After a long wave of speculation, Xbox has decided to take drastic measures to ensure the fate of Halo. The legendary franchise will now be developed with Unreal Engine 5 from Epic Games as its graphics engine, marking the most significant technical advancement in the saga’s history.
Microsoft has also confirmed that 343 Industries will continue to be in charge of the franchise, although from now on, they will be called Halo Studios. However, they assure that this new strategy goes beyond a simple image renewal, indicating a deep change in the company’s culture, organization, and workflow.
The announcement regarding the changes in Halo comes at a critical moment for the saga. It is worth remembering that 343 faced harsh criticism after the launch of Halo Infinite at the end of 2021. Despite the initially good reviews of the campaign, the team’s inability to follow the content schedule and the lack of new features in the multiplayer mode during its first year quickly generated a change towards negative opinions.
During the crisis over Halo Infinite, 343 Industries saw the departure of Bonnie Ross, its founder and leader for 15 years, as well as layoffs at the beginning of 2023 that affected key figures such as Joe Staten, who had returned to the company to “rescue” the game, among others.
With the support of Unreal Engine 5 and significant internal changes for the future, Halo Studios aims to correct the course of one of Xbox’s most iconic properties. Those who wish to experience the first title under the new Epic Games technology will have to be patient, as no release dates have been set for the first game developed with UE5, suggesting a wait of several years for its materialization.
Unreal Engine 5 will be the savior of Halo
Halo Studios has shared some images and a video with clips from the Halo world developed with Unreal Engine 5. This content does not correspond to a specific game, but to an initiative called Project Foundry, which has served to evaluate the technology and visualize how future games will look with this engine.
According to Halo Studios, the new approach of the studio represents “a new dawn” for the Master Chief saga. Moving to Unreal Engine 5 will mean leaving behind the Slipspace engine, which is considered to be the source of many technical problems for the franchise in recent years.
The creatives behind Halo acknowledge that Slipspace is an outdated technology, and that the studio has had to invest a lot of time and effort in optimizing it for recent releases. With Unreal Engine 5, the company hopes to take advantage of a robust and widely adopted graphics engine. Games like Avowed, Black Myth: Wukong, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Palworld, Gears of War: E-Day, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, the remake of Silent Hill 2, and Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater are just a few examples to consider.
“With respect, some components of Slipspace date back almost 25 years. […] There are aspects of Unreal that Epic has developed over time that are not available to us in Slipspace. We would have needed an enormous amount of time and resources to try to replicate them”, said Chris Matthews, art director of Halo Studios.
The first rumors about Halo’s transition to Unreal Engine started circulating in 2022, and intensified in 2023. However, it wasn’t until now that Microsoft has publicly confirmed this information. There were even speculations about the possibility of the franchise being transferred from 343 Industries to other studios.
The future beyond Infinite
A benefit of adopting Unreal Engine 5 for future Halo titles is the ease of recruiting developers familiar with the platform. Halo Studios assures that they have multiple new games in development for the saga, stating that the announced changes will allow them to recalibrate their efforts after focusing mainly on Halo Infinite in recent times.
Despite this, the company notes its intention to continue supporting Halo Infinite and the Slipspace engine, without mentioning a specific end date for this support. Pierre Hintze, leader of Halo Studios, expresses his desire to focus on future deliveries under a “less talk, more action” approach, i.e., reducing promises and concentrating on fulfilling them.
“One of the things we wanted to abandon was the constant emphasis on possibilities and what’s “essential”. We need to do more and talk less. I firmly believe that it is crucial to maintain our current attitude towards our franchise: a level of humility, a level of service towards Halo fans”, he stated.
credits for the images of this post: Hipertextual.com
