Pre-release:
-Some of the worst PR seen in a long time. Huge aspects of the game are never explained by 343 Industries. The majority of news comes from shaky cam footage and uncomfirmed reports from people that played it
-Limited Edition announced, included items are a season pass and early access to "specializations" (Halo 4's equivalent of perks)
At Launch
-Several legacy features of Halo 4 cut without any mention from 343 (campaign theater, campaign scoring, the Assault gametype, and a lot more). People learned of this through players that acquired the game early
-Matchmaking issues across the board.
-Online Fileshares (again, a
huge feature of Halo games) aren't working. 343 acknowledges it, says "we're working on it".
-Several in game glitches in matchmaking (reloading glitches, being able to clip into maps)
-The Specializations included in the Limited Edition are made free to anyone (via an Xbox Live redeemable code) who played the game online before November 20th, lowering the value of the Limited Edition (which ended up not being limited at all)
First DLC Pack
-Prior to December 10th: Specialization codes sent out. At first, you couldn't receive the code unless you had opted in to receive Xbox Live marketing emails. After that was resolved, not everyone got their code. Then 343 sent out codes to players via Xbox Live message. This continues below:
-December 10th: Crimson Map Pack released. Anyone who had already purchased the Limited Edition or the map pack separately was unable to get their maps for 10 hours after launch, while anyone who purchased them individually got them immediately
-When ^the above issue was resolved, the map pack was accidentally made free for everyone who had received a specialization code, whether you had redeemed the season pass or not.
-Conflicting explanations are given by various members of 343 and the Xbox Live support team as to why this happened. The general consensus is that all who got the map pack for free could keep it
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Microsoft and 343 literally make up a fake program called the "14 Day, Buy and Play Program". In this program, which was
never mentioned prior to their press release, anyone who played the game online before November 20th received access to all specializations, and also got the first map pack free for 2 weeks.
-Prior to the end of the 14 Day, Buy and Play Program, several players that had gotten the map pack for free begin reporting that their Xbox Live account had been banned from Halo 4 matchmaking. However, this issue was resolved