Former Halo 5 Dev Goes Off!

Things just went from bad to worse for 343 Industries. It was recently announced that the studio had to cut jobs in an effort to restructure the company in order to streamline development of its upcoming game, Halo Infinite. But that’s not all. Now there’s a former Halo 5 developer who’s speaking out and it ain’t pretty.

A Scathing Review…

Specifically, the developer in question, who requests to remain anonymous, says that 343’s “incompetent leadership” is largely responsible for the poor performance of previous games and the layoffs. He also called out the studio for its “lack of creativity and focus on graphical fidelity” which he said was a major contributor to its current troubles. Ouch.

But if you were expecting contrition from 343, don’t hold your breath. Instead of reflecting on their decisions, the anonymous developer claims executives at the company are too busy playing the blame game. He went on to say that instead of forming a clear strategy to get the studio back on track, leaders at 343 are instead passing the buck to other departments and employees.

A Misguided Mission?

So why is 343 in such a bind? According to the anonymous developer, the studio is simply in over its head. 343 is apparently focusing too much on making Halo look as great as possible, instead of the overall game. The developer implies that the studio lacks a clear vision of what a Halo game should be like and is instead trying to reinvent the wheel.

Yikes. It’s no wonder that people are so concerned with 343’s future.

Action Speaks Louder than Words

It’s easy to say that 343 is taking the wrong approach to development, but what can be done to improve the situation?

At the very least, the anonymous former developer suggests that 343 needs to:

• Put more emphasis on the quality of the game over the graphics
• Restructure their teams to operate smarter and more efficiently
• Come up with a solid plan of action and stick to it

Hopefully this will be enough to reverse the studio’s fortunes and get them back on track. We’ll have to wait and see.