O'Connor: Halo series must innovate

In an interview with CVG, Frank O’Connor has stated that the Halo franchise has to continue to innovate, and the most difficult part of it is doing it without having to overhaul the series.

When asked if Halo needs to innovate, O’Connor responded, ”Yeah, it does need to innovate. Bungie had this great history of evolutionary innovations. Matchmaking, for example, were not completely new but the way it was implemented was a new benchmark for the industry.”

”But we’re not trying to radically overhaul anything,” he added, stressing, ”We are trying to make it more fun primarily. The biggest innovation in Halo 4, I would say, is Spartan Ops, because it’s essentially a TV show we are producing. We simply do not know how the public are going to respond to it.”

While Halo Waypoint will be getting Kinect support, Halo 4 itself won’t be, at least not control-wise.

”Halo is a core game series, and more than many others is directly linked to the muscle memory of holding an Xbox controller, going back as far as the days of the Duke on the first Xbox,” O’Connor explained.

”Kinect is a logical extension of the UI, and with regards to some of the sci-fi themes we’re actually pretty excited about it, but not for the controls. That’s not what it’s for, and we would never try to shoehorn that into our game. But there’s a lot of cool experiences that we’re going to put on Waypoint in the future that’s completely appropriate for the experience.”

Halo 4 is due to be released on the 6th November, 2012 on Xbox 360.