Microsoft

It's time to admit this isn't working.

343 Industries: Part of my positive-view of Halo 4 I've held since release day was being impressed that a brand new developer who never made a game together before did as good of a job as they did.

They made a game that in certain aspects, I even preferred to Bungie's games. Guns had way more punch, the facial-capture had taken a truly notable leap, and the Actors demonstrated their talent far beyond - admittedly iconic - one liners.

More than anything else, I respected that a brand new developer came in with some actual balls regarding their commitments to Cortana's conclusion, and the overtly personal angle that story was told from. It wasn't surprising to read about Creative Director Josh Hayes watching her Mother deteriorate from Dementia during development, it comes through in the final product.

However, that entire development team got rotated by the time Halo 5 released... and that came through in the final product as well.

Seeing the revolving doors of developers entering and exiting the studio, reading about the 30+ ideas they pitched to Microsoft that were all turned down - one of which was basically an ODST Helldivers 2 - and the inability to release an uncompromised product at release, 343 Industries/Halo Studios is only the carrier of the IP because Microsoft says so.

They've not won over the fans from Bungie's time, but worse, they haven't really satisfied the fans they made along this decade long journey.

Halo: CE was the culmination of 10+ years of developing different games across a variety of platforms and genres within Bungie's evolving team of artists.

Founding a studio and telling them "your purpose is to make Halo" couldn't be more opposite to what spawned it in the first place.

And it has company.

The Coalition: I'd say The Coalition hasn't produced as much of a black sheep as 343 has, but that is why it's kinda poetic they've ended up in almost the exact same spot.

Pitching a new Gears Saga with the safest, most conservative evolution of the series, yes, didn't upset fans upon reveal like Halo 4 did, but it also didn't inject any life into an already aging franchise.

During a time where many IPs were being completely overhauled for the next generation to success - The Witcher 3, The New Order - or failure - AC: Unity, Thief - Gears of War 4 came along with essentially a job interview to the public that they could make a Gears game, and the result was a Gears game.

Perhaps that's why The Coalition decided to go bolder with Gears 5, but while this game might not be as obviously flawed as 343's Sophomore effort, it is still the reason we're getting a Prequel rather than a Sequel today.

The end result is a set of decent games that never the less feel like they're shoving electrical sockets into a dead corpse on orders from corporate rather than a genuine passion for evolving the Gears franchise into a new generation.

Going from The Last of Us II to Gears 5 feels like travelling back in time.

Playground Games: The studio behind Forza Horizon is ironically, by far the best execution of Microsoft's philosophy, of assembling a big team tasked with furthering a big IP from day one.

Forza Horizon's a rare case of the spin-off growing to essentially overtake - hehe - the mainline series. These days, the majority of Forza players aren't gathering on Turn 10's projects, but Playgrounds.

But as I described in my racing games video, there's aspects of Forza Horizon 5 that have still gone backwards from the original released in 2012, and watching this spin-off series go from a steady stream of releases to an endless Live Service hellscape on coincidentally its biggest success.

But don't worry guys, this 10+ experienced team of release consistently quality racing games has been granted permission to build a new first party title for MIcrosoft...

Along with two other studios...

The Initiative: Going back to E3 2018 is really weird now.

Hearing Phil Spencer talk about "a quest to find creative teams that have the mastery of our art-form." How proud he is to reveal a brand new studio "of world class talent to create groundbreaking new game experiences."

Also if the dude behind Tomb "Protect Lara" Raider is a "visionary storyteller" then I'm the fucking Pope.

Microsoft described in a job listing that their game would be a AAAA project...

Visionaries, truly.

The best way to utilize this talent is apparently announce their video-game before they were done prototyping.

Then lose your Co-Developer Certain Affinity.

Then lose your Creative Director.

Then lose half your lead staff.

Then restart your game's development from scratch.

Then lose your new Creative Director.

Then finally reveal the game.

Then cancel it.

And killed the studio.

In Conclusion:
This expectation that Microsoft's helped to establish that a New Studio is just going to hire a random array of talent that've never collaborated before and they'll immediately knock out a new industry standard on their first attempt is a cancer, and it needs to die, not the studios who are a victim of it.

Microsoft loves to use the word "talent" like it's some kind of assurance of quality.

You can have the most talented people in the world, but if they don't gel-together, if they're misdirected, mismanaged, or are not given a properly realized vision for the game such as when you fucking announced it, then that talent doesn't matter.

It's really no surprise that one of their best received games in recent memory is Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.

Machine Games, love 'em or hate 'em... bring a vision to the table.

I don't really care for Wolfenstein The New Colossus, I think Old Blood is a way, way better game. But you know what words I can't use to describe The New Colossus?

Boring, uninspired, derivative, safe, you know, the perfect words to describe Microsoft's biggest franchises.