Everything is fine at Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries.
Since even before it was delayed, something about Halo Infinite‘s development never seemed quite right. Setting aside how long the game has been in the works, developer 343 Industries has been losing one lead after another, until more recently director Chris Lee left the team.
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, however, says you shouldn’t worry.
Speaking to GameSpot, the exec said he isn’t anxious about staff departing the developer, going on to say that pushing back the project’s release date so close to the gameplay reveal in July painted a different public picture to what’s actually going on behind the scenes.
“I don’t have any specific concern about 343,” Spencer said. “I actually think in the long run, turnover is a healthy thing because we want people who are really motivated by the things that they’re working on.”
He continued: “Sometimes what hits the press, or when certain things get announced internally, have actually happened months before. It’s not always accurate when these things line up – we did take the feedback coming out of the July showcase event seriously, both on the date and what people were expecting from the game. It was a miss on our part, on my part, to open our July showcase with Halo Infinite and then a couple of weeks later have to move the date.
“I don’t take the sentiment and the emotion of our fans and our customers lightly. We set an expectation that here, this is something you’re going to have at launch and then we have to change that expectation not too much after our showing – that’s a mistake.”
Microsoft recently brought on Bungie veteran Joseph Staten to head up development on Halo Infinite’s campaign, though Spencer didn’t specifically touch on his involvement.
“So I really have a lot of faith in Bonnie [Ross] and the team there having Joe [Staten] and Pierre [Hintze] join, which they did late in the summer. I feel good about where we are on that team,” he added.
As Spencer said, however, the reception to Infinite’s gameplay reveal was not very kind, prompting 343 to retreat and promise to work on visuals and presentation.
Halo Infinite does not have a release date.
