Mary Olson the Executive and Lead Campaign Producer on Microsoft’s next major entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Infinite, has departed developer 343 Industries. This comes just mere months following the departure of the game’s Creative Director Tim Longo, and Olson assumed her new role of Lead Campaign Producer. According to Olson’s LinkedIn page, she left the studio and is now the Head of Production at Midwinter Entertainment.
Following two high profile departures from 343 Industries within months of each other, this obviously caused some Halo fans to worry about what exactly is going on with Halo: Infinite. Not to let fans sit on their worries about the game, 343 Industries’ community manager John Junyszek took to Reddit to clarify the situation around the departures of Longo and Olson. Junyszek stated:
Tim’s role as Creative Director was to help make creative decisions around the design and direction of the game – whether it was campaign, multiplayer, etc. Mary’s role as an Executive Producer and then Lead Producer on Campaign was to help drive the game to its completion for our holiday 2020 release date – with the latter specifically focusing on campaign deliverables.
Junyszek also clarified that Olson did not necessarily replace Longo when he departed the studio as she just became the Lead Campaign Producer and not the game’s new Creative Director. He would also state that if Olson did assume the Creative Director role, and left due to not liking what was happening with the game, that he would understand fans being worried. Junyszek would sign off his Reddit post with, “TL;DR: Title is super misleading, there is no creative dilemma inside the studio, and there’s no writing on the walls.”
Halo: Infinite was first revealed back at Microsoft’s E3 press conference at last year’s E3. Then, during their press conference at this year’s E3, it was revealed that the game will be launch title for Microsoft’s next console the Xbox Scarlett as well as releasing on Xbox One when the game launches at some point next holiday season.