Halo Infinite Creative Director Leaves Company [Update: Lead Producer on Campaign leaves as well]

[Strakt]

Halo Infinite Creative Director Leaves Company

Tim Longo, creative director for the upcoming Halo Infinite, left developer 343 Industries this week, Kotaku has learned. It’s part of a leadership shakeup that arrives late in the development of the next Halo game, which is scheduled for release in fall 2020.

kotaku.com

Tim Longo, creative director for the upcoming Halo Infinite, left developer 343 Industries this week, Kotaku has learned. It's part of a leadership shakeup that arrives late in the development of the next Halo game, which is scheduled for release in fall 2020.

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[bbq of doom]

The overall creative vision and production of the game remains led by Chris Lee, Studio Head of Halo Infinite.

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We'll see!

 

[Secretofmateria]

Oh no, i hope this doesnt drastically fuck things up

 

[Toumari]

Well that doesn't sound too good.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Jason at it again with the great inside sources.

 

[Kingpin722]

If Infinite wasn't a launch title, I'd wouldn't be as worried. But it is

 

[DixieDean82]

Well if he worked on Halo 5's campaign maybe this is a good thing? It's hard to spin someone leaving this late in development as a good thing though.

Also, I don't think this game has any excuses when it comes to it's time in development. It would have been 5 years since Halo 5 next year.

 

[ActWan]

I guess he is going to The Initiative.

 

[LiK]

Wow

 

[AndreGX]

Sounds like a Halo Mary

 

[TapDancingFreak]

Anthem 2.0

Calling it now.

 

[A New Beginning]

MS is cursed it seems

 

[Deleted member 31092]

Leadership shake up late in development doesn't sound too promising.

 

[Simo]

Worked wonders for Anthem...lol

 

[Serene]

That seems.... not great?

But I also don't know their team structure so it might not be as impactful as the title involved would make me assume.

 

[Deleted member 18944]

This is concerning.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Well this is an awful look.

 

[The_Land]

Well if he worked on Halo 5's campaign maybe this is a good thing? It's hard to spin someone leaving this late in development as a good thing though.

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I was thinking the same exact thing to be honest

 

[MillionIII]

That can't be good...

 

[Thiago]

Yikes.

 

[Mack]

So it's safe to assume that the core gameplay/structure is finished and all the remaining time to launch will be spent on tweaks and making sure the experience is as pretty and flawless as it's possible.

 

[Komo]

I'm fine with this.

 

[BizzyBum]

Infinite is basically going to determine if Halo as a series and 343 as a studio will have a future.

No pressure.

 

[Reformed Individual]

Seems about right for 343.

 

[henlo_birb]

You don't love to see that.

 

[Mezoly]

Still plenty of time until shipping. Almost a year and a half. So not worried.

I guess he is going to The Initiative.

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How many A's that team gonna be? I would say at least AAAAA.

 

[SunBroDave]

This, combined with the fact that we saw basically nothing of the game at E3, points to some troubled development on this project for sure. Things are clearly not in a great place.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

That seems.... not great?

But I also don't know their team structure so it might not be as impactful as the title involved would make me assume.

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I mean you can gather the importance of the "creative director" regardless of familiarity with their specific team structure. It's definitely significant.

 

[Servbot24]

Copied from the duplicate thread:

It's not a safe assumption that it's a sign of issues. Turnover happens every single week at large companies. Admittedly it's less common with Directors, but even so the change could be for any number of reasons.

While it's neat to appreciate the individuals working on games, I wouldn't be able to draw anything meaningful from this information.

 

[Dancrane212]

Wow, I wasn't expecting that.

Love the podcast Tim Longo co-hosts, always seemed like a pretty knowledgeable guy. It'll be interesting to see where he ends up.

 

[Serene]

I mean you can gather the importance of the "creative director" regardless of familiarity with their specific team structure. It's definitely significant.

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Well yeah, it's significant. That goes without saying.

We just don't know how significant.

 

[Deleted member 4482]

I checked Tim's twitter and he recently said, somewhat-joking, that he wanted to be involved in activist game development. I hope he finds an opportunity to do something like that.

 

[zedox]

Not like the vision is all of a sudden switch up this late into development. Good luck to Tim.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

This reminds me of Cyberpunk 2077 creative director leaving as well

https://www.destructoid.com/cyberpu...t-red-for-blizzard-entertainment-540033.phtml

 

[bluexy]

Microsoft: Okay Longo, we've all been waiting for the chance to see Master Chief's face. We want to make that happen in Halo: Infinite.
Longo: Okay, I can do that. Let's make that happen.
Microsoft: That's not all. We need you to make Chief look like this. *shufs over picture*
Longo: That's... that's Ninja.
Microsoft: Are you part of team Xbox or not, Longo?

 

[Super Barrier]

Part of MS' yearly layoffs that Thurrott mentioned last month?

 

[Deleted member 6235]

oh no

 

[Deleted member 2229]

I see we're already at the pearl clutching and sky is falling phase. Especially with people namedropping anthem, as if the creative lead on Anthem was the problem with the game, not that the project was mismanaged for years and the actual game came together in 6 months.

Never change Era

 

[SunBroDave]

So it's safe to assume that the core gameplay/structure is finished and all the remaining time to launch will be spent on tweaks and making sure the experience is as pretty and flawless as it's possible.

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No, it is most certainly not safe to assume that.

 

[Deleted member 39353]

Ah man... That's not great news. I just want so badly for there to be someone or someones who are in charge of the vision for a halo game from start to finish. My biggest complaint with modern Halo is it just seems like they're trying to be too many things at once.

 

[PROh1bited]

Here come the knee jerk reactions.

 

[kung-fu-owl]

This thread is ripe for concern trolling already, it seems.

The Creative Director on Cyberpunk 2077 has left also. Are people concerned by the way that game has looked also?

News like this isn't as uncommon as people would expect it to be.

 

[DMVfan123]

Hopefully this doesn't spell disaster for the game, MS really need to get Halo back on track if they have hopes of doing better than the Xbox One generation sales-wise

 

[Cranster]

This, combined with the fact that we saw basically nothing of the game at E3, points to some troubled development on this project for sure. Things are clearly not in a great place.

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They showed off the intro cinematic at E3. I don't see any reason to be concerned with the games development.

 

[JaggedSac]

So he was told to take a new role, didn't like the new role, and then left?

 

[kung-fu-owl]

This, combined with the fact that we saw basically nothing of the game at E3, points to some troubled development on this project for sure. Things are clearly not in a great place.

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This is reach upon reach upon reach.

No pun intended.

 

[Darkstorne]

Has this ever worked out well..?

 

[professor_t]

Man, I so much want to see a return to form for Halo (especially on the single player side, because I think the multi for 5 is solid). I hope this doesn't foretell another disappointment.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Will C&P what I said in the other topic as this one has more replies:

This is Microsoft's most important game in a long time and they need to nail it. Hope this isn't indicative of wider issues it's facing with development.

It's not a safe assumption that it's a sign of issues. Turnover happens every single week at large companies. Admittedly it's less common with Directors, but even so the change could be for any number of reasons.

While it's neat to appreciate the individuals working on games, I wouldn't be able to draw anything meaningful from this information.

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You're right of course, but if it's a really senior key role like this then it does make you wonder if there's upheaval/development issues. I mean, they're probably only like 13 months from going gold so you would assume the game is near content-complete and the rest of the development would focus on balancing, polish, cutscenes, etc.

 

[Liam1884]

I see all the overreactions have already begun.

 

[Deleted member 57361]

This doesn't pass confidence with the final product, considering we are a year to release date and only got two cinematic videos.