Though it was initially due to arrive December 12, 343 Industries has announced plans to delay Halo: Spartan Strike to the early stages of 2015 in order to focus on the issues surrounding its troubled compilation, Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
In a post through Halo Waypoint, the company confirmed the news, stating that fixing the beleaguered matchmaking within the Xbox One exclusive took priority.
“While we’re excited about this all-new Halo experience, our commitment to resolving the current matchmaking issues in Halo: The Master Chief Collection remains the top priority.
“As a result, we have decided to move the release of Halo: Spartan Strike to early 2015. We can’t wait to show you more of Halo: Spartan Strike early next year.”
This news comes in tandem with another update for The Master Chief Collection, which arrived for the Xbox One just yesterday. Targeting team balance and those aforementioned, long-running matchmaking issues, the patch will hope to add stability in the studio’s online shooter.
Getting back to Spartan Strike, though, and it’s understood the title is a spiritual sequel to Spartan Assault, another twin-stick shooter that made its bow on Xbox platforms in 2013. However, unlike its predecessor, Strike won’t feature any microtransactions, after 343 took community feedback on board. But even still, the fact that the Halo spin-off was compromised because of these ongoing issues will certainly disappoint fans of the sci-fi franchise.
Halo: Spartan Strike will now launch for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Steam in early 2015, and though it isn’t confirmed at this time, we imagine that an Xbox One and Xbox 360 version are in the works, too.
