Frankie Addresses Development Concerns on Halo 5 Given MCC’s Status

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched in a far less desired form than fans were willing to accept.  Party issues on Xbox One, matchmaking woes of unbalanced teams and drop outs, lack of proper Forge and file sharing features, and more are alone enough to classify the current state of the game one of the worst in the franchise’s history.  Frank O’Connor, Franchise Director on Halo at 343 Industries admits the non-favorable condition in an interview recorded at EGL’s “Battle For Europe” event during HCS season one:

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is definitely a black eye for us. We’re not going to rest on our laurels or hide from the mistakes we made. However, I will say that the nature of The Master Chief Collection; you’ve got five different game engines, you’ve got five different studios working on it, you’ve got 343 working on putting it all together. The footprint and complexity was outrageous, and to be perfectly honest, there were a lot of things that happened when we got it into a retail environment that we simply did not see in a test environment, so that’s really what caught us by surprise so we’ve been sort of scrambling to get it first in a playable stage and now we’re going to get it in a polished stage, so that people are getting what they deserved in the first place. We’re never going to back away from that or shy away from that.

The rest of the interview focuses on how Halo 2: Anniversary multiplayer was designed with eSports in mind noting how quickly a lot of the older Halo 2 pros picked up the sticks falling back into familiar territory.  Halo 5: Guardians also has a heavy eSports focus with the introduction of their Arena style play that debut the new competitive mode Breakout in the Halo 5 beta.  Frankie notes the development woes experienced in MCC will not translate over to Halo 5’s development, and for some sound reasons:

To be perfectly honest, there were a lot of things that happened when we got it into a retail environment that we simply didn’t see in a test environment, so that’s what really caught us by surprise. We’ve been sort of scrambling to get it first in a playable stage and now we’re going to get it in a polished stage, so that people are getting what they deserved in the first place. We’re never going to back away from that or shy away from that… Halo 5 simply will not suffer the same indignities because it’s being developed differently.

We’re all excited to see what Halo 5: Guardians will bring come October 27th.  It’s good to see the studio learn from their past experiences and drive for a better product.

Source: Xbox Achievements