Halo Infinite Developers Considered Delaying the Game Again

Developers at 343 Industries, which is the studio behind the upcoming release of Halo Infinite, have revealed that another delay for the game was considered at one point. While the game's current launch window of "Holiday 2021" now seems officially locked in, the studio has said that this wasn't always the case and that conversations were had this year about pushing Infinite back even further.

News of these delay considerations for Halo Infinite were detailed by 343 Industries in a new development update video for the game. Perhaps the most notable thing that this video revealed is that Halo Infinite won't contain both campaign co-op or Forge at launch, both of which are major features that have appeared in previous Halo titles. Rather than delaying the game as a whole, though, 343 said it opted to just push back these specific aspects to later seasons in order to still make the Holiday 2021 release window.

Speaking more to these delays and the reasons why 343 opted not to push Halo Infinite back once again, the studio's creative lead, Joseph Staten, opened up about the conversations that have been had in recent months. "Yeah, I mean we talked about doing [delaying the game]. But where we landed is that Halo Infinite is a live game, so it isn't ever really "done." It's going to progress and evolve from season to season. We talk about launch being the beginning of that journey, but to have a beginning, you need to pick a moment and actually begin," Staten said of the reason to delay specific features rather than the entire game. "Ultimately, we decided that we've been working on this game for a really long time. Our fans have been waiting on this game for a really long time. With solo campaign and our first season of free-to-play multiplayer in really good shape for holiday, we didn't want to delay anymore. Let's get started and we'll continue to evolve from there."

As mentioned, Halo Infinite still doesn't have a release date just yet, but we might learn more later this week when Xbox holds a new live stream in proximity to Gamescom 2021. Whenever it does launch, it will come to Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC.

So what do you think about Halo Infinite? Are you glad that it's still releasing later this year, or would you have preferred to see yet another full-blown delay? Let me know either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.