It is a total bummer, I know, but there’s plenty of reasons to delay Halo Infinite till fall of 2022, let me give a few meaningful and less meaningful reasons in no particular order. Many great games took 7 or more years to develop, case in point: The Last of Us 2, God of War and Red Dead Redemption. 7 is a lucky number. Seven were the Bungie pillars. After 2015, 343 had to finish Halo 5 DLCs, create a new engine (which is probably still being worked on) replan the story due to harsh critics, then they started making the game and, during the last few months, they were slowed down by a pandemic. All those issues took away probably two years at least, so a delay till fall 2022 would give 343 those two lost years back. Two years would be the perfect time for people to forget about the huge debacle of H:I demo during the XGS this July. I’m sorry to say it, but 343 is clearly not a talented developer studio, nor a fast development studio, so more time would be a desperately needed resource for them. There is a popular Shigeru Miyamoto’s quote about delaying a game is a good thing or something.
Now, here’s the big reason: rumors, Joseph Staten being hired, the delay till 2021 and what was shown in the demo, all point to the fact that Halo Infinite development is a dumpster fire and it’s seriously behind schedule. I’m not sure, and I’m sorry if I’m wrong, but I believe Martin O’Donnell once told the story of how, after E3 2003, Halo 2 engine needed to be overhauled due to some issues, Bungie managed to do that with a lot of crunch in a bit more than a year. So I think with Joseph Staten, a few more Bungie developers and two more years of time, 343 would take a new approach and could do the same thing Bungie did overhauling completely Halo Infinite, while solving their development issues at the same time.
They’ve already made a statement that the 2022 rumors were bunk. Feel free to read through and contribute to lengthy delayed to 2021 thread