Now that development of future Halo games is being handled by Activision Blizzard’s hands, some former developers of the series have spoken out to share their thoughts on the shocking but not entirely surprising mix-up. This includes the former franchise creative director, who has provided some salient advice to the Call of Duty publisher.
Frank O’Connor has worked on Halo for over 20 years, first working as a writer and community manager before serving as the game’s franchise creative director from 2003 to 2023. This is a guy who knows Halo like the back of his hand, and with all that series expertise, he took to LinkedIn on September 25 to share some thoughts on how to make the next Halo great.
“Pro-Tip: Do NOT tie it to hardware/services launch cycles, do not try to force it into a shape (or aging platform) that it can’t fit and do NOT abandon sandbox,” O’Connor said in response to Xbox’s former social media manager, Genevieve Harrison, who was pontificating on Activision Blizzard’s development tactics. “Pro-Pro-Tip: Hire Bungie, Halo Studios and other laid-off folk who are bursting w. talent and ideas that got nerfed or shut down over the years.”
In laying out these tips, O’Connor gave three ways the next Halo game could bring the franchise back to its former glory.
The first is a “classic” Halo game that focuses on a sandbox, movement, and shooter experience. It’d be “tailored to a core audience [and] scaled to be successful with that core audience and attractive to a broader one so it can grow.”
A second option could be “something new [and] modern” that reinvents the game. O’Connor suggests this “surprising but fantastic” reinvention could be an action-sandbox game that’s a “new take” on the FPS or an “action RPG” that’s fundamentally different, but its success comes from a strong story and IP use.
Lastly, O’Connor thinks that an Activision Blizzard-esque Halo game could be viable. It could be a sandbox game with “player, progression, and business models” that the publisher is well-known for with the likes of CoD. Given that experience, maybe this idea could be “a big annual or semi-annual spectacle” with consistent content.
O’Connor couched these ideas, saying that none of them are “easy, guaranteed, or necessarily viable.” Still, he believes that one “could be successful” now that Activision is driving the Warthog.
O’Connor isn’t the only former developer who shares his opinion on the CoD publisher taking over the Halo reins. Co-creator Marcus Lehto also weighed in, saying on September 23 that he is “shocked but not entirely surprised” by the move. Like Lehto, we’re all “eager to learn more about what’s next,” and for right now, all we know thus far is that the next Halo game will be a “full-feature, mainline installment” in the long-running series.