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Defining Duke, Episode 197 | Goodbye 343 Industries, Hello Halo Studios! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-10-10 16:00:14
Edited:
2025-02-19 20:42:29
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Following the post launch support of Halo Infinite, 343 Industries has become one of Xbox's more divisive first party studios. The leash for them has been unnaturally long given the ups-and-downs the flagship franchise has seen since they've taken up the Halo mantle beginning with Combat Evolved Anniversary and, now, Xbox is doubling down on the team. Joining us is resident Halo expert, Chris Ray Gun, to discuss the absolutely massive news that broke this weeks. Not only is 343 Industries rebranding, but all future games will be made on Unreal Engine 5, they're hiring after a massive amount of layoffs, and there are multiple Halo projects in development. One such project beyond the obvious next mainline entry is rumored to be Halo Combat Evolved Remaster. The Dukes plus Chris get into this very familiar path that Halo Studios is now walking plus the daunting challenge that lies before them.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction

00:06:36 - Emil Pagliarulo on Starfield criticism

00:25:21 - A lot is happening in the world of Ubisoft

00:34:17 - Avatar: The Last Airbender is getting a AAA game

00:40:07 - Alien Isolation is getting a sequel

00:44:47 - From Software is handing out raises

00:46:25 - Red Dead Redemption is coming to PC

00:48:29 - What We’re Playing

01:33:21 - Halo Studios

02:36:00 - Gamepass pick of the week

02:41:06 - Wrap Up

Files

Comments

Bartevious

Second Chris Raygun or should I say Jimmy Needler

Bartevious

I did a full playthrough of Morrowind for the first time after starfield. Morrowind is 1/4 the map size of Skyrim. Yet it has 100x more gameplay freedom than starfield. I thought Bethesda crafting a dense, small, open world couldn’t miss. That’s why shattered space scares me so much 😭

A Hind D

A new coat of paint and a name change does not change a rotten core.

Joshua

Ggwp

Jordan Falduto

congrats on the NLCS appearance, gentlemen!!!

Michael Rogers

Take a toke everytime Matty says "I made a video". #lifted

Joshua

As someone chronologically reading and playing all of the Halo games , comics, books ..etc I like the idea of rebooting the story after Halo 3 but I also would be sad. The 343 games stories have been meh but the comics and books from the 343 era are honestly so good.

start a infection

It was crash bandicoot with crash 4 it’s about time that rebooted following warped

Phil Walker

You guys are dead wrong about CEs graphical impact. Dead wrong. It was light years ahead of anything else at the time. The scale, lighting, textures. Nothing came close to Halo on console in 2001

Brandon V

I absolutely want to live in Bethesda worlds and settlement building should be a massive part of all of their games. Them adding those things is not why starfield isn’t hitting for a lot of people. You can have all those things and still have a great game.

Manuel Nascimento

I was never an enjoyer of Bethesda games, the first I tried out was Oblivion, like a few years after release but before Skyrim. I remember the faces staring back at you with dead eyes to be disturbing, but the graphics and day/night cycle was nice for the time. Still, after like 30+ h I gave up on the game, too repetitive, boring, and none of the lore worked for me. Fast forward more than a decade, I tried Starfield on my GamePass PC sub. I played 7h but NPCs and Sarah kept bumping into each other like dumb automatons. I never got anything interesting out of it. Even going in space is like: loading screen simulator. I'm sorry to say this, but Bethesda stuff truly is not for me at all. All I've tried from them has been met with colossal "lost time of my life trying this" energy. I cannot believe it, given how seemingly so many people hold Bethesda in the highest regard.... By contrast, recently BG3 was the EXACT OPPOSITE. It's a long game, I was wary going in (since time is limited) but every gaming session did something so enjoyable and it went again and again and again and then I'm 200h in and I don't know how I managed to keep that runtime and still enjoy the game. I want to enjoy my GamePass sub on PC, but Bethesda games are a waste of time for me. Elder Scrolls 6 announced almost a decade ago? Might as well tell me rain is wet.

Directional Joy

To Chris’ perspective of Halo, I don’t need a remake of any of the old Halos but if I were in the position to pitch?! 🤔 … give me a graphical upgrade to Combat Evolved, announce ODST 2, and add some side tangent into the mix. Maybe release Halo Maker online, so shooter fans can have the creative freedom that Super Mario Maker fans had.

Adam Barnes

Emil is pronounced ‘Emeel’ Fucking Christ!

Morgan
>>151997224

Yeah a buncha videos and pods out there can't seem to get this name right. I guess it isn't as common a name as I had thought.

Flint Dibble and the Dibble singers

Xbox Play Anywhere is the sole reason I'm buying Metaphor Refantasio on Xbox. Honestly they should lean into that feature for the folks like me who like to play on PC sometimes and on console sometimes.

pudge

I think halo is at its star wars legends point. They’ll have to retcon all media outside the numbered games and just branch from there

Vanzant

At this point, it’s hard to be confident in anything Xbox is behind.

Gooch Gobbler
>>151977486

Completely agree, most overhyped dev and I feel crazy when everyone is gassing them up. All my friends LOVE those games, I just don't get it

Vinsterx11

As an Oakland A’s fan I wish I could be happy about baseball. Fuck John Fisher!

Peter Eldredge

To be fair to Emil, he is really being misquoted a lot here. He never "Starfield is their best game ever". He said "IN SOME WAYS Starfield is their best game". Sure you can say semantically that means nothing, but I think this quote has been greatly mischaracterized.

Daniel Thompson
>>151975407

Yeah, I disagree with Matty to a certain extent with his take here. There has always been a big demographic of BGS fans who become so invested and immersed in their worlds that they actually want gameplay systems that allow them to "live" in them. Stuff like the marriage system, adoption, buying houses, etc. That part of BGS' games has been there since Daggerfall, but it was Skyrim that really made that aspect of their games popular. Settlement building in FO4 added another major sandbox element to the BGS formula, and it blew up in popularity because of it. Where I'll agree with Matty though is that it does feel like BGS is using this aspect of their games as a crutch to pad in more surface-level procedural generation and radiant content. BGS has been relying on it so much since Skyrim that I feel it's harming the quality of their games. Example: FO4 relied so much on the radiant quest system that it: 1. Made one of the game's companions, Preston Garvey, unpopular and a meme due to a bug of him constantly giving radiant settlement quests. 2. Made a big chunk of locations in the worldspace settlement locations that could've very well been used for unique towns/hub areas with quests. 3. Three of the four joinable faction's questlines in the main story are FILLED with boilerplate radiant quests. I feel that if BGS wants to further invest in making their worlds "livable", they need to first focus on making those worlds worthwhile to live in. So many players wanted to live in Skyrim because the world felt so engaging and alive. There are players who say that they live a second life in the world of Skyrim. Starfield, sadly, lacks in this regard, which is unfortunate because they added in quite a few new gameplay systems that attempt to make the game feel more "livable". I feel for ES6, they need to first focus on building a world players would like to live in and then implement that stuff later on. That, and cutting down on the over-reliance on radiant content (Loot, for example. I want actual uniques, goddamnit!).

NeO JD

Shout out to Budokai, the true DBZ experience. 😄 As someone who has liked every Halo entry so far, I just want the story to be better and the mp to give me a reason to keep playing. Mets, Yanks, and Dodgers in the final 4. 3 teams I dig. Looking forward to seeing how it shakes out. #DDCraig

Mr. Scott If You're Nasty

#DDCraig Oooof. These Halo takes had me wanting to throw my phone. I do not think this was a great episode at all. There was no balance at all to this Halo conversation. As someone who is a Halo fan, I wished you guys would've brought on someone who had a different perspective. Instead it was stacked with Halo negativity. Halo 4 metacritic 87. Not a bad game at all. Halo 5 metacritic 84. Not a bad game (multi-player was excellent) Halo infinite metacritic 87 (honestly much better game than that rating just missing regular content drops) Like, I want to be clear. Not all of the criticism was unwarranted, but there wasn't any balance. If you knew nothing about Halo, you'd think these were all 60 to 70 meta games. Even the hashtag mocks Halo. I really disliked this episode.

CUMSoftware

I’m for the idea of them “remaking” Halo CE in Unreal so long as that shitty engine doesn’t stutter mid-shootout. Seems like a staple in all unreal games right now. I’m also for it if they are not adding sprint into the game but they apparently are 😂 🔫 4th game with sprint. We’ll see how it goes for em!

CUMSoftware
>>151974683

Fair enough, but it’s just not important today. All a new halo needs today graphically is to have an art direction that looks as good as 3 in gameplay. That’s literally it and 343 can’t even do that. The troubling point of that dumb video is they do not mention physics at all which was a key differentiator for Halo and still is(at least for the bungie titles).

PortugalTheMark

#DDCraig I really wish the shows were longer! I wish there were over 3 hours not under. I understand you guys have lives and all but as a paying customer just wanted to voice this as its the peak gaming season time of year, i wanna hear a bit more plus with no more DD Ultimate anymore. Sidenote i will say i really enjoyed having guests on from LSM like a Chris or Gene especially or a industry interview too!

Joseph Gedgaudas
>>152013756

They literally talk about random things all the time. I remember there several episodes in a row they discussed toilet paper. So why does brief sports talk offend so many people?

Bailey Callis

Hot take! Halo CE is one of the most important games ever made, and it deserves a proper remake after the lackluster Anniversary.

sad&angry

As a long time halo fan, the halo segment was a dud. Halo is so much more than CE and a remake is a waste of time and effort. Imagine the energy they are discussing about a CE remake towards a halo 3 remaster/remake, everything about the campaign additives applies to each halo game. Feels like people who never cared much about halo talking about what it means to them which isn’t resonating with this longtime halo fan. Everyone gets an opinion.

ajwhite
>>151977486

I'm the complete opposite with oblivion, played it when I was 11 when it came out. I'm 29 now and just replayed it last year, had an amazing time with it. I'm sure lots of that is nostalgia, but something about old Bethesda games is just so janky but so unique

Josef Barker

Like this comment if you have no idea what they're talking about when they're talking about American sport.

Josh Walker

If you haven't watched Halo: The Mona Lisa, it's quite possibly the best thing 343 ever did. It was an exclusive animated short series back on the old Halo Waypoint. I dream of getting to actually play a Halo game like it.