343 Studios just announced that Halo Infinite—a game that was supposed to launch alongside the Xbox Series X last month—now won’t be released until at least Fall 2021.
The lengthy delay was made in a long post on the studio’s site, and while it goes into all kinds of detail on features being added to multiplayer, and how the art team have “already yielded progress on the visual fidelity front” (a key criticism from some of Infinite’s last big gameplay demo), the real news is the length of that delay.
For a game that was originally a key part of the new console’s November 2020 launch line-up, this new Sep-Nov 2021 constitutes a delay of almost a year.
Of course, in that time a lot has happened; not only has a global pandemic thrown development schedules into chaos, but this project in particular has been hit with a number of key departures, to the point where Halo veteran Joseph Staten had to be parachuted in to get the game “back on track”, only to then lose one of the game’s directors shortly afterwards.
The statement ends by saying, “On behalf of the entire team, thank you for your patience and your passion. We can’t wait for you to join us on the Halo Infinite adventure, first with Insider flighting later next year, and then when we ship in Fall 2021.”