Halo Franchise Development Director Frank O'Connor believes that Halo: The Master Chief Collection’sdisastrous launch and long-running online problems are “definitely a black eye for us”.
Speaking to XBA a few weeks back at the at the EGL’s “Battle For Europe” event in the Halo Championship Series, O'Connor discussed the mistakes that were made with the remastered compilation, while reassuring players that the same problems won’t occur with Halo 5: Guardians.
“Halo: The Master Chief Collection is definitely a black eye for us,” said O’Connor. “We’re not going to rest on our laurels or hide from the mistakes we made. However, I will say that the nature of The Master Chief Collection - you’ve got five different game engines, you’ve got five different studios working on it, you’ve got 343 working on putting it all together - the footprint and complexity was outrageous.
“To be perfectly honest, there were a lot of things that happened when we got it into a retail environment that we simply didn’t see in a test environment, so that’s what really caught us by surprise. We’ve been sort of scrambling to get it first in a playable stage and now we’re going to get it in a polished stage, so that people are getting what they deserved in the first place. We’re never going to back away from that or shy away from that.
“However, Halo 5 is being made by a completely different team. It’s a singular product. It was built from the ground up for this new technology, rather than being sort of dragged kicking and screaming from 2001 and forced and shoehorned into a 2014 console. So the problem spaces are still very challenging but they’re radically different. I think the beta is already a decent first step, in a retail environment, showing that we don’t have the same problems.”
The quote comes from a larger interview discussing Halo 5’s eSports aspirations, as well as how 343 Industries is attempting to juggle the needs of eSports players and your average scrub. It’s interest stuff. Give it a watch below. Halo 5: Guardians is out on Xbox One this October 27th.
View on YouTube
