Full Theater Mode

[Jimmy D Spoofy]

I pretty much lost interest in this when I found out I couldn't rewatch games I played with my friends. I used to love going in and rewinding and getting angles and sharing clips. I spent as much time in theater as I did actually playing probably.

I used Theater more than Forge honestly. The state of theater now is very disappointing to me. I was upset by Halo CE's memory leak issue being 2 years old. But the Theater lacking the functions it used to have in 3 really kills all interest I have in replaying the game or playing MP. That was where a large part of the social aspect of the game was for me, believe it or not.

I wish 343 would finish Theater mode. I'd even buy it.

[Jimmy D Spoofy]

Originally posted by Bizargh:

343 Industries has always treated Theatre as an afterthought.

• Halo 4 lost it's support for Campaign & Spartan Ops while the 'Alert Carry' stance was basically limited to standing still.
  A modder ('Zeddikins', known at the time as 'Lord Zedd' managed to restore it for Campaign, but then got their Xbox Live Account banned for providing their results via the File Share system. They did provide community consultancy regarding Halo Mod-Tools 9 years later, so they might've called it even (Well, mostly anyway).
  
• Halo 5: Guardians again limited it to Multiplayer (Arena, Custom & Warzone, then Warzone Firefight), but it's functionality was again reduced and/or hindered by bugs (I'm foggy on the details, but I know for a fact it wasn't up to par with past iterations)
  
• I can't say anything about Halo: Infinite as I haven't played it, but I heard it was very buggy on the game's launch and I don't even know if Campaign supports it at all.
  
• And of course, Halo: The Master Chief Collection got rid of Film Clips, Saved Films & Screenshots for all games with Theatre support as they were presumably deemed "obsolete" due to the Xbox Capture options that become non-standard once it's on PC (Screenshots, sure, but you're limited to your chosen resolution rather than whatever maximum the game-engine can provide) and/or considered "clutter" for the appallingly-low local storage limitations. There's also the understandable fact that major updates often render Theatre files incompatible with the newer .MAP files, but you're still limited to 12 Recent Films or manually backing-up the Theatre files on PC for yourself & hoping that they are not rendered incompatible with what future updates arrive.

The only known thing that's due to improve in this regard is official Theatre support for Halo 4 Campaign & Spartan Ops has been announced around the December 2022 update that it was presumably postponed from.
Otherwise, we're still left having to back-up the data files for Theatre as we have no means of saving them, let-alone sharing them, nor being able to reliably back-date the game to when they were compatible (Say what you like, but I can still access my Saved Films from even the Halo: Reach Beta if I want to go digging back into some old memories), of which I would actually consider valuable with the more commonly-reported cases of cheating due to the fact that they're both easy to distribute (The biggest one I've managed to keep is 70.2MB, with most Matchmaking Multiplayer matches never exceeding 20MB) & as authentic as can be (Pretty much like Source demo-files), but I hear that they've been able to corrupt or otherwise prevent them being added to Recent Films as well. Plus, the absence of Film Clips makes it a lot less convenient to rewind if you're trying to work within a short period of a very long session.

It saddens me too, as it was one of my more used modes for the games as well, whether I was taking screenshots in Halo 3 (I've got actual hundreds of them saved, but I managed to get some personal picks on Steam) or "Using this to make movies too" with Halo: Reach & Halo 4 (Much of it was daft, embarrassing nonsense for me & my friends' sake, but 'Reach Runner' got some enthusiastic responses & 'The Vicious Cycle of Ragnarok' still pleasantly surprises those who stumble upon it) and I'm all the more discouraged from pursuing whatever silly ideas I still have ('Swordbase in a Nutshell' was one of 'em) knowing that Theatre for The Master Chief Collection is much less convenient to use nowadays.

I'd just happily take an increase to Local Storage or Private Files from it's appallingly-low limitation of 50 (50 for Cloud Storage or Shared Files isn't too bad, but even Halo 3 let you have 100 files per storage device before Bungie shook off the limitation for Halo: Reach & Halo 4 followed suit) at this point as it really puts a big limitation on what Custom Games you can keep on hand, especially for 4.5 Games and files that may not ever exceed 115KB each. Nevertheless, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still wanting for Theatre to get some kind of user improvements similar to their past iterations.

When I made this post, I was disappointed. But after the update I just read, I have some hope that Theatre could be revisited. Although it isn't a massively common complaint, I have found several posts around the internet about the topic. Seems like either people don't notice or are heartbroken.

[Arquitens]

Halo 3 theate rmode is going fine so far for me except Campaign theater mode where I can't rewind the clip (very annoying)

[Jimmy D Spoofy]

Originally posted by Bizargh:

Originally posted by Hunter:

When I made this post, I was disappointed. But after the update I just read, I have some hope that Theatre could be revisited. Although it isn't a massively common complaint, I have found several posts around the internet about the topic. Seems like either people don't notice or are heartbroken.

In terms of priorities, I would personally put:

• Mod Compatibility with the Custom Game Browser & Consoles
  
• Expanding File Storage limits, at least for Local Storage (50 Files for 4.5 Games is just appallingly low, but I've already mentioned that)
  
• Developing an internal/external Shared File Browser (Although plenty of old Gamertags got their Maps & Custom Games migrated & there are those archiving what they can, it's a bit of a bugger trying to find or even broadcast anything newly-made for The Master Chief Collection, not helped by the fact that Local Storage limitations are so tiny!)
  
• Split-Screen on PC (Pretty high on my bucket-list, but it's a platform-specific issue that mod compatibility on consoles could help address the absence of, although not solve it).
  
• Improving Alert Carry (or Machinima Controls) to be one input for both Mouse & Keyboard and Controller users, with it being a rebindable action would be lovely as well! (I see it both as a nice "Can I move the viewmodels for a moment, please?" as well a potential additional to the exceptionally small non-verbal communication toolset players have besides crouch-spamming, mouse-nodding, hopping-on-the-spot or just shooting one another).

higher on the list. I mean, I would also love to see Guest Profiles get access to their main profiles Customisation Unlocks Halo 4-style, see the Sangheili/Elites for Halo: Reach get a Customisation Options upgrade like Halo 2: Anniversary Multiplayer got and the removal of the Microsoft Account requirement for at least running the game with Easy Anti-Cheat Disabled, but one thing at a time.

Nevertheless, there are still people out there who partake in the arts of "We can use this to make movies" (Which we can finally call machinimation again now that Machinima, The Company is gone & no longer confusing search engines as much) or just otherwise want to make memes, ♥♥♥♥-posts, highlights, mod showcases, etc., if not simply explore the games in greater detail or be able to submit as authentic a cheat/bug report as you can get. And having a Theatre mode closer to par with it's predecessors would go a long way for perhaps more people than even 343 Industries may realise.
I understand that major updates may always render Theatre files prior to them incompatible with the game, but at least being able to keep them until that happens will either make it easier to otherwise record them properly & permanently or otherwise keep them available for those who know how to return the game to it's previous version (It could be as simple as keeping the older .MAP file the Theatre file originally worked with, but I can't be sure).

Wait, I can import my old Forge stuff?