Halo's 2024 Halo World Championship saw an unexpected announcement. 343 Industries is no more. The studio, which has been responsible for the Halo franchise since 2011, has now rebranded itself to simply — Halo Studios.
The announcement, which was accompanied by a longer documentary-style video, also revealed that the Slipspace Engine is also no more. Future Halo games will be running on Unreal Engine 5. And yes, games, because "multiple" games are seemingly in development.
According to Halo Studios, it's a new chapter. "If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters," studio head Pierre Hintze said. "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."
The past few weeks have me doubting whether Xbox's golden goose is really all that.
The accompanying video had various screens of Master Chief and the Covenant, all of which were created in Unreal. That's the type of potential that the long-running franchise has in Unreal instead of Slipspace Engine. More...