Halo Infinite is probably one of the most exciting releases confirmed for 2020 so far, with many hoping that this it’ll be the title to return Master Chief to former glories following a few disappointing entries in recent years.
With only two fairly brief trailers under its belt so far, we don’t really have much of an idea of what to expect from Halo Infinite when it hits Xbox One, Xbox Scarlett, and PC late next year, but Xbox Studios Boss Matt Booty has provided a little more detail in a new interview with Game Informer.
When discussing the size and scope of the game, Booty teased that the world developer 343 Industries have built is incredibly expansive – but he doesn’t want people to take that word and assume that Halo Infinite is an open world, because it isn’t.
He explained:
It is a great part of my job to be able to work with [343 Industries], and get previews of things. I think the first thing that is just very cool in where that game is headed, is how they’re thinking about expanding the world. I won’t go so far as to say ‘sandbox’, because you bring up sandbox and people sort of overload that term with a lot of other things. But what the team is doing to build a bigger universe and a bigger set of gameplay scenarios and just more things to explore, is awesome. The things they’re working on are really cool.
Booty also echoed comments previously made the studio that Infinite is a ‘spiritual reboot’ of the franchise, and is taking a lot of cues from the earlier games in the series. At least from a design standpoint, it would seem Halo Infinite is going back to the series’ roots, which should be welcome news for long-time fans of the franchise.
He said of Infinite:
There’s just some cool stuff design wise. It’s been really cool to see them get back to some of the shape language and design language of some of the earlier Halos. It could be said that when you get into Halo 5, maybe it was getting a little busy design wise. At once it feels more modern and more clean, but also I think there are stronger echoes back to the roots of Halo. And it’s really cool to see that stuff.
As a massive fan of the earlier Halo titles, I’m incredibly excited to see how 343 throws back to the Bungie-developed games while pushing the franchise forward in their own way. We can expect to see more of Infinite at E3 2020, if not sooner.
While Halo Infinite will be released on next and current-gen consoles, Microsoft and 343 have both promised that the game will still look incredible on Xbox One, and noted that the current-gen hardware isn’t being treated as “second class.”
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.