If you read the latest update, unyshek said when talking about the next time we see Halo Infinite “when its ready”. What does that mean? March? June? Later than that? He did say we’re going to get at least a community update on December 17 which I’m guessing is the high level update mentioned earlier. I don’t expect too much from it, but it at least should clear up some questions.
In the meantime, I’m gonna discuss what I think the status of the game is, its development history, what features it may have, and when I think it will release:
We know it entered the planning (pre production stages shortly before halo 5’s release in late 2015. After the mixed responses to halo 5’s story, 343 most likely decided to change things up with this game. Halo infinite likely went into “development hell” around 2016 until 2017 to maybe even early 2018.
By e3 2018, 343 Halo infinite was at least in active development again, but no in game footage was shown. In late 2018, Halo Infinite was confirmed to be in a playable state.
At e3 2019, the opening cutscene was shown, but again, no gameplay, so the gameplay was most likely still being heavily worked on. Since then we heard very little until the July showcase.
The July showcase gave us our first look at gameplay which although many people (myself included) liked, it got pretty negative reception overall. The visuals particularly were very flat, and the game didn’t look very polished.
In August, halo infinite was delayed until 2021 with no set in stone release date. This raised many questions which have not been answered. There has been speculation of more development problems, although 343 has said this delay was mostly just to polish up the game, and due to covid and working from home.
My guess is the game is nearly complete at this point and the delay was to polish up the game especially the graphics and the grass and cloud pop ins. Phill Spencer has even mentioned playing the game a lot, and seemed satisfied with what he’s played. But 343 being as quiet as they are it definitely raises questions.
With the latest community update, i highly doubt the game will release in the spring. A may or June release is still possible, but I think a fall release is much more likely at this point. I don’t think the game is in too bad of a state, and will probably be much better by its release, but at this point, no game will satisfy everyone, so I’m sure no matter what its like, the community will find some way to hate on it.