Halo Infinite is a good game that’s only become better over the last year or so thanks to smart updates and new content being added each season. Yet the Xbox and PC shooter’s latest season is missing something: cutscenes. But fans don’t seem to mind, because 343 says their omission is so the team can work on creating other types of content for Infinite.
While Halo Infinite launched to rave reviews, it suffered from overly long seasons and a lack of new maps, modes, and features. Things have started to turn around in the last year or so thanks to big updates, including the addition of a robust Forge tool, letting players create all kinds of cool and wacky things. And season four is a similarly big update, stuffed with new features. But not cinematic cutscenes. That’s not a bug or a mistake, but instead, a choice made by Halo Infinite devs 343 to focus on adding more in-game content instead of new seasonal cutscenes.
PSA: As we’ve refined our top priorities and shifted resources internally this year, we had to make the decision to forego seasonal narrative cutscenes to make room for the team to continue focusing on highly requested features, content, and improvements for Halo Infinite.
These…
— Brian Jarrard (@ske7ch) June 19, 2023
On Tuesday, Halo Infinite season four — launched, bringing a long list of changes to the online first-person shooter as well as the return of the fan-favourite “Infection” mode and some new maps. But on June 19, right before the launch of the season, 343 community director Brian Jarrard announced on Twitter that the game’s latest season wouldn’t feature new cutscenes.
PSA: As we’ve refined our top priorities and shifted resources internally this year, we had to make the decision to forego seasonal narrative cutscenes to make room for the team to continue focusing on highly requested features, content, and improvements for Halo Infinite.
Jarrard explained that these kinds of choices are difficult and that the team at 343 is continuing to make Halo Infinite “the best experience possible.” He added that there’s much yet to do but that this new season is a big “step forward” for the game, reiterating that the studio remains “committed” to Infinite and the Halo community.
The future of Halo and 343 Industries
It’s not too surprising that 343 is having to make these kinds of cuts and decisions after the studio suffered layoffs in January. Rumours quickly swirled that 343 would no longer be developing Halo games, but the studio debunked those claims shortly after news of the layoffs hit.
That also explains why Jarrard and others at 343 feel the need to remind the community and players that it’s still “committed” to the game after many worried if Halo Infinite was going to be shelved among all these layoffs. And prior reporting suggested all previously planned story DLC for Infinite was canned while the team transitions to working with Unreal engine for future games.
So, while it’s true things are changing behind the scenes, 343 is still going to make Halo games. (But other studios will likely get involved too, according to Xbox exec Matt Booty.)
Still, it’s not nothing that the studio behind the most recent Halo — which was once Microsoft and Xbox’s biggest, most important franchise — is now having to make choices like this and balance resources so carefully. It wasn’t that long ago when Microsoft would likely have dumped as much money as needed into the franchise that helped build the Xbox brand. But now, cutscenes have to go in order to get new modes and features out the door. How times have changed.
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