While Halo 4 may be the best and fastest selling entry in the franchise, 343 Industries Frank O' Connor recognizes the need for improvements before the release of the next title in the scheduled trilogy.
While some criticisms leveled against Halo 4, like a criminally short campaign, have rung true in the ears of 343, O' Connor believes that for a “first effort, it wasn’t half bad.” In an interview over on Halo Waypoint Blog, Connor addressed what he thought went right and what went wrong with Halo 4.
“Let me save you the trouble of trolling my statement,” said O’Connor. “We have a lot to learn. We made a lot of mistakes. We can do better. And we know this, and we will.”
"2012 was supposed to be the end of the world. Instead, it was the beginning of ours. Halo 4, despite being the seventh or eighth game in the Halo series (depending on how you count them), was our first game. That is to say, our first-ever fully fledged title, built from the ground up creatively and technologically. But I don’t want to spend the first moments of the year thinking about the negatives, because frankly, I am incredibly proud of both the team and the game that team created."
“There are a ton of things we wish we could done better: Features that didn’t make it into the final game. Glitches that emerged. Missteps made. DLC fiascoes. Communication breakdowns."
“But there were things that went astonishingly well – the creation of a genuinely competitive AAA studio chief among them. A collection of talent and souls that can do something genuinely amazing on this and next-generation hardware. The overhaul of an amazing game engine – but one that really needed to be overhauled – and an amassed education on systems, people, code and audience that will stand us in great stead for the future.”
Halo 4 was released back in November, and since then sales have slumped off. Regardless of its financial success, 343 Industries is already hard at work on Halo 5, improving upon the next iteration of the franchise's universe.
[via Halo Waypoint Blog]
