Former Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto has claimed that making Halo sequels offer “no win situations” to whoever develops them. Lehto was speaking during a lengthy Q&A Twitter session on the eighth anniversary of Halo: Reach‘s launch, and talked about the games that followed Halo: Combat Evolved. Responding to a question from one fan, who felt that the Halo series had stagnated, Lehto explained how difficult it was to cater to newcomers to the franchise and established fans.
“To be fair, the term ‘Combat Evolved‘ came from the MS (Microsoft) marketing team. We bristled at it,” Lehto wrote on Twitter. “But also, in a franchise like Halo, there’s no easy path through later iterations, where some want the core game and some want something entirely new. It’s a no win situation.”
On this anniversary of Halo Reach, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have about the game. pic.twitter.com/AnOdPENAJR
— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) September 15, 2018
Lehto, who worked at Bungie for 15 years and played a vital role in developing the original Halo trilogy and Reach, also offered up his thoughts on other interesting tidbits. The V1 Interactive president and creative director revealed what Master Chief looked like under his helmet, and what Bungie would have done differently in Halo 4.
Sort of. Our vision was that humanity owed its future to the Spartans on Reach and John 117. That’s as far as we took it at Bungie.
— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) September 15, 2018
“We had a very early sketch of John 117 that had him bald from years of wearing a helmet and scars over most of his exposed skin,” Lehto divulged. “He was heroic but also kinda brutal at the same time. It (Halo 4) would have been with the Chief, but would have gone a very different direction. I have the utmost respect for 343 and what they did with the Chief’s story. Sure I would have done something different, but that’s in the past.”
343 Industries are the team behind the past two Halo titles, and they are said to be going back to basics on the final chapter in their trilogy – Halo Infinite – which is rumored to have a Q4 2019 release date.
