343 Industries: New Halo Games Will Be ‘Scrutinised Differently’ Without Bungie

According to the director of Microsoft’s 343 Industries, Frank O’Connor, new titles in the Halo franchise will be “scrutinised differently” by fans now that Bungie are no longer involved in their production:”Right now Bungie is supporting the community with matchmaking and stats, but at this point that’s it,” he went on to say that 343 will “continue to do that and support the community but in terms of actual Halo product this marks the first where there is no Bungie, or even tertiary Bungie involvement other than matchmaking.” He went on, saying “It hasn’t felt different for me because I used to work with all of these guys. So it feels like a continuation, but it will also be scrutinised differently by the fans – or at least the hardcore fans because there will be an apparent difference whether there is any reality to it or not.”

When asked if fans would notice the switch in developers he responded “Absolutely. There will be things that they’ll say ‘oh this is better than that’ about but we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll be watching that stuff, you have to take it seriously because your core fans are also the most educated. But you also have to remember that probably 75% of the audience doesn’t know who makes the games – to them it’s like ‘Xbox makes the games’. Those are a bulk of the audience that you also have to pay close, careful and loving attention to”

Thanks to CVG for the info.