Big Halo news today. In the midst of the Halo World Championships 2024, it’s been announced that 343 Industries is no more. The developers that took over from Bungie after Halo: Reach have rebranded as “Halo Studios”.
It was also announced that development has shifted to Unreal Engine 5, moving on from Halo Infinite’s Slipspace Engine. In a newly released video with the Halo Studios team, they revealed some clips in-engine of some of the environments (including a Flood blighted world!) and character models brought to life in UE5.
Exploring these opportunities for Halo in UE5 has been dubbed “Project Foundry” which is described by Halo Studios as “a multi-discipline research project, designed to explore the creative potential of Unreal for the next generation of Halo games”. Project Foundry is not a game in itself.
In the video, the team talk about the visual standards set by the original Halo when it first released, and wanting to achieve that again with the Halo franchise in the future. They also spoke about “multiple projects” which sounds very promising for the franchises future.
Halo Studios is also looking to expand and hire new talent, which makes a change from the recent firings that have been taking place in the industry lately, including formerly named 343 Industries who suffered heavily in recent layoffs.
Speaking of the new era for Halo on Xbox Wire, Studio Head, Pierre Hintze says:
"If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters. Chapter 1 - Bungie. Chapter 2 - 343 Industries. Now, I think we have an audience which is hungry for more. So we're not just going to try improve the efficiency of development, but change the recipe of how we make Halo games. So, we start a new chapter today."
With the new world comes a new philosophy, a new focus, and what seems to be a reignited passion for Halo. Surely the best work we get is when people are passionate about what they’re working, and from the small snippet of what we’ve seen from this announcement certainly paints that picture. They’ve also committed to seeking feedback from players even more so than they have been doing with the likes of the Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite.
It’s great to see some positive news from Halo, and with the ongoing support for Forge from the community, newly announced addition of a 3rd person perspective and the newly revealed Project Foundry, it’ll be exciting to see where the franchise heads.
