Halo Infinite's lead narrative designer, Aaron Linde, has announced he is leaving 343 Industries in 2022. Linde said on Twitter that he is leaving to "pursue a new opportunity," but didn't share exactly where he is going just yet.
Whatever the case, Linde said it was a "terrifically difficult decision" to leave 343. "Halo Infinite will remain one of the proudest achievements of my career for the rest of my life," Linde said. "I'm so grateful to have been a part of it."
Bittersweet news to report: I'm departing 343 Industries to pursue a new opportunity in 2022. It was a terrifically difficult decision; Halo Infinite will remain one of the proudest achievements of my career for the rest of my life. I'm so grateful to have been a part of it.
— Aaron Linde (@aaronlinde) December 31, 2021
Linde went on to say: "I want to thank my dear colleagues at 343 for making the best game I've ever worked on, our incredible voice cast for elevating our work in every single line delivery, and our players for joining us on this wild-ass journey. You made 2021 an incredibly special year for me. I get squidgy talking about real sh** on this stupid website [Twitter] so I'll leave it at that for now. But I can't underscore enough how grateful I am and always will be. See you next mission."
As lead narrative designer, Linde was in charge of a small team of writers handling "all open world narrative content" in the game, according to his LinkedIn page. This amounted to more than 15,000 lines of enemy and Marine chatter, more than 100 audio logs, and ambient dialogue.
Before Halo, Linde was the lead writer on Gearbox's Battleborn before moving to ArenaNet to work on an unannounced project at the Guild Wars studio. He then moved to Bungie to become a senior writer on Destiny 2 before shifting to 343 in 2019 to work on Halo Infinite.
As for Halo Infinite, the game's Winter Contingency multiplayer event is going on now.