Over the final couple of years, 343 Industries’ struggles with the Halo IP reached a boiling level, leading to a spherical of layoffs on the studio this yr. At this level, a lot of these in management positions throughout Halo Infinite’s growth have moved on and just below 100 staff have been let go. The studio will proceed to be answerable for Halo, however its future is now unsure.
While Halo Infinite was alleged to be a ‘new place to begin’ for the franchise, ushering in ‘the following ten years of Halo’, 343 appears to now be reducing its losses and shifting on to new initiatives. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, 343 is now beginning over once more with a shift over to Unreal Engine.
While Halo Infinite was initially introduced as utilizing a brand new, purpose-built engine known as ‘Slipspace’, this set of instruments was primarily a closely modified model of the legacy Halo engine, which led to plenty of points throughout growth, in the end leading to expensive delays to the sport. Moving ahead, the report claims that future Halo video games can be developed with Unreal Engine as a substitute, beginning off with an upcoming Battle Royale spin-off codenamed ‘Tatanka’.
We’ve heard of Tatanka earlier than, nevertheless it was beforehand billed as a Battle Royale mode for Halo Infinite. This new report means that Tatanka will truly be a separate entity, though it’s nonetheless being co-developed with Certain Affinity. Apparently, the choice to maneuver over to Unreal Engine was made in late 2022, forward of January’s studio cuts.
If you have been nonetheless hoping for brand new Halo Infinite marketing campaign content material, then there’s extra dangerous information on that entrance. The report goes on to verify that the marketing campaign workforce has primarily been gutted and whereas earlier messaging from 343 had led followers to imagine that marketing campaign expansions could possibly be on the horizon, no further single-player content material for Infinite was ever actively within the works.
KitGuru Says: I used to be an enormous fan of Halo Infinite’s marketing campaign and the ending had me wanting ahead to future content material. Unfortunately, the lingering questions left over from that recreation could by no means be answered, because it appears Halo is heading in direction of one other delicate reboot.
