Halo Infinitewas one of the biggest new game releases of 2021, earning widespread acclaim for both its free-to-player multiplayer experience as well as its premium single-player story campaign. A lot of praise has been directed to theHalo Infinitestory in particular, with many fans enjoying Master Chief’s long-awaited return. TheHalostory is clearly far from over, but it seems that future stories will have to be guided by a different lead narrative designer.
Halo Infinitelead narrative designer Aaron Lindehas confirmed that he is leaving 343 Industries. Linde confirmed the news on social media, saying that he is leaving the company in order to “pursue a new opportunity in 2022,” though specifics on what exactly this opportunity is have not been revealed at the time of this writing. Linde spoke highly of his time at 343 Industries and describedHalo Infiniteas the best game he’s ever worked on.
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Linde’s career started in 2008 when he started work as a community manager forGears of Warbefore working on story content forGears of War 3as a producer. Linde eventually made his way to Monolith Productions where he worked onMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordorand also spent a few years at Gearbox Software working onBattleborn. Linde would go on to work on popular games likeGuild Wars 2andDestiny 2before finally making his way to 343 Industries in August of 2019 to work onHalo Infinite’s story.
Part of Linde’s work onHalo Infiniteincluded creating over 15,000 lines of dialogue forHalo Infiniteenemies and Marines. This aspect ofHalo Infinite’s single-player campaign has earned quite a bit of praise in particular, with many remarking on how funny the Grunt dialogue is inInfiniteand how it all helps bring theopen world of Zeta Haloto life. Linde also assisted in designing the well-receivedPropaganda Towers inHalo Infiniteand obviously had a huge influence on the story at large in his position as lead narrative designer.
Linde has had an impressive career in the gaming industry so far and it will be interesting to see where he ends up. In the meantime, theHalostory will continue, withHalo Infiniteleaving dangling threads that can be followed up in a sequel or otherwise a new story expansion that could be released by Xbox down the road.
Halo Infinitebeing a live service gamehas already led to speculation that new campaign content is on the way, though it’s unclear when or if that will ever come. For now,Halofans can work to 100% the single-player campaign and continue blasting each other in the game’s online multiplayer arenas.
Halo Infiniteis out now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
