There’s no question that the Halo franchise has been in a bit of a slump in recent times with Infinite not quite living up to the expectations many had been hoping for.
However, with this being said, the game is still being supported three years after release with new events and even a third-person mode entering the fray.
But, fans are hungry for more Halo content and the huge announcement that came out of the 2024 Halo World Championship final might be just the ticket.
This reveal was a real head-turner since not only was there a suggestion that “multiple” Halo games are on the way, 343 Industries has now become Halo Studios, and will be using Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 as its engine of choice moving forward.
As you’d expect, there’s a lot to unpack here, and is potentially biggest mix-up for the franchise since it changed hands from Bungie to 343 way back in 2010.
Looking initially at Halo Studios, this is essentially just a rebranded 343 Industries but one that will have “changes in culture, workflow, and how its teams are organized”. This will hopefully make things a little more streamlined moving forward as there has been a suggestion that the 343 of old has been less than impressive, not to mention the various leadership changes.
Unreal Engine 5 is obviously a huge moment that goes hand in hand with internal structure change too since parts of the Slipspace Engine are “almost 25 years old”, requiring “huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate” the tools that Epic’s engine has.
This new revitalized way of development within Halo Studios will enable the team to “bring new content to players, adapt to what [they’re] seeing [their] players want”. This means instead of the old model of seeing trends and trying to make functions in Slipspace to adapt, UE5 can almost do it all right out of the box.
The ‘new’ studio is hard at work creating those new aforementioned games and “Project Foundry” that you can see in the above dev interview, is only the beginning in what is possible moving forward.
All in all, this is all positive news for the Halo franchise now and in the future. If each of the transitions are smooth, expect to see more Halo games with faster development cycles, prettier visuals, and even more features.
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