by The future of Halo is starting to come into focus. During Sunday’s Halo World Championships, 343 Industries made a number of announcements, including that it will officially change its name to Halo Studios and is working on several new games. Additionally, the new studio says that all future projects will be developed on Unreal Engine, leaving Halo Infinite’s Slipspace Engine behind.
The announcements were revealed in a seven-minute video shown ahead of the Halo World Championship grand final, which showcased the results of Project Foundry – an experimental project designed to showcase a Halo game that has been built using the Unreal Engine. While it’s little more than a tech demo, it offers a glimpse of a new beginning for Xbox’s flagship franchise in the wake of 2021’s Halo Infinite.
It’s a huge change for the Halo series, not least because of the resources put into the Slipspace Engine over the course of development. The studio, formerly known as 343 Industries, notoriously struggled with the Slipspace engine during the development of Halo Infinite, in part because it used tools dating back to the early 2000s. Still, it was expected to serve as a foundation after Halo Infinite for the series.
“Respectfully, some of the components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old,” said art director Chris Matthews in an interview with Xbox Wire. “Although 343 has been continuously developing it, there are aspects of Unreal that Epic has been developing for a while that are not available to us in Slipspace – and that would have taken enormous amounts of time and resources to try to replicate. ”
A report from early 2023 suggested that Halo’s developers were ready to hit the reset button on the series after a major shake-up within the studio, including the move to the Unreal Engine. The report also said that Halo developers focused on pitching new Halo games while prototyping ideas. Project Foundry appears to be the culmination of that effort.
The newly renamed Halo Studios is in turn trying to move forward under the leadership of Pierre Hintze, Elizabeth Van Wyck and Brian Koski, with the studio now working on several new games. The three stepped into top roles at the studio following the departure of studio GM Bonnie Ross in 2022, with series veteran Joseph Staten leaving Xbox in 2023. The new name and engine follows Xbox saying earlier this year that it is “full steam ahead.” on a next-generation successor to the Xbox Series X|S.
“We had a disproportionate focus on creating the conditions to be successful in operating Halo Infinite,” says Hintze. “[But switching to Unreal] allows us to put all our focus on creating multiple new experiences with the highest possible quality.”
The projects will be “done when they’re done,” Halo Studios says. For now, stay tuned for lots more analysis on IGN and Podcast Unlocked.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director and co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Do you have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
