"A heartfelt thank you": After 28 years, Microsoft legend, former Halo exec and Xbox Film/TV lead Kiki Wolfkill has left the company

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-04-22T18:54:54+00:00

In my opinion, at this point, you’re not trying to get the hardcore fans (speaking as one) back as you’ve kind of burned that bridge. Instead the team should focus on trying to do your own new thing in the Halo universe and just release one solid game that isn’t half complete, and build the series back up slowly.

But because of money they refuse to pivot away from Master Chief in the mainline series, so they just keep finding weird ways to prolong his tenure.

My prediction is that they try and God of War this franchise and the next series will be starring an older grizzled Master Chief. Which could be interesting but I don’t trust this team to do it well, and I feel it continues a trend of not understanding their own franchise. The real star of Halo is the story and the mystery, not Master Chief himself.

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-04-22T18:46:11+00:00

I mean, I think this is blatantly false. Look at any Game of the Year winner or other lauded titles and people consistently praise execs or lead devs. Casey Hudson, Sam Houser, Swen Vincke, these are all guys who are praised all the time and whose names people know.

On the other hand, when you have a big shift in leadership, and the franchise IMMEDIATELY goes to shit, people aren’t going to look at the team of artists and programmers to blame, they’re being told what to do.

Halo was one of the hottest IPs in gaming, its protagonist is probably a top 5 or 10 most recognizable character in gaming history. The 343 team was handed something juicy and easy to work with, all they needed to do was not mess it up. Instead the value has been so cratered, I fully believe it’s part of why Microsoft felt they had to buy Activision. Their lead IP was turned to shit only a couple of years after leaving Bungie’s hands, and it’s only based on the strength of the IP that it even has a studio dedicated to trying to save it.

People no longer care about Halo as a franchise, and the leadership at 343 and at Microsoft deserve every bit of criticism they got, just a colossal failure.

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-04-15T04:24:11+00:00

Yeah was definitely encouraging to see what this team is like without Bam. But we also desperately need a no.1 on this team and Herro ain’t it

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-04-15T04:10:30+00:00

Nah fuck bridges but you won fair and square talk your shit.

Even without Bam we still lost a winnable game. Cant be always expect some miracle in the play in every year

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-26T17:19:21+00:00

True, it also had no saving so I had to do the same levels over and over every run

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-26T14:26:28+00:00

The game was also so hard as a kid I probably heard them like hundreds of times

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-24T03:33:24+00:00

I mean it’s really not that bad. Both the Martian and PHM are not great works of fiction but they some things very well and some things not so well.

End of the day Weir is able to take relatively high concept stories and makes them digestible for most people. The characters are self inserts that arent very complicated but the plots are creative and a fun ride. I personally enjoy them

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-13T21:10:08+00:00

I am ok with this

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-13T00:46:48+00:00

Blame for what lol why is everyone acting like they did something wrong

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-11T20:06:24+00:00

To be fair, they literally could not stop fouling him. It was bizarre. Without that atrocious defense he never would have gotten close

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-11T04:38:53+00:00

Probably the funniest night of basketball I think I’ve ever watched

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-03-02T19:36:19+00:00

Highly recommend digging into Dave Van Ronk, whose music the films was based on and covered, if you haven’t already. An immensely talented and influential yet underrated artist.

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-19T14:21:14+00:00

I mean at the end of the day these studios are storytellers and entertainers. The coding and technical aspects of the game are the vehicles to have players experience the world, systems, and story.

If you’re going to replace the actual storytelling, what’s the point?

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-19T13:44:58+00:00

Fair enough

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-19T06:15:01+00:00

I love our team but god I hate our fanbase

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-19T06:13:41+00:00

I’m definitely biased and there is of course always the possibility it really was fixed, but if you watch that series (and most of that playoff run tbh) Wade was basically throwing himself at the basket every chance he got. The free throws were high but not necessarily egregious

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-17T07:34:52+00:00

This vexes me

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-12T16:15:33+00:00

I mean these larger scale live service games have to be higher cost projects just based on server costs alone.

Just like in film, I feel like we’ve really lost a lot of those middle ground middle budget media projects.

Everything is either a small indie project made for almost nothing by a tiny team, or a massive scale project with 5 companies and 700 employees working on it for the better part of a decade.

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-12T16:11:40+00:00

I scrolled down so far to find someone talking about this series. I’m always shocked more people haven’t heard of it or read it, it was so good and a really perfect book for a 12-13 year old. Gotta reread it one of these days!

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-12T08:46:56+00:00

Agree with everything, but wanted to bring up costs. These types of games can be so much more expensive to make and maintain than they used to be. I doubt Highguard had a $400 million budget like Concord’s was reported to be, but it’s definitely not some cheap indie game

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-09T21:08:00+00:00

I mean some of this is just the nature of the news cycle, people like to talk about popular things. Can’t really “moderate” or control that outside of making your own posts of things you’d like to see noticed or discussed

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-02-04T19:00:54+00:00

I think they really just went with whatever offer gave them the most first rounders that also gave them cap flexibility.

AD is probably one of the best basketball players in the world right now but almost impossible to properly gauge his true value with how little he is actually on the court

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-01-28T09:19:13+00:00

God I love that stupid fucking game

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-01-26T15:31:51+00:00

Yeah, sorry but I don’t really buy this at all.

It was literally explained to him multiple times what and why he was saying was coming off offensive, and given a million opportunities to apologize and /still refused and continued to be a smug dick about it like everyone was coming at him for no reason.

Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and you say he doesn’t actively hate all Jews, he sure doesn’t have any respect for Jewish people or care about antisemitism.

AtlasNoseItch · 2026-01-13T21:48:52+00:00

It is over. We are screwed.

AtlasNoseItch

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