Halo's cancelled battle royale detailed in new report

343 Industries was originally experimenting with a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite, but those plans have apparently been scrapped. Now we have even more information on the kinds of things the studio was planning to put into Halo BR.

Back in 2022, it was reported that 343i was working with longtime partner Certain Affinity on a battle royale release for Halo Infinite. It was called Tatanka, and it was said to be a huge sprawling game type that would break new ground for the franchise.

Sources close to the Halo team have told Rebs Gaming more details about what happened. According to the reports, the mode was cancelled internally following Bonnie Ross' departure from 343 Industries. When Pierre Hintze took over, Tatanka became Project Ekhert, but this iteration was also cancelled so that 343 could focus principally on the next mainline Halo game.

The reality is that 343 couldn't create nor support Tatanka on its own, hence the apparent involved of Certain Affinity.

"Tatanka's development was not done by any means. 343 didn't have the resources to make it competitive with established battle royale games. There's no way 343 could've pumped enough content for Tatanka," a source told Rebs Gaming.

The YouTuber also shared the following details on Twitter:

• Tied into Joe Staten's campaign narrative
• 343 held internal play tests for Tatanka on a weekly basis
• Players started in a loading bay and dropped into the map in ODST drop pods
• The map took place on fragments of the Zeta Halo ring, each fragment had different biomes with man cannons to launch players to other fragments
• Mini objectives rewarded players with power item, equipment and partial shields
• Downed players turned into an AI bubble that came move around and be revived
• Pelicans dropped off vehicles including the Falcon
• Tatanka was rebranded to Project Ekhert after new leadership took over
• According to former developers, Tatanka/Ekhert was canceled in summer 2023 so 343 could focus on the next Halo game.