Posted in: Games, Movies, Video Games | Tagged: 343, 343i, entertainment, games, halo, Halo 5, Halo 5: Guardians, microsoft, video games, xbox, xbox one

Dev Explains Why Halo 5 Won't Have Same Network Problems As The Master Chief Collection

It's no secret that The Master Chief Collection was a bit of a mess at launch. The game experienced extensive connectivity issues that rolled well into this year. The game has mostly stabilized now, but that shadow still follows the game.

It even casts itself over the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians, which now needs a very stable launch to put worrying fans at ease. That will be the case says Franchise Development Director Frank O'Connor. In an interview with Xbox Achievements, O' Connor talked quite frankly about the failures of the Master Chief Collection saying: 

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is definitely a black eye for us. We're not going to rest on our laurels or hide from the mistakes we made. However, I will say that the nature of The Master Chief Collection – you've got five different game engines, you've got five different studios working on it, you've got 343 working on putting it all together – the footprint and complexity was outrageous.

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. We've been sort of scrambling to get it first in a playable stage and now we're going to get it in a polished stage, so that people are getting what they deserved in the first place. We're never going to back away from that or shy away from that.

He did however cite the now streamlined process as to why these issues shouldn't rear their head again during Halo 5's November launch.

However, 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. So the problem spaces are still very challenging but they're radically different. I think the beta is already a decent first step, in a retail environment, showing that we don't have the same problems.

O'Connor of course is directly involved with the game, so you'd expect him to make these noises. There is a logic to what he is saying though. The Master Chief Collection was a big messy project spanning several studios. Halo 5 isn't. In fact, besides last year's troubles, the franchise has been very stable generally speaking. I'd wager that Halo 5 will work fine.

From 343 and Microsoft's point of view, it has to.

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