Fans were left disappointed last week.
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This past week was Gamescom, and while a number of titles were shown off there were definitely some notable absences. One of those games that was notably absent, despite having a new trailer and release date announcement, was Halo Infinite. Though the game had its release date revealed alongside a new cinematic trailer, there still wasn't any fresh look at the game's campaign.

In fact, we haven't actually gotten a look at Halo Infinite's campaign since over a year ago. The lack of any campaign showing at Gamescom has made fans quite concerned about the game given that it's slated to be released in just a few short months. There was already some basis for concern about the game given that 343 Industries has already announced that they are shipping without some franchise mainstay features such as campaign co-op and Forge.

Halo Infinite lead Joseph Staten provided an explanation to fans about just what the heck is going on there and why there wasn't any new gameplay shown off for the game.

In many ways, shutting down a game is like being on final approach to landing an airplane. And if you’ll forgive a bit of aviation-geekery, the entirety of the team is essentially in a “sterile cockpit,” which is to say: we’re at a critical phase in the flight that is Halo Infinite, so it’s extremely important to avoid distractions and stay focused on mission-critical tasks only. For Campaign, that means putting maximum effort into ensuring the wide-open, adventure-filled experience you’ll all get to play on December 8th is a great as it can possibly be. And gameplay demos and trailers not only take a huge amount of effort to do well, they also take cycles away from bugs and other shutdown tasks.
Halo Infinite has been in some form of development for the past six years now. It sounds as though the game is still coming in hot. The lack of any new gameplay footage in over a year is quite concerning, no matter how much spin is put on the reasoning behind it. After all, they were able to put together a cinematic trailer but not show off gameplay? Then you add in the fact that there are features like Forge and campaign co-op missing and the picture begins to look even more clear. 343 Industries is probably under a tremendous crunch right now trying to finish a game that was originally set to be released a year ago.