I’m thrilled to join @Halo to help them ship Halo Infinite. As the project lead for the Infinite Campaign, I will be supporting the team’s existing, great leaders and empowering them to do their best work. https://t.co/pQiNPQVBZs

— Joseph Staten (@joestaten) August 27, 2020

Staten “will be focused on supporting the campaign team’s existing, talented, creative leaders and ensuring they have everything they need to create an awesome Halo game,” according to the latest Halo community update.

As things stand, Halo Infinite, which is also coming to PC and Xbox One, is scheduled for release sometime in 2021. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft brought in Staten to get the game “back on track” and avoid further delays. On the other side of the equation, Pierre Hintze, the head of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection publishing team, is taking over as the project lead for Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer modes.

“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty said. “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”

Halo: Infinite is a major launch title for Series X. While its availability on Xbox One might make buying a new console just for that game seem somewhat redundant, Booty noted Halo: Infinite developers 343 Industries and SkyBox Labs are “definitely going to be doing things to take advantage” of Series X’s features. He didn’t expand on what that means, but given the upcoming console has hardware-accelerated ray tracing, variable refresh rate and 8K capability, it’s reasonable to imagine the developers will tap into those capabilities.

This approach to exclusivity should make the transition to Series X smoother. People who can’t afford to upgrade as soon as the console launches won’t be entirely left out. Where there might be some third-party Series X exclusives at the outset, Xbox One owners will still have access to several next-gen games — even before xCloud comes into play.