Halo Infinite has had a rocky road to its release on December 8th, and according to a new report from Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, there were a lot more concessions that had to be made than initially thought. According to these reports, Halo Infinite‘s open world was planned to be far larger, think Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, but needed to be cut back on dramatically with two-thirds of the map ultimately being cut.
According to reports, this decision was made in 2019, prior to the ill-fated trailer in 2020, in an attempt to stabilize the direction of the game moving forward. It was stated that by the summer of 2019 the game had hit a number of issues, leading to the studio scaling down the scope of the title from a “Zelda-like experience into something far smaller.” It was even stated that designers were being called to “come into the office and do nothing,” while the studio attempted to solve their next move.
Jason Schreier wrote of the situation:
It soon became clear to some of the team that, even with the compromises, getting Halo Infinite into decent shape by the following fall would be impossible. Still, the timing of the release didn’t seem up for discussion. Microsoft told 343 that it had to be a launch game for their next Xbox, which meant releasing in November of 2020.
Despite this scaling down, the development continued having issues. As pointed to above, in 2020 a trailer for the was showcased to the public which hosted a range of technical issues, including lackluster texturing which was unfortunate due to the game’s place as what should have been an early showcase of next-generation hardware. Thankfully for the game, it was the outcry from the Halo Community over this blunder that allowed the title to be delayed till the proper polish could be put on it.
Both the campaign and multiplayer for Halo Infinite are available now. Both modes have seen praise, so hopefully, they both have a bright future ahead of them. Unfortunately, the Campaign will not feature a cooperative mode until some point next year.
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