The next Halo game will feature both "dramatic innovations" and "slight tweaks" to the traditional Halo format - but new studio 343 Industries doesn't think the core game mechanic needs to be changed.

Speaking to CVG, creative director of MS's 343 Industries - and former CVG employee - Frank O'Connor said he doesn't think the Halo series needs to be taken in a radical new direction... it just needs to go "deeper".

"Bungie tried to reinvent [the Halo series] every time," he told CVG. "If you think about it, with Halo it was about putting the controls on the sticks, which hadn't been solved properly.

"With Halo 2 we recreated the System Link, LAN party experience on Xbox Live and that wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been on Xbox... So there are a lot of things that comes from partnership with the hardware and platform guys, and a lot of innovations come through necessity, which is going to continue to happen with us.

"Ultimately the core game mechanic and strength of the universe doesn't need to be changed, it just needs to be taken deeper. We want to make Halo games - we don't want to make Call of Duty or Ridge Racer. We want to make Halo games because we understand what's special about Halo."

Despite the fact that the next Halo will be the fourth on the current Xbox hardware, O'Conner said he doesn't think it'll be a problem producing another innovative instalment.

"I would say that one thing that has happened with previous Halo games regardless of hardware or platform shift is that there were always ideas left on the table due to time constraints, there were also ideas that didn't quite work because people didn't take to them or audience player patterns weren't exactly what we expected," he said.

"So no matter when it comes out, the next Halo is going to contain improvements. Some of them are going to be dramatic innovations while others will be slight tweaks.

"You've got to say 'what can we do to make this better?' It doesn't matter if that is a giant innovation or a small tweak, you've got to do it all over the board. That's how Bungie approaches it."

In the same interview O'Conner told CVG he thinks the next Halo will be "scrutinised differently" without Bungie at the helm.


Posted: Mar 25, 2011 7:05 am

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/294955/halo-4-will-feature-dramatic-innovations-and-slight-tweaks/