343 Industries, developer of the Halo series, has confirmed it is working on multiple new games for the franchise under a new name: Halo Studios.
In a surprise announcement last night, the freshly-rebranded Halo Studios debuted a first look at Project Foundry – its experimental look at how the Xbox flagship franchise will look developed in Unreal Engine 5.
All Halo games from here on out will use UE5, Halo Studios confirmed, ditching its own proprietary Slipspace Engine it toiled on for years.
Project Foundry is not a new game per se, more an advanced tech demo. Still, in a six-minute video and accompanying Xbox Wire blog post, it is made clear that the quality on show is supposed to be fully representative of what an Unreal Engine 5 Halo game could look like – and indeed, parts of Project Foundry could pop up in future projects.
“It’s fair to say that our intent is that the majority of what we showcased in Foundry is expected to be in projects which we are building, or future projects,” Halo Studios boss Pierre Hintze said.
Project Foundry includes a slice of Halo’s classic Pacific Northwest setting, stuffed full of trees and detail, and our first look at Master Chief himself battling a pair of Covenant Elites. Other areas that have been modelled include the Coldlands, a new and frozen location, and the Blightlands, a gooey, disturbing setting that has been taken over by Halo’s Flood.
“The first Halo redefined console gaming in 2001, and over the generations Halo has pushed the state of the art forward with amazing gameplay, story, and music,” said Tim Sweeney, boss of Unreal Engine maker Epic Games. “Epic is honoured that the Halo Studios team has chosen our tools to help with their future work!”
Halo Studios’ wholesale move to Unreal Engine is not unexpected. Back in early February 2023, it was reported that the then-343 Industries was ditching Slipspace for Epic’s ubiquitous game tools, after Halo Infinite did not meet expectations, staff layoffs, and following similar switches by CD Projekt Red for the next Witcher game, and Crystal Dynamics for Tomb Raider.
Ditching the studio’s own Slipspace Engine means adopting an industry-wide standard, which should speed up hiring and onboarding (and Halo Studios’ announcement now is at least in part to encourage recruitment). But it is also the company turning the page on the development of Halo Infinite, which is widely seen as having not met Microsoft’s expectations.
“Respectfully, some components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old,” studio art director Chris Matthews said.
“We had a disproportionate focus on trying to create the conditions to be successful in servicing Halo Infinite,” said Hintze. “[But switching to Unreal] allows us to put all the focus on making multiple new experiences at the highest quality possible.”
So, when will these new Halo games materialise? Not just yet, it sounds like.
“We should talk about things when we have things to talk about, at scale,” Hintze said. “Today, it’s the first step – we’re showing Foundry because it feels right to do so – we want to explain our plans to Halo fans, and attract new, passionate developers to our team. The next step will be talking about the games themselves.”