After a disappointing gameplay reveal—it’s hard making blockbuster games from home!—Halo Infinite has been pushed back to 2021. It’s also now getting some outside help, with a report that Microsoft is parachuting Halo veteran Joseph Staten in to help with development.
As Bloomberg report, Staten—one of the main writers on earlier Halo games at Bungie, and currently at work on a different project at Microsoft—has been brought in alongside “one more senior leader” so as to “provide more expertise to the project”.
It’s pretty late in development to be bringing in new senior leadership, but then this is a very important game for Microsoft seeing as it’s one of the only first-party ways they’re going to be able to distinguish their console from Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 5.
That or the game being moved into 2021 means it’s coming out a lot later in 2021 than most people were hoping/expecting.
In addition to writing a lot of early Halo stuff, Staten also directed the cutscenes in Halo 1-3, as well as writing the novel Halo: Contact Harvest.
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UPDATE 12:19am August 27 – Microsoft have now confirmed Staten’s move in a blog post.