Metal Gear Solid producer defects to Halo (News)

Blake Snow, GamePro

02/10/2008 08:57:00

Former Konami assistant producer Ryan Payton has jumped ship as a de factor second-party developer for Sony, working now as a first-party director on the Halo series for Microsoft.

The previously rumored news was confirmed Wednesday by Edge Online in an interview with Microsoft Game Studio head Phil Spencer and a separate company representative.

"Microsoft Game Studios is thrilled to have such talented people working to develop new and exciting projects within the Halo universe and supporting existing projects from studios like Bungie and Ensemble," Spencer said, speaking of Payton and a handful of other recently acquired talent.

Payton formerly worked as an assistant producer for Kojima Productions, helping to develop both Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Online for PlayStation 3. He abruptly left the studio in August due to issues related to his family living in Washington state, where Microsoft is headquartered.

While Microsoft declined to tell Edge which of the four rumored Halo games Payton might be working on, a representative confirmed that Bungie would be making a major announcement at the Tokyo Game Show next week, related to the new Halo 3 campaign expansion.