The Halo Infinite rumor mill kicked into high gear recently with a report that claimed to offer some inside information about the development of the game and some of the issues going on behind the scenes. Microsoft released an official statement that denies on element of the report, that production on the Halo TV show has negatively impacted Halo Infinite, and now Halo’s community director has addressed another part of the story.
Writing on Reddit, Halo community director Brian Jarrard responded to the conjecture about how Microsoft considered splitting up Halo Infinite’s campaign and multiplayer elements and releasing them individually.
An initial report from Brad Sams stated that Halo Infinite’s campaign mode would launch in Fall 2020 with multiplayer coming later. Xbox boss Phil Spencer appeared on the Animal Crossing TV show and seemingly lent credence to this rumor, but that isn’t entirely accurate, Jarrard said.
Spencer said in the interview that Microsoft briefly considered splitting up campaign and multiplayer before making the call to move the entire product to 2021.
Regarding Sams’ original reporting and Spencer’s comments more recently, Jarrard said “these are not the same things. At all.”
“Sams’ unsubstantiated ‘report’ in late July was 100% false and no such plan or discussion had ever happened. Campaign was never going to ship without MP, period,” Jarrard said. “More recently, as it became clear that the project needed more time, part of that assessment did entail trying to see if perhaps just MP could launch as planned but was deemed a non-starter. So even if that would’ve been the outcome, it’s the opposite of what was reported in late July.”
Jarrard said he wouldn’t normally choose to comment on rumor and speculation, but he was getting “personally implicated” so he decided to weigh in.
“People can, and will, make up whatever stories they want but I have to draw the line at being personally implicated as being dishonest with the community,” Jarrard said. “I may not always be allowed to say what I want to say (for example I’m probably not allowed to really get into a point by point response to this article), but I will always speak the truth.”
Halo Infinite is now coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC at an unspecified date in 2021. The multiplayer portion of the game will be free-to-play, and that could be a very big deal for the future of Halo.
Halo Infinite would have marked the first time since the original Halo in 2001 that a new Halo game launched with Xbox hardware. However, Microsoft chose to delay Halo Infinite to 2021, missing the launch of the Xbox Series X, due in part to complications related to working from home during the pandemic.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.