Today, Kotaku has reported that the creative director of Halo Infinite is leaving Microsoft and 343 industries. The departure seems part of a leadership shakeup at the flagship studio. Microsoft has made a statement to Kotaku about his departure:
Roles and responsibilities of various team members regularly evolve to meet the needs of a game, throughout development. We have recently had two changes to the Halo Infinite development team. Our Executive Producer, Mary Olson will now take charge of the Campaign team on Halo Infinite as the Lead Producer, utilizing her many years of experience at 343 to help craft a great campaign for fans.
Additionally, Tim Longo has recently departed our team and we are truly thankful for his many contributions to our games, our studio and the Halo universe. We wish Tim nothing but the best in his future endeavors.
The overall creative vision and production of the game remains led by Chris Lee, Studio Head of Halo Infinite.343i/Microsoft
We have a word-class team building Halo Infinite and the overwhelming positive response by fans has us energized, more than ever, to create the best Halo game to date, alongside Project Scarlett in holiday 2020. These changes have no impact to the release date for Halo Infinite.
Tim Longo was the creative director of Halo 5 and has performed the same role for most of Halo Infinite’s development. It is unclear what the reason for Longo’s departure is. He seems to have left Microsoft as a whole.
It is unclear in which way this will impact the development of Halo Infinite. For now, it seems the game is still set to launch alongside the next Xbox.
