In a recent interview, 343 Industries creative director Joseph Staten pointed out that Halo Infinity's open world has been scaled down significantly from the original vision.
Staten says that before he joined 343, the team had a lot of discussions about map size and biome diversity, and even after he joined 343, he had to compromise on downsizing because of graphical fidelity issues.
"We didn't have the time to pursue all the levels of verisimiliteness we wanted," Staten says. "We made huge strides from the E3 demo to the launch, but we still had to downsize and make targeted cuts." "While we didn't end up cutting a lot out of the open world, I do know that Halo Infinity is pretty much scaled back from what the team had hoped they would achieve from the original design."