Halo fans got a big surprise this week with the early release of Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer mode.
However, many fans will be eagerly anticipating the launch of the full campaign mode on December 8.
Recently, VGC was able to play the opening hours of the solo mode and early impressions suggest that the combination of traditional Halo sandbox gameplay with a large, open world could turn out to be a perfect marriage for the series.
The cinematic elements seen in recent games are still very much here, but the freedom, scale and experimentation within the moment-to-moment gameplay feels like a welcome call back to the Bungie classics of old. Hopefully, with further playtime, the activities on offer don’t become repetitive, but it’s looking promising for a strong release.
To find out more about the campaign, we spoke with Paul Crocker (associate creative director), Steve Dyck (character director), Justin Dinges (campaign art lead) and Jeff Easterling (Halo franchise & narrative writer). The questions below were taken from a group of journalists from different media outlets.
Halo Infinite – campaign overview
How did the extra year help with the development of the Campaign?
Paul Crocker: We looked at the game and because we were lucky to have that extra time, we played it all the way through multiple times, we sat in rooms, we really analysed what we had and we wanted to take the things we already had and make them better.
Sometimes it was an editorial process… we didn’t add a new game, it’s the same game, with more polish because we had more time. We did have a priority order in which we looked at stuff such as the grapple to make sure it was as fun as it possibly can be, to add more tutorialisation to encourage people to use it.
We really doubled down on making sure our bosses were as polished as they can be. They now have introductions where as some of them didn’t in the past. We looked at the story, and added a few more moments. The game’s antagonist got a little more screentime and his boss fight got extra time to polish because it was one of those things that was working really well, but we wanted to push it further, we wanted to create more of an experience.
Stephen Dyck: To me, the biggest thing was time spent with a nearly finished game. We were able to go back and adjust for pacing, and flow, so …….
Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/interviews/halo-campaign/