Without a doubt, Halo Infinite is one of the most hotly anticipated games of the upcoming holiday season, at least as far as the Xbox is concerned. This isn’t really surprising considering the nature of Halo as one of Microsoft’s flagship series. And yet, very little has been revealed about the game, with the public only seeing a few cinematic trailers. Xbox has said that the game will be significantly different from previous Halo games, but of course we can still expect the game to look and play like a Halo entry, but Xbox’s Phil Spencer recently made a few hints about how the game will be structurally different from the Master Chief Collection, though it’s a little unclear what he is implying.
“There’s been a ton of learning in the studio around what does it mean to actually have a collection, the kind of totality of the Halo lore and stories and experience inside of one Halo world, one Halo UI, and platform,” Spencer said in a statement to website Polygon. “As 343 has gone through this journey, they’ve seen some of the benefits of not requiring that our customers make a decision between ‘Do I want to play this one or that one?’ I feel like in a way, the games almost compete with each other.
You see that with some of the annualized franchises that are out there–which clearly Halo’s not annualized–but you see that where you spend a lot of energy actually trying to move the customers who are already playing your game to a new version of your game. I think as gaming has evolved, there’s a view of ‘Our customers are our customers and we should respect them where they are.’ It’s similar to our Xbox message, and I think you’ll see that in terms of the way Infinite is talked about–even the structure of what the game is itself.”
The Master Chief Collection includes all of the previous Halo games in one package, and this includes both Achievements and multiplayer progression such as levels and statistics, tracked across all games included in the Collection. That being the case, it’s possible that Halo Infinite will also feature some progression and stat tracking across multiple games. Then again, Spencer could be referring to other plans entirely, since Halo Infinite is likely intended to last as the main Halo title for several years. At any rate, its name certainly implies as much.
Thankfully the public will learn more about the upcoming Halo game soon, since Microsoft is planning an event for this Thursday, July 23. The event is supposed to have a large pre-show too. The event isn’t specifically about Halo Infinite, but it is supposed to be about Microsoft’s first-party titles, so we’re certain it’ll have a major spotlight.
While Halo Infinite is scheduled to release at the same time as the Xbox Series X, it won’t be exclusive to the new console, as Microsoft has already stated that it doesn’t intend to make any Series X exclusive titles for at least a few years. Rather, all first-party games will be available on both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
