Posted on January 10, 2013, CJ Miozzi 343 on Halo: We Will “Do Much Better Next Time”
In a blog post, members of the 343 Industries team offered a retrospective on Halo 4 and a forecast for the future, both immediate and long term. Speaking to the fact that this was the team’s first foray into an established franchise, Frank O’Connor expressed that “for a first effort, [Halo 4] wasn’t half bad.”
Still, there is room for improvement, O’Connor admitted, saying:
“Halo 4, despite being the seventh or eighth game in the Halo series (depending on how you count them), was our first game. That is to say, our first-ever fully fledged title, built from the ground up creatively and technologically. So let me save you the trouble of trolling my statement: We have a lot to learn. We made a lot of mistakes. We can do better. And we know this, and we will. But I don’t want to spend the first moments of the year thinking about the negatives, because frankly, I am incredibly proud of both the team and the game that team created.”
O’Connor has faith in his team’s ability to exceed what they accomplished in Halo 4 for their next title. He said:
“It wasn’t flawless by any stretch of the imagination, but by most objective criteria, it was a resounding success. So we know we have a lot to do. And we know we have a lot to learn. But we also know that we now have the capacity, the teamwork, the technology and the experience to do much better next time.”
The blog goes on to state that the company has “some fun stuff” planned for late January and beyond, with late February bringing both a Title Update and the Majestic Map Pack, which includes two small maps and one medium-sized map.