Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has expressed regret at the early reveal of 343 Industries‘ upcoming Halo Infinite and its initial positioning as a launch title for Xbox Series X|S.
The game was initially announced at E3 in 2018, at the time confirmed for Xbox One and PC. The following year, Microsoft announced that Halo Infinite would also be a launch title for its new generation of consoles, at the time codenamed “Project Scarlett”. However, due to the impact of the COVID pandemic on development, the game was delayed, and by the time Xbox Series X|S launched in November 2020, Infinite was nowhere in sight.
It’s a situation that still sits poorly with Spencer, who told GQ: “I don’t like how we did it, I don’t like that we showed the game, talked about it launching at the launch of the consoles. And then within a month, we had moved it.”
In December 2020, 343 Industries announced that Halo Infinite would be released at some point in 2021. It wouldn’t be until August 2021 when its current release date of December 8 2021 was confirmed.
Spencer says the earlier announcement was down to optimism more than anything else though, adding that “we should have known before and just been honest with ourselves. We were there not out of deception, but more out of… hope. And I don’t think hope is a great development strategy.”
However, Halo fans eager to return to their Spartan fantasies may have something new to hope for, with rumours that the multiplayer segment of Halo Infinite – which was confirmed to be a separate free-to-play release to the core campaign – may see release a month earlier. It’s being speculated that the multiplayer may arrive this week, coinciding with the series’ 20th anniversary.
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