Infinity (Cancelled Halo project)

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

Concept art for the cut Halo 5 level, Infinity Hub.
Concept art for UNSC Infinity Hub - a cut weapons-down mission intended for Halo 5: Guardians with a strikingly similar premise to the details known about the Infinity project.

"Infinity" is the internal codename of a cancelled Halo project worked on by 343 Industries. The project was worked on c.2012-2015 by Kevin Schmitt, then-Lead World Designer/Senior Game Designer for 343 Industries.[1] The project was to have served as a "hub world" experience to connect Halo 5: Guardians and all future Halo products. Schmitt spent a year of his time at 343 Industries working on "Infinity".[2] On LinkedIn, Schmitt further elaborated his duties as a Lead World Designer/Senior Game Designer in this period as including: "Led and managed a cross-discipline team to create “The Infinity,” a Hub World designed to be the gateway to Halo5 and all future Halo products.".[1]

Very little is known of the project or what it entailed, though its codename is presumably a reference to UNSC Infinity, a UNSC starship introduced in Halo 4. This concept of a hub world presumably set aboard UNSC Infinity may be related to the Infinity Hub cut level from Halo 5: Guardians.

The project's codename was unveiled in April of 2023, in a Twitter post by former Senior Designer Kevin Schmitt, in which he listed a number of unreleased game projects he'd worked on as part of his career in the games industry. These included projects for Disney, Star Wars, an unreleased Full Throttle sequel, and "Infinity". [3] Schmitt believes that it is unlikely that "Infinity" will ever see the light of day, as only people who attented the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2015 prior to Halo 5: Guardians' release would have ever been close to it - and even then without their knowledge.[4]

During his time at 343, Schmitt also contributed to a number of other unreleased internal game jams such as Halo: Starfighter[4]

Sources[edit]

  1. ^ a b LinkedIn, Kevin Schmitt (Retrieved on Apr 15, 2023) [archive]
  2. ^ Twitter, Kevin Schmitt (@kevindschmitt): "Hey man, my small team & I spent over a year on it. I would have loved to show it off…gotta have my fun somehow." (Retrieved on Apr 15, 2023) [archive]
  3. ^ Twitter, Kevin Schmitt (@kevindschmitt): "Quote Retweet with four projects you’ve worked on. Been in this biz a long time...lots of shipped titles as well. lol" (Retrieved on Apr 15, 2023) [archive]
  4. ^ a b Twitter, Kevin Schmitt (@kevindschmitt): "Highly doubt we will ever see Infinity again. People who went to E3 before 5 shipped were the only people to get close, but they didn’t know it. ;) I worked on Halo Starfighter. Just a hackathon project, no real dev time." (Retrieved on Apr 15, 2023) [archive]