Joseph Staten leave MicrosoftTechnically, when talking about Halo’s future, nothing really changed compared to when he left Halo developer 343 Industries. Returning to his previous role in Xbox Publishing I will be back in January.what came in it Confusion caused by layoffs At the time, or in the year since Halo Infinite first shipped, the studio had many senior leads leaving. I feel brooding. Exposing the perch.
It’s natural to wonder where Halo is going from here, more on that later, but I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for playing a huge role in creating some of my favorite games. I would like to express my gratitude to those who have done so. time. Staten was his Bungie “Grizzled Ancient”. This is the studio’s internal term for someone who has been with the company for a very long time. This is the man who wrote the original his Halo trilogy. Remember the near-perfect first game, whose memorable campaign and characters single-handedly turned the Xbox into a major player in the console space? “Wake me up…when you need me.”
But Staten didn’t run out of Halo there. He followed that up with Halo 3: ODST. This is a film noir inspired Halo game that moved from MJOLNIR armor to normal human boots. The Covenant villains (well, except for Grant… who was voiced by Staten, by the way) seemed much bigger as normal people than as seven-foot-tall super-soldiers. It’s set in an open hub world where you can go wherever you want and revisit places whenever you want or need to. Please!”) monitored everything. Halo composer Marty O’Donnell’s jazz-inspired, piano-heavy soundtrack also set the mood, making ODST different from his other Halo games. It is still beloved by Halo fans today and remains, for some, his all-time favorite Halo game.
And then, of course, we get to Halo Infinite. That her six-year development cycle was a thorny one, even from what we’ve seen publicly. And after the Xbox Series X’s Day One flagship launch title’s infamous flop in gameplay debut, Microsoft delayed Infinite out of the Series X launch window and brought Joseph Staten to the 343 in a bold and somewhat embarrassing but absolutely took the necessary steps to As the creative director of the project. I know some fans are trying to hold Joseph accountable for making tough decisions like: Cut split-screen co-op and slow down Forge – and the burden as creative director stays on him – for the big picture, seeing where Halo was before Staten arrived (i.e. Craig), Campaign finally won In December 2021. Got a great single player campaign. The campaign is a soft reboot of Halo while continuing the Chief’s story.And I might add one that successfully washed away Halo 5’s bad taste disastrous campaign out of our mouths. No, Staten didn’t do it alone, but he still deserves a lot of credit for putting Halo Infinite together the way he did.
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As I mentioned earlier, Halo’s future remains uncertain. Years to come or maybe more. Another big question is, “Who will lead Halo into the future?” Not Staten, whom I implicitly trusted. Instead, it could be 343’s younger generation of game development talent – like id Software’s young Gunn successfully reinvented the modern Doom in 2016 – or 343 could be ripped off from other studios by other studios. They may try to steal your talent.
But that’s a conversation for another day. For now, we would like to thank Joseph Staten for his great contributions in creating many of his Halo’s that are the best ever: Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Infinite.It’s something he’s proud of and I’m so glad I got to play those games when they came out and enjoy the water-cooled dialogue that each one generated – and tell him about his wonderful journey.
Enjoy your next adventure, Joseph. Thanks for all the great Halo.
