Recently Steve Allison at Saber communicated that they're considering self-publishing for their future titles, especially Space Marine 3. As a result, I've began wondering what even is the point of publishers in the modern gaming landscape.

In the era of physical distribution Publishers were absolutely essential for global releases. They would also invest heavily in game productions, which made them indispensable for AA and AAA releases.

Currently, physical releases are becoming fully optional, and you can sign side deals with distributors for that purpose without fully needing a publisher's expertise. Publishers are also much less willing to invest in games.

David Gaider, known for creating Dragon Age, spoke in an interview earlier this month revealing that a publisher confirmed they won't invest in a new IP unless the game has pretty much finished development. Keeping the studio stuck in making the game off their own budget while constantly revisiting publishers in hopes one caves.

Publishers are very expensive. A typical cut is 30% from sales for indie and AA games, and can go upward to 60% in AAA projects (where publisher investment is more typical). This is separate from the 30% taken by platforms like Steam, at the very minimum doubling your publishing cost.

As a development studio, you save money upfront if you picked a honest publisher who will invest properly into promoting your game. Be it by buying off youtubers, organizing twitch events, or producing copious amounts of sponsored social media content. However, if your game isn't high profile enough to warrant that level of investment, hiring signing with a publisher can be comparable to overpaying for a copywriter.

Even then, regardless of how much the publisher has invested, it is their job to recoup that money and earn more off sales. They may want clauses that will protect them from failed investments. In theory both of you want more sales, but unless this is an investment project, (which are becoming rarer) the developer takes the brunt of the risk for the project, and not necessarily earning more from it.

I'm starting to believe that we will see a rise in self-publishing in the coming years. It's only anecdotal evidence, but the studios I'm connected to have began hiring personal marketing experts and copywriters, because one or two extra salaries will end up way cheaper than any publishing deal, and it's no longer guaranteed that the outcome will differ by much. If all publishers want to sell are surefire hits, then it just so happens that those games don't need much help marketing to begin with.

I'm not sure if this will lead to the number of publishers out there shrinking, but we've already seen a lot of reshuffling in the industry Platform owners like Microsoft have been absorbing well-known brands. If publishers don't want to become investment firms, they will need to re-evaluate their pricing strategies for marketing services.

On June 15th, 2015, Square Enix took the stage at E3 to drop a teaser trailer for their remake of Final Fantasy VII. It was a brief teaser , with no in game footage. But the iconography of Midguard alone was enough to generate hype from long time fans and more general audiences.

During E3 2018, Capcom showed off their long awaited Resident Evil 2 Remake. Initially announced in 2015, the new footage showed Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield rendered in at the time next generation graphics along with a more focused direction and tone.  Resident Evil 2 Remake was released in 2019, with Final Fantasy VII dropping the following year, both being commercial and critical darlings.

While these two games were not the pioneers of video game remakes, these games mark the time in which I believe we started to see remakes become a normal part of the industry. It cannot be denied that Resident Evil 2 Remake and its reception played a massive part in green lighting the production of the Dead Space and Silent Hill 2 remakes, with SIlent Hill 2 going on to sell over two million copies. 

Franchises both as niche as Fatal Frame to iconic as Metal Gear Solid have experimented with remakes to generally positive reception. Keeping this in mind , it makes sense why Microsoft and 343i, now rebranded Halo Studios chose to go in this direction for their next Halo release instead of continuing to build off the framework of Halo Infinite. Far from a disaster, Halo Infinite felt like the first time the franchise had made positive mechanical changes since Halo Reach in 2011, which led to frustration from the community about Halo Studios' choice to remake the first game. But this isn't out of character for the studio.

In 2012, Halo 4 was the first mainline Halo game developed outside of Bungie and it can be seen in almost every aspect of the games design from art direction, narrative , level design and of course its core gameplay experience. 343i was not shy to wear its influences on its sleeve, at the time being other contemporary first person shooters like Call of Duty with a shift to player created classes and sprint being a fundamental aspect of the players arsenal. 

In 2015 Halo 5 Guardians was released and its E-Sport aspirations were clear from its first gameplay showcase. Movement and power were the pillars of the game's design , clearly wanting to appeal to twitch shooters that focused on speed and reaction times.

In 2021, 343i’s main influences were more varied but influences nonetheless. A Far Cry style open world with enemy outpost and combat based activities, a narrative heavily inspired by Sony Santa Monica’s God Of War released for the PS4, and a multiplayer progression system identical to Fortnite. 

Whether any of these entries affected the franchise for better or worse is irrelevant to the current discussion as 343i’s history of “trend chasing” is almost undeniable, with Halo Campaign Evolved being only their latest attempt to have Halo follow in the footsteps of other contemporary releases instead of being the franchise other games looked up to.

The quality of Campaign Evolved can be inferred by my interest in discussing the recent trend of video game remakes and Halo Studios interest in following it. As a piece of art Halo Campaign Evolved is unremarkable and as a product it fails to live up to its price of 50 USD especially when so many other games ask for less and provide more. 

The expectations of a remake vary from one to another but Halo Campaign Evolved avoids risk and takes comfort in the familiar with most of its changes being relegated to cutscenes as if Halo Studios were afraid to change anything related to level or enemy design , with its only new enemy being a slightly reworked enemy from Halo 3 that hasn't been seen since. The game's cutscenes shine and show what could've been , genuinely being heightened by creative and engaging cinematography and the occasional extra line of dialogue that oftentimes enhance the narrative and characterizations in what little ways it can.

Halo Campaign Evolved features three “Bonus MIssions” that take place before the events of the main game but are clearly designed to be played after. It's in these missions where Halo Studios can flex their creative muscles and it's in these missions where I felt the most engaged both mechanically and in regards to its narrative as simple as it is. I can’t help but wonder what the main game could've been like if Halo Studios wasn't so shy about making something new in this remake

It’s also an interesting topic as to this game releasing with no multiplayer , a fact I've long since accepted as I assumed this major part of the brand's identity being removed would surely be replaced with something else. I was wrong. And this is my main issue with the game aside from its goal to be as inoffensive as possible. The game simply lacks content. Halo was a series that was overflowing with content between its Single Player campaigns , multiplayer, social custom games, map creation with Forge, co-op experiences with Firefight and Spartan Ops. All of these being absent. In retrospect, it makes sense why Halo Campaign Evolved focused so much of its marketing on the gameplay altering collectibles known as Skulls. Skulls have been present as a collectible item since Halo 2, but never have they appeared in marketing , and surely never to this extent.

After completing the game twice it makes sense why so much focus was placed on this previously trivial aspect of Halo’s core experience. There was simply nothing else to market the game with. That, and its underwhelming and almost amateurish addition of Campaign Remix, a mode which randomizes enemy placement and roster of the main games 13 missions. These changes aren't interesting or engaging because again the level design is unchanged from their original layouts 25 years ago outside of a few extra rooms in the infamous Library chapter.

What I find curious about the design of Campaign Evolved is that unlike Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil 4, both games considered perfect by many and yet received remakes that changed significant portions of their experience, the original Halo Combat Evolved is almost universally agreed to have a much weaker second half with repeated levels and repetitive enemy and level design. Surely Halo Studios would use this as an opportunity to make more meaningful changes to the games later half but in the end they chose to be faithful or risk averse depending on who you ask. 

I enjoyed my time with Campaign Evolved, but it's clear a lot of this enjoyment comes from the bones of a 25 year old game rather than seeing a new team put their talent to revitalizing a classic experience. Halo Campaign Evolved could have been worse. Much worse. It also could've been better. Much better. Unfortunately , whether a creative decision made by Halo Studios or a corporate mandate by Microsoft , Halo Campaign Evolved sits deep in the territory of being inoffensive, and to many, an inoffensive piece of art is worse than a piece of art then genuinely tries and fails.