You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here
Halo 4 must be bigger and better than the Halo games which have come before it, and the pressures on delivering such a title are massive, says Halo Franchise Development Director Frank O’Connor.
“If you’re, say, the PS3 team working on Call of Duty, you’re not under the same level of scrutiny even though they have some of the same challenges,” O’Connor told VideoGamer.com at a recent Microsoft showcase. “We’re a platform standard bearer, and we’re always trying to push our art and our craft but we’re also trying to support and push the platform, too. So it puts different levels of expectation on you, different pressures.
“I’ll say this all night every night; the most pressure we feel, we usually forget about external pressure because it’s really coming from inside, is how can I make this the best thing ever? Sometimes it’s in the context of, how can I make this better than Call of Duty or some other Halo game, or some other weapon in a really specific granular thing, but mostly an average 343 staff member is thinking how can I do the thing better than I’ve ever done it before, and in a way that will delight and surprise people? That’s the pressure. And it’s 200 people, every day. And I mean everyone. Designers, artists, our admins in the office go through this. Everyone wants to feel proud of the product.”
And with each new Halo game fan expectation grows even further, making 343’s job even tougher.
“The problem we have to solve is that people’s expectations for Halo are that it gets bigger, and better, and more creative, and more innovative every single time,” explained O’Connor. “And in important ways, not small ways. We can’t just tweak a Battle Rifle and say oh great, it’s better.
“Even if we did as good as [Bungie], and made one weapon better, that would be great. If you were a new studio trying to build on this franchise, that would be a pretty good point. But that is nowhere near good enough, right? So we do have a huge challenge.”
O’Connor concluded: “Our challenge for the craft is always the same. Do it better, do it bigger, advance the art, advance the technique and advance the fun.”
Check out our complete Halo 4 interview with Frank O’Connor.
Halo 4 will be released later this year. For more on the game check out our first impressions.
About the Author
