No Beta for Halo 4

[Soviet Heavy]

343 Industries is not planning to mark the 2012 return of Master Chief with a multiplayer beta, the developer confirmed in its latest Halo Bulletin.
Halo fans shouldn't expect a beta for Halo 4.

The news was first hinted at earlier this week by Halo franchise manager Frank O'Connor, who suggested the developer would instead focus on shipping and polishing the game.

343's statement today echoed that sentiment and again made clear that the developer is testing Halo 4 at a "significant scale."

"While we are testing Halo 4 code, gameplay, and systems at significant scale to get excellent data, input, and feedback, we are focused on polishing and shipping our experience for the duration of the year, and splitting resources to manage and build a beta is not on our schedule," reads the message.

Halo 4 is due out for the Xbox 360 this holiday. It is a direct sequel to 2007's Halo 3 and stars supersoldier Master Chief.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/halo-4-bypassing-beta-test-6365147

I'm not sure if the lack of a beta is a good thing or not. It's good that more time is going towards working on the game, but the lack of a beta might also indicate that 343 is nervous about their first true game. This is a full game, not just a graphics overhaul.

 

[C F]

It is my opinion that the beta testing helped polish Reach's fantastic multiplayer. I see 343i would prefer to just finish Halo 4 themselves before handing it to us, but the community's feedback (when managed properly) can be a great help.

I predict there will be many LIVE updates in the period immediately following release to fine-tune things.

 

[Korten12]

It is my opinion that the beta testing helped polish Reach's fantastic multiplayer. I see 343i would prefer to just finish Halo 4 themselves before handing it to us, but the community's feedback (when managed properly) can be a great help.

I predict there will be many LIVE updates in the period immediately following release to fine-tune things.

Well the Multiplayer has been apparently running for awhile now. So it is very well possible that they have been internally beta testing it. Since they can still get a bunch of bug fixes and doesn't use up so many resources.

 

[crappingpegasus]

considering how terrible the net code was for Halo Anniversary Co-op, they really might wanna reconsider this stance.

 

[GoaThief]

Open console "betas" are bullshit anyway, they are merely marketing products or re-branded demos.

Tongues will be wagging either way, I expect there will be no pleasing some old fans who will hate on the game just because. I quite enjoyed CE Anniversary (moreso than Reach), I think 343 are up to the job.

 

[Razor Z7]

They dont need a beta to make the multiplayer stand out from the sea of genericness that plagues horrible games like CoD.

 

[Chainsaws_of_War_2]

I personally have gotten tired of the way too balanced multiplayer of Halo.

A bit of unfair weaponry and vehicles would be a nice change of pace, but that's just me.

 

[longboardfan]

They dont need a beta to make the multiplayer stand out from the sea of genericness that plagues horrible games like CoD.

No, but it might help prevent a massive failure in netcode like CoD: Blops' code was for over a month. Or it might help give this studio a real sense of scale when several million players login at the same time on day one.

 

[Razor Z7]

Hmm, I see what you're Saying, With the Franchise's popularity with Thousands of gamers, Servers might crash, data might be lost.

 

[Baldr]

Do people really think Bungie just up and quit Halo and gave it to another unknown studio? There was quite a transition period to 343i, and many of the project leads are former Bungie veterans who wanted to continue working on the Halo series.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Do people really think Bungie just up and quit Halo and gave it to another unknown studio? There was quite a transition period to 343i, and many of the project leads are former Bungie veterans who wanted to continue working on the Halo series.

Yup. This.

Plus, they're also getting a shitload of practice handling Reach's multiplayer, and so far they've been doing a damn good job.

After seeing that video, I believe we're all set.

Halo is in good hands.

 

[longboardfan]

Do people really think Bungie just up and quit Halo and gave it to another unknown studio? There was quite a transition period to 343i, and many of the project leads are former Bungie veterans who wanted to continue working on the Halo series.

Yes, I don't trust any company's netcode without a serious trial-by-fire. Heck, even Treyark can't do decent netcode and they do the off-year Call of Duty games. 1.5 months until playable multiplayer that didn't randomly kick and disconnect xbox live party members. 1.5 months until match making didn't lock up my xbox.

Yeah sure, owned by the same parent. Surely has some team members from former Infinity Ward. Didn't matter.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I don't care about mp as long as the SP campaign keeps me interested (what Halo3 could not) it's fine for me.

 

[Daymo]

Open console "betas" are bullshit anyway, they are merely marketing products or re-branded demos.

Tongues will be wagging either way, I expect there will be no pleasing some old fans who will hate on the game just because. I quite enjoyed CE Anniversary (moreso than Reach), I think 343 are up to the job.

So true, I've been in a large number of betas and have only ever put in balance suggestions and bug reports into 2 or 3 of them. These were only for games I was super excited for, one being SWTOR and the others I couldn't remember.

They should be fine without a beta, they have being running reach perfectly fine, so if all else fails they could always steal that netcode.

 

[Dondonalien44]

Okay, 343. Don't come running to us when the multiplayer is game-breaking buggy. I hope they in-house QA the crap out of it, then.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Maybe this is an indication that the single player will be the main focus of production after all. I'm not holding my breath but you never know. The only thing I've seen about Halo 4 so far was about the multiplayer anyway.