Niles Sankey (@NilesSankey) / X

Niles Sankey

2,802 posts

Niles Sankey

@NilesSankey

Solo GameDev ⚡️THE RAZORFORM 🎮Wishlist: s.team/a/2268240 Was once designer at old-school Monolith/Bungie (before they died)

Phoenix, AZ

Joined April 2016

Pinned
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
May 4
The Razorform Playtest v5.0 is LIVE ⚡️ What's NEW: -More campaign content (on the moon with lasers!!) -New player character model/face -Tons of bug fixes and optimizations
00:00
47K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 4, 2025
A few of us at Bungie had an unspoken rule about Halo cinematics: Never make the player in the cinematic feel more "badass" than the actual game. We don't want players thinking "I wish that's how the game actually felt". Cinematics should serve the gameplay, not compete w it.
1.6M
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Jul 24, 2025
Honest take: There's no game that successfully reproduces this aesthetic. It's been a week, and I have yet to see anything close. I wish devs would actually discuss why it's so challenging. Instead people's emotional hatred for AI is preventing that discussion from happening.
Autism Capital 🧩
@AutismCapital
Jul 24, 2025
Is there a name for this aesthetic because it is stunning. We want to live in this.
Desimulate
00:00
Desimulate
673K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 11, 2025
Making Halo DLC was always fun. The game was released and received well. Meanwhile Bungie was split up into multiple internal teams. DLC team moved to a separate building (which had windows we could actually see out of, so it was an upgrade!) The work was super low-stress and
Video Game History
@VideoGameHstry
Nov 8, 2025
It's 2007 and the Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack just dropped
181K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 5, 2025
Remember the "Objective: Survive" mission at the end of Halo Reach? This rule delivered that. I know b/c I was the designer that pitched/prototyped that mission. Some of us had to fight to get it in the game, b/c not everyone agreed. That happened a lot at Bungie😅
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 4, 2025
A few of us at Bungie had an unspoken rule about Halo cinematics: Never make the player in the cinematic feel more "badass" than the actual game. We don't want players thinking "I wish that's how the game actually felt". Cinematics should serve the gameplay, not compete w it.
46K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 5, 2025
"But the space bomb scene in Halo2!!" My rule was referring to cinematics that replicate the core game loop. Doing the space bomb in game would be 'The gameplay replicating the cinematics.' This is different from 'The cinematics replicating the gameplay.' Make sense?
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 4, 2025
A few of us at Bungie had an unspoken rule about Halo cinematics: Never make the player in the cinematic feel more "badass" than the actual game. We don't want players thinking "I wish that's how the game actually felt". Cinematics should serve the gameplay, not compete w it.
43K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 5, 2025
Replying to @JustMaceo
Can you point me to the gameplay clip where players: Airdrop in, slide half way down a mountain, run through rocks, parkour a Wraith, jump into a Phantom while parkouring a Jackal, and then karate roundhouse eject an Elite out the side? I'd love to see that.
37K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 5, 2025
Replying to @devilmayshart
Get off my lawn!
24K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 6, 2025
Me and Jaime. Together again.
Jaime Griesemer
@32nds
Nov 5, 2025
For me, this was the moment when Halo went from being a War Story with futuristic elements to a Sci-fi Superhero Story. It’s an impossible shot. The camera flies around and through objects, time speeds up and slows down at random, the camera anticipates events that are scripted
28K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Apr 26, 2018
Official Game Announcement ⚠️ "Asemblance: Oversight" youtu.be/cnvuQ6d2whQ
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 5, 2025
Replying to @JadeDoeDesu
"if done via gameplay would probably be a fairly boring scripted segment" 💯 Yep. Different core features, plus it would take dev time away from another part of the game.
32K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Nov 5, 2025
Replying to @darkmaiming
The falling from the supercarrier was my idea 😅 But what you're highlighting is more a consistency issue, which is a bit different. And I kind of agree, there's some gameplay->cinematic inconsistency with that sequence.
16K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Mar 10, 2024
Replying to @NilesSankey
A quick story about Marty from the Halo days.. Halo: Reach development. I was the mission design lead while also building two missions for the campaign. The schedule was tight. The pressure was immense. One of the big challenges on Reach was establishing the cast of Noble Team,
40K
Niles Sankey
@NilesSankey
Jul 7, 2025
I'm announcing a new game in the next 24 hours 👀🚨 Been working on this project in my spare time for a couple years. I'm nervous.
26K