Halo 4’s development saw a flurry of high profile departures from other studios in the industry, all joining 343, and people got excited. Ultimately, Halo 4 turned out to be a disappointing product, however. Therefore, it’s probably in your best interests not to get too hyped about this, but the director of the excellent Tomb Raider reboot is now a part of343 Industries, reports GamesIndustry.biz.
Tim Longo left Crystal Dynamics in April 2011- nearly three years ago at this point- but while there, he oversaw the development of Tomb Raider, which released earlier this year to general critical and commercial success.
Microsoft has discussed its plans for the next generation of Halo at length.
“A discussion around having a Halo game at launch-a true Halo at launch, meaning like a Halo 4 or 5-size game-would have been something we’d have had to start two or three years ago,” explained Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios, recently.
“We had the discussion, and we thought having Halo 4 come out when it came out from 343 and having them really land their first full version of Halo that they developed internally would be great for the 360 customers, great for 343 in shipping something.”
Halo 5 is slated to launch exclusively for Xbox One next year.