingburger. Pitches die all the time. AAA Games take 2-3 years to make, and everyone on the 40-250 person team probably has 3-4 ideas each.
I don’t get all the love for helldivers 2, I enjoy the gameplay for what it is but with the lack of individual progression, very little customization, and pretty repetitive. The moment to moment gameplay is good but it just feels shallow to me.
>We must have pitched 20-30 game ideas over the 12 years I was there that would have totally worked in the Halo universe. Many SP & MP ODST themed ones. Some galaxy-spanning, some more intimate…and one that was really dark. lol.
I think people need to remember that “pitching a game idea similar to X” does not mean that it would have ended up being a good or even remotely comparable game if it was approved. He says here himself they pitched 20 – 30 game ideas… should they all have been approved??
It’s pretty easy to look back in hindsight and say “we wanted to make a game like this”. In reality their “ODST Helldivers” idea could have just ended up being a live service, online only Halo game (which would have just pissed everyone off).
Wouldn’t an ODST game similar to helldivers just of been one of the firefight modes from any of the past halos just expanded into a full game? I think it was 5 even had calling in ordanice drops
Everyone can be a smartass after but not before sadly.
It’s got the point I’m pretty sure Halo fanboys can quite easily make better games than what Microsoft and 343 can do these days…
(Ofc ODST, Reach and Halo 1-3 are all the gold standard).
I can see that. ODSTs are basically the same type of trooper as in Helldivers. I doubt it would have been pitched as third person or with similar enemies, but I can see some similarities.
I believe this based on the custom game modes I used to play. God, they really had the industry by the balls a decade ago.
Here’s an idea.
Halo ODST.
Basically just make it firefight or whatever.
Considering the halo devs have fumbled the bag ever since they got it from Bungie I don’t think they would have made a game half as good as helldivers 2 tbh
Microsoft as always absolute shit
Yea Microsoft doesn’t make the best decisions.
I mean Lost Planet kinda already does it way before until they botched 3. Hoping today Capcom would revisit LP.
MS are really fucking the dog. It pains me.
Would that work, though? A lot of the fun of playing Helldivers comes from the Starship Troopers style of parody: the propaganda, the overblown patriotism, the way you are “spreading Managed Democracy”, etc. That would never work in the Halo universe, there would be too much drama about a perceived lack of respect towards Bungie’s work.
So at most you could get Helldivers gameplay with a serious tone and, while that could be fun, it’s just not the same.
Can we just have another game with a soundtrack like ODST?
Well maybe if it didn’t take a full clip to kill an elite maybe it would be fun😂
This is why I love independent studios who have 100% full creative freedom. They don’t need to get “approval” from upper management who knows jack shit about what players want. To them it’s all about playing it safe rather than innovating, it’s all about how to nickle and dime for extra profits rather than releasing a great game. The suits have become clueless…and it’s not just Microsoft, this goes especially for other publishers like Square Enix, Ubisoft and plenty of other companies as well.
It’s why it’s such a breath of fresh air when you hear these giant success stories from companies like Larian who don’t answer to their corporate masters. Larian’s recent award speech says it all: https://youtu.be/e2D1nbINot4?si=8UhR9kmwaHU6PxHE
Phill Spencer and Xbox should be fucking embarrassed with how they let their poster child that put Xbox on the map in the first place just sit and rot. Not even mentioned at any xbox press events like it doesnt exist. Letting the IP turn into one dimesnional boring games instead of exploring other possibilities since ODST. The heads of the snake are the problem. 343 cant do anything but be told what to do by Microsoft and all they want is MTX to be pushed.
The game would’ve bombed anyways
This is what happens when MBAs get their greedy hands on successful franchises.
PvE co-op shooter has been my favorite genre since Deep Rock Galactic came out. I’ve been so annoyed that Halo basically left firefight by the wayside when that was IMO the best multiplayer mode in the series.
Just because something is pitched like something… It doesn’t mean it was going to be good.
As much as I love halo and have been playing it since the original Xbox I don’t think Bungie, or 343 could have captured the lightning in a bottle that is Helldivers 2.
A lot of it’s fun an appeal is how over the top it is. You are a disposable hero put through a 10 minute training course. Your own ships crew comments how they love watching helldivers die fighting for the cause. Plus all of the voice lines that are hilarious but only work because of the setting.
This made me laugh.
I feel bad for them sure, but it just reminds me of my uncle who swears he invented the inkjet printer but just never wrote it down lol
Great, but when would that game have came out… I think Helldivers 2 is popular cause it’s filling a void in the market. The games now are all so similar. Something like Lethat Company blew up because it was different. Helldivers 2 is different. While Palworld was a game that was multiple games melded together it was still different. You look at skull and bones or the newest COD. They are just old and tired concepts. Sure HD 2 and Lethal Co. Have some outdated or not necessarily polished parts. But we’ve been playing games that are half finished “early access” games for over 10 years. Also, both games were not at the 60 or even 70 dollar price point. Gamers are voting with their wallets right now. I think it might actually work. Sucks that tons of studios will lay off staff because the game they made was outperformed because higher ups don’t understand what gamers want right now.
Just doing an ODST “Similar to Helldivers” would not get the same results as Helldivers 2. This is a pointless “what if”.
With the success of hd2 what’s to stop them from just doing a halo version of it on their own. They have everything they need to put it together already.
I think Starship Troopers is the comparison he wanted to make, not Super Troopers lmao
The headline reads like; “Halo has fallen out of favour, so quick, make a claim that we had the idea first and grab some headlines to get people thinking about this dead franchise again!”
Honestly the right call. The idea sounds good but why would you greenlight more games when they couldn’t even deliver Halo Infinite in a reasonable time and when they did it still felt half baked
Now is their time to re-pitch it
I wouldn’t mind another ODST game but I got one better.
A proper Fall of Reach game, where we play as SII candidates of Blue Team, and we begin from a point that is before they received augmentations. Back when all they wore was just the ONI black ops suits and helmets. Towards the middle of the game we will eventually get MKIV Mjolnir, which had a reactive coating and no shielding tech, increasing raw health but still no shields, or perhaps maybe even adding a secondary armor health bar that acts not as a shield, but armor resistance and once depleted, you begin losing major health for each subsequent shot. In-between battles, chief can maybe refit back at base and repair it. This would slow gameplay down to being more tactical, as like with ODST, you wouldn’t be able to just go out there and mow gaggles of Grunts down, or take on multiple Elites at once.
ODST HellDivers clone would be so awesome. They need games like that to bring Halo back to life tbh.
Of course, the Halo universes potential remains unrealized.
That could’ve been a fun idea
The halo universe so desperately needs new leadership and fresh ideas. There’s so much there. Give us a Spartan Jerome story or another odst protagonist that fights along side a commanding spartan npc. I want something beside chief at this point. He’ll make a horror survival game where you play as a standard marine on a invaded planet. Maybe a game that plays like the conquest mode on the og battlefront 2. Start a space battle that moves down to the surface
I’m just going to put my opinion on the table here:
Halo games being limited to just small scale arena shooters is a complete waste of the setting.
We’re talking about a setting with a comparable level of complexity to contemporaries like Warhammer 40k, and for the longest time all we’ve gotten is the same linear campaign, arena shooter game for 20 years now.
The story behind the development of Halo Wars is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. It was the only true spin-off the series ever got (Reach is a prequel and ODST is an interquel which as good as it is, is a glorified expansion pack for Halo 3). And it was looked down upon by Bungie as “whoring out the franchise”, and that perception seems to have been carried on into the present. (Though to be clear I put most of the blame on Microsoft, not 343. Obviously I don’t have all the insider info but this seems to be a case of Microsoft being allergic to taking any risk with their poster boy franchise).
Just imagine a Halo analog of Helldivers, Battlefield, or Planetside. The setting has all the pieces necessary to make it work great but with the way things are now I doubt we’re ever going to get one.
How similar? lol anyone could say something like this. They’re jealous
Good
Next time they have fun idea, they might not shoot it down like that