343 Industries is vital to the ongoing success of Halo, according to Microsoft’s gaming division head Phil Spencer.
Following layoffs at 343 Industries, many were speculating that the studio might not be responsible for the franchise going forward. Partially since the post-launch support for Halo Infinite hasn’t been warmly received – specifically the cancellation of split-screen co-op and slow rollout of seasonal multiplayer updates.
However, during an IGN interview, Spencer addressed Halo Infinite‘s ongoing support and the importance of 343 Industries for Xbox.
“I thought [Halo Infinite] was fantastic. Obviously, we’re talking about the following year, and I think there are some missteps that we made as a team, absolutely,” Spencer said. “But I don’t want to take away from the fact that the team did a really good job delivering a great Halo game.”
“At the same time, when we launched that game, we know we needed to make some commitments to people about the content updates and our timing on those and the quality, and we didn’t hit our own bar for doing that,” Spencer continues. “What we’re doing now is we want to make sure that leadership team is set up with the flexibility to build the plan that they need to go build. And Halo will remain critically important to what Xbox is doing, and 343 is critically important to the success of Halo.”
He went on to confirm that other studios, such as Certain Affinity, will help with other Halo projects – but 343 Industries is the “heart and soul” of Halo.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
