Given the delay of the main game, and it being something meant to last a decade. What of any of the planned content updates that probably were supposed to be released the closest to launch?
Let’s say the game release next november, that’s a year from now.
I’m fairly certain any bigger content planned for that period was being worked on prior to E3. What happens to that?
Is the whole schedule postphoned an entire year? Are we going to see day 1 DLC? Will it be included in the release?
Best case scenario is all that content being included at release.
I’m gonna guess virtually none of that will be included. If the game gets delayed a year, presumably it’s because they needed a year just to get the initial game released. I don’t think they have the time to add in the DLC they may have planned for a year after the initially planned release date.
From a shrewd business perspective, it would be a little foolish to release it all at once. Microsoft would lose out on an additional revenue stream if they released the game and then the additional DLC at the same time (this is all hypothetical of course. I have no idea if there is any DLC planned for this game, though it seems fair to assume so).
343 said a while back (like maybe a few years ago at this point) that they have no interest in repeating the hellish development cycles Bungie employees suffered. So far all we know, 343 execs pushed the game back because they wanted to keep that promise to their employees. It seems rare now-a-days to see a company actually care about their employees health and well being, but it’s entirely possible that 343 execs see the benefits of creating a more welcoming working environment for their employees by letting them take a few months to a year to finish the game, rather than pulling 24 hour shifts trying to crank it out by the end of 2020.
Considering 343i have said the current plan is the Infinite will be the start of Halo for the next 10 years (not a 10 year plan for Infinite specifically) I think any post launch content will NOT be put into the game for launch. There’ll need that to sustain the game over a lengthy period of time.
The delay is for them to work on getting the game ready for launch. This likely means the entire timeline of production - Launch & Post Launch content will be shifted to accommodate for the new release date.
With that being said, there are reports that Infinite is content complete and just needs technical work. However that has never been 100% confirmed.