Halo Infinite‘s title implies that it will be quite big. And while it is not infinite like that name suggests, it is a lot larger than past entries in the franchise. 343 Industries has stated that the campaign of the upcoming Xbox Series X launch title will be “several times larger” than Halo 4 and Halo 5 combined.
343 Studio Head Chris Lee revealed this to IGN after its gameplay demo (which wasn’t technically running on an Xbox Series X) went live earlier today. While speaking about the game’s story mode, he said that the Xbox Games Showcase demo was about four hours into the game before dropping that the game as a whole was “several times larger than [343’s] last two campaigns put together.”
Halo campaigns have never been typically that long. Most don’t usually go near 10 hours and, according to aggregates gathered by HowLongToBeat, Halo 4 and 5 were around eight hours each. Doing simple math means that 343 is saying that Halo Infinite will be more than 16 hours and likely more for those who like to search around.
Infinite‘s more open world is probably to blame for this as the demo shows a big area full of different objectives to complete. However, developer hour counts and player hour counts might differ, especially considering those users who beeline through the critical path and aren’t concerned with exploration or side content.
Halo 5 came out in 2015 so 343 has had plenty of time to make such a giant game. And not only is it in a big series that’s primed to launch a new console, it is also wrapping up the Forerunner saga and setting the ground for new future stories, according to that same IGN feature. There’s a lot riding on Halo Infinite, especially after the comparatively tepid response to Halo 5, and it seems like Microsoft and 343 think scale will allow this game to bear the weight that is being thrust upon it.
