343 Industries Is Now Halo Studios As Game Development Shifts To Unreal Engine 5

Microsoft is betting on some new changes to take its fabled Halo franchise into its next chapter. The tech giant revealed the new changes at the 2024 Halo World Championship, announcing a new game engine, new games, new philosophy, and a new studio name, Halo Studios.

Back in early 2023, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer made the hard announcement concerning layoffs across the company, with some of the most difficult coming at the expense of the studio responsible for Halo, 343 Industries. Even with the layoffs, Spencer expressed the importance of the studio as being “critically important” to the success of Halo. Fast track ahead through several Halo Infinite patches, and Microsoft says it is taking the iconic game and studio into a new dawn.

“If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters,” remarked Studio Head Pierre Hintze. “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.” Hintze added, “So, we start a new chapter today.”

Perhaps the biggest of the changes will be switching from the studio’s proprietary Slipspace Engine to Unreal Engine 5. By moving away from Slipspace, the company can focus more staff on producing better quality games at a faster pace, according to Hintze.

“The way we made Halo games before doesn’t necessarily work as well for the way we want to make games for the future,” explained COO Elizabeth van Wyck. “So part of the conversation we had was about how we help the team focus on making games, versus making the tools and the engines.”

The team also wants the next games to come out of Halo Studios to “look, feel, and sound right.” So, they began experimenting, and the result was a research project known as Project Foundry, the source for the clips created in the trailer video above. While the clips are not from a new game, the team made it clear it is “a true reflection” of what would be required for a new Halo game using the Unreal 5 engine.

Hintze explained, “It’s fair to say that our intent is that the majority of what we showcased in Foundry is expected to be in projects we are building, or future projects.”

As for the future of Halo Studios, Hintze put it simply as, “We want a singular focus. Everyone is in this place is here to make the best possible Halo games.”