343 Industries hires a Halo vet to finish Infinite campaign

By Jon Silman August 27, 2020

The developers behind Halo Infinite are bringing in a ringer to help complete the game’s campaign. Gaming company 343 Industries has hired Joseph Staten, who worked on the original Halo trilogy, as a project lead on the highly anticipated upcoming title.

“For those of you who don’t know Joseph Staten, he wore many hats while working at Bungie for all of their Halo titles, and even Destiny, before joining the Xbox Games Studios family in 2014,” 343 Industries said in a blog post.

The franchise’s stories, fun and engaging characters, universe as a whole, and other key features are all in part Staten’s doing, the post said.

“As product lead on Halo Infinite, however, Joseph will be focused on supporting the campaign team’s existing, talented, creative leaders and ensuring they have everything they need to create an awesome Halo game,” the post added.

The studio also announced that another Halo vet, Pierre Hintze, is joining the team as a project lead for the game’s Free-To-Play feature.

“He and his team have demonstrated an amazing ability to deliver new content, an excellent flighting program, and substantive updates across [the Master Chief Collection] over the past year. We look forward to having his expertise directly on the Halo Infinite team as we look to deliver a quality Free-To-Play multiplayer experience for everyone,” the company said.

The company also said it has seen a number of supposed “leaks” and fake stories about the game and its release date, which was recently pushed back 2021. The new release date was significant because it misses the launch of the new Xbox Series X. The company said to only trust information that comes directly from it.

“Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen the internet fabricate numerous stories and fake “leaks” that have made people, including me, scratch their heads,” the blog post said. “From rumors of dropping support for the Xbox One to releasing the game in 2022, there seem to be new headlines popping up every day. As we get closer to sharing more and more news, please only trust statements that are made by official Halo channels, members of our studio leadership, or members of the Community Team.”

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