Office of Halo Intelligence, or OHI for short, is a semi-regular diary-type feature brought to you by various members of the Halo 4 development team. Chris Lee, the Lead Producer on Halo 4, kindly agreed to write the sixth entry. We hope you enjoy an inside look at the making of our next title!

From the 4.5.12 edition of the Halo Bulletin:

Oh hi, OHI fans! It feels great to finally be able to talk about the work the Halo 4 team is cranking out. We have hundreds of passionate folks working to make this an unforgettable experience. It’s crazy to think that when many of these people decided to join 343 and build H4, we couldn’t even tell them what they would be working on. We told them the project would take place in the Halo universe, that the project was ambitious, and that we wanted to make something special… something that would live up to the Halo legacy. They took a chance, moved their families, left their friends, and joined us in Seattle. And from the chills I get when I listen to our music to the adrenaline rush I get from playing in the multiplayer playtests, all while the project is forged under the pressure of building something we want millions of Halo fans to love, I can tell you that we are indeed well on our way to something special.

This past month the proof of this was seen in our internal network test. We created a slice of multiplayer gameplay, got it running smoothly, and polished it to bring it much of the way to H4 ship quality across the board. Then we added new backend tech pieces, network optimizations, and game modes. We did this to ensure we would learn everything possible about how H4 will perform over home networks once we release it into the wild. I won’t say anything else about all these networking technical bits and pieces now, but I am sure you will get an update from the awesome H4 service team (codenamed Section 3) one of these weeks….

Hundreds of people contributed to the various components that went into the build. It was amazing to see a concept artist play a Spartan that he painted on digital canvas months before, one that a character artist meticulously modeled by hand in high resolution for weeks, and a tech artist rigged with artificial bones, and an animator brought to life with lethal combat animations. A complete cycle of concept to realization. We are in a phase where most of the concepts and ideas are making their way from hearts and minds into tangible experiences. It’s one of the most exciting times on a project.

We played the internal network test build for weeks, testing game modes, testing networking conditions, and collecting balance data. During the development process, playing through build after build and seeing the constant iterations, you can get into a groove where you are always looking for ways to improve. It’s hard to step back and look at how far you have come. It was a feeling of great accomplishment to see the team fighting for playtest kits so they could play the game more.

But there is still a lot of work to be done. We are focusing on the next internal network test build, more iteration, more polish, more awesome, so we can finally deliver the game into your hands. I know it has been said before from OHI, but we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been playing.

-Chris