After surprising fans by opening E3 2018, Halo Infinite has seemingly flown pretty far under the radar without much in terms of new details or information coming out for Microsoft's next entry to the long-running shooter franchise. Plenty of rumors and speculation have instead risen in an effort to fill some of those knowledge gaps, though members of the 343 development team have, on occasion, provided light details including the fact that Halo Infinite is running on a brand new engine. As fans are now learning, there's a reason for this lack of information and seemingly slower pace than what the studio has done in the past.

As this year's inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences hall of fame, 343 industries head, Bonnie Ross, provided an update on Halo Infinite and revealed that crunch is the main reason why the studio is moving slower this time around. Ross revealed that the development crunch for Halo 4 was much higher than the team anticipated due in large part to the new studio and developers which had just recently come together. For Halo 5, the studio attempted to make an effort to prevent a situation like that from happening again, but the tools, processes, and timeline ultimately caused a similar situation.

"That's why we've taken a bit more time—usually it's three years between every Halo—to really do the investment in the engine and the tools and pipeline, and we're still working on it. But we showed it at E3 last year, and it is basically trying to create an environment that we can build the game better, faster, and ideally, you know, prevent crunch."

As Ross put it, the studio entered a sort of crisis mode where people were unhappy that another brutal development crunch occurred. While each Halo game typically has three years of development time, the studio as a whole decided to slow things down for Halo Infinite. Instead, the team is investing in the game engine, tools, and pipeline to make the development process not only smoother but to also prevent crunch. While there's no way to fully eliminate the need to occasionally work longer hours to meet a deadline, the studio is fully committed to being more deliberate and create an environment that mitigates development crunch as much as possible.

There are those that now believe Halo Infinite could very well be a launch title for the next Xbox consoles that are currently rumored to be revealed in a few months at E3 2019. Part of the speculation stems from the fact that Microsoft just continued to be fairly secretive and hasn't provided many details on what players can expect from the next Halo title. With Microsoft looking to go big in the wake of Sony dropping out of E3 entirely, announcing Halo Infinite as a launch title for the next Xbox console could be the strong start that the company is looking for.

Halo Infinite is currently in development exclusively for Xbox One.

Source: US Gamer