Halo Infinite Report Details Troubling Behind the Scenes Development

A new report from Thurott reveals new details of what has been described as Halo Infinite‘s “turbulent” development process.

The report cites “multiple people familiar with the development efforts behind 343” who help outline how Halo Infinite‘s development troubles seemingly date back to the earliest days of the project.

While some suspected that Halo Infinite may be in some trouble when it was announced that the game’s original creative director, Tim Longo, left the company last year, this report suggests that Long’s decision to leave was really just the result of various issues that had been happening behind the scenes for quite some time before that. The report doesn’t claim to know Longo’s specific reasons for leaving (beyond some general creative differences), but it seems that one of the earliest problems with the game involves an excessive amount of outsourcing.

In fact, the report suggests that Halo Infinite‘s impressive 2019 trailer which excited everyone about the game’s visual prowess was seemingly created by outsourced labor working with game engine assets. Apparently, 343 knew that Halo Infinite was quite some time away from looking that good during actual gameplay sequences.

Speaking of visuals, it seems that there’s been a divide between Halo Infinite‘s engineers and marketing team members. A specific example of this divide suggests that the Halo Infinite engineers knew that the game was going to be delayed and didn’t want the marketing team to reveal that Halo Infinite would feature free multiplayer and a high frame rate. Ultimately, though, it was decided to try to generate extra interest for a game that would soon suffer a stunning setback.

You may also remember that we recently reported that Phil Spencer spoke about the possibility of splitting Halo Infinite into multiple parts in order to get some version of the game out by 2020. Well, it seems that the idea of Halo Infinite being split into parts may have been mentioned as early as 2019 due to concerns over the state of the game’s development.

It also sounds like the continued production of the Halo TV series may have caused some internal disagreements as some felt that too much time and too many resources were being dedicated towards that series at a time when Halo Infinite needed more attention.

Overall, you get the feeling that Halo Infinite‘s delay and other issues so far can largely be attributed to a combination of creative differences, turnover, distractions, and too much outsourcing. While this certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a studio has had to overcome such struggles and ultimately delivered something great, we’re curious what Halo Infinite is going to look like when it ships next year.