Ross: “We want to have a team that can do their best creative work within our engine.”
343 has revealed the reason behind the switch to Halo Infinite’s new Slipspace engine. In this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries, and discussed the development of Halo Infinite, as well as many other topics (watch the full interview below).
According to Ross, the studio took a step back from the typical three-year development cycle of Halo in order to create the Slipspace engine and fulfill a promise to the development team.
“The Halo engine is a very technical, engineering-focused engine. It’s super hard for creatives to work in,” Ross said, “It’s super hard for a lot of creatives to work in, at one time. We did a ton of work, on Halo 4, on the engine, to get it to look… I think it looked amazing for being on the last generation on the last year of the platform.
“We promised the team we would do the work on the tools, and pipeline, for Halo 5, so it wasn’t such a challenging environment to develop on,” Ross said. “You know… ‘best-laid plans’… we didn’t do that, and the team, rightfully so, basically called us on it.”
Looking forward to what Slipspace means for the future of the Halo franchise, Ross said, “One; we want to do more with Halo… and two; we want to have a team that can do their best creative work within our engine. So it really was taking the time off and, as we announced the Slipspace Engine last year, it is all to make sure we’re building the platform for the future of Halo.”
For more of the IGN Unfiltered interview with Bonnie Ross, be sure to read up on how Borderlands developer Gearbox Software was originally considered to make Halo 4. You can also watch the entire interview to discover how Ross is shaping the future of Halo.
For more insider interviews with the best, brightest, most fascinating minds in the games industry, be sure to check out the rest of the IGN Unfiltered catalog, which includes talks with Insomniac Founder and CEO Ted Price, Firewatch and Darksiders 3 voice actress Cissy Jones, and many more.
Brian Barnett writes news, features, and wiki guides for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian’s antics on Twitter (@Ribnax) and Instagram (@Ribnax).
