Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently spoke about the Halo Infinite delay and how the team was evaluating different options, including one to ship the game is smaller parts.
During an talk with Garry Whitta’s on his Twitch show, Animal Talking, Phil Spencer spoke a bit about the Halo Infinite delay, and how they were considering releasing it in individual parts to make the Xbox Series X’s launch. Thankfully, this didn’t pan out as the team felt that it wouldn’t have been the same as the launch that they had originally planned.
“It is a bummer,” Spencer said. “I know it’s disappointing to people, it’s disappointing to us. We were looking forward to the alignment of Halo and Series X really as a seminal moment for Xbox, looking back to the launch of the original Xbox and Halo CE.
It won’t be our favourite day but we’ll get through it – I’ve had bad days before – we’ll move through it and keep working on the things we love doing.”
Today I want to share an important Halo Infinite development update with the community. We have made the difficult decision to shift our release to 2021 to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.
The decision to shift our release is the result of multiple factors that have contributed to development challenges, including the ongoing COVID-related impacts affecting us all this year. I want to acknowledge the hard work from our team at 343 Industries, who have remained committed to making a great game and finding solutions to development challenges. However, it is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday.
We know this will be disappointing to many of you and we all share in that sentiment. The passion and support the community has shown over the years have been incredible and inspiring. We wanted nothing more than to play our game with the community this holiday. The extra time will let us finish the critical work necessary to deliver the most ambitious Halo game ever at the quality we know our fans expect.
Thank you for your support and understanding,
Chris Lee
Studio Head, Halo Infinite
Halo infinite will be targeting a 2021 release on PC, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series X.