Frank O'Connor, Franchise Development Director at 343 Industries feels bad about the Halo collection's state upon release, and how it was subsequently handled. "Halo: The Master Chief Collection is definitely a black eye for us," is how he starts out in an interview with XboxAchievements. "We’re not going to rest on our laurels or hide from the mistakes we made." That much is true, as we can tell from his rather candid attestation.
Says O'Connor, “To be perfectly honest, there were a lot of things that happened when we got it into a retail environment that we simply didn’t see in a test environment, so that’s what really caught us by surprise."
Most of the issues have been with the multiplayer portion of the game, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume this was correct, however considering the amount of polish previous entries received, it's entirely possible that it was difficult to recreate test scenarios that reflected regular use within the scope of the testing environment.
"Halo 5 is being made by a completely different team. It’s a singular product. It was built from the ground up for this new technology, rather than being sort of dragged kicking and screaming from 2001 and forced and shoehorned into a 2014 console."
That's a statement that should reassure fans who are looking forward to the next entry, but at the same time it casts disparity upon the effort to enshrine Microsoft's hallmark IP in a compendium. Nonetheless, a gargantuan effort has been made to bring the Master Chief Collection up to snuff, as well as compensating early adopters with a free pass to Halo 3: ODST.
Here is the entire XboxAchievements interview for your viewing pleasure. Frank O'Connor seems to be adamant about the quality of the final version of Halo 5. "I think the beta is already a decent first step, in a retail environment, showing that we don’t have the same problems."
Please tell us your experiences with the collection, and what you are hoping for in the upcoming sequel!
