Halo has changed forever, and 343 Industries is no more as the franchise moves into Unreal Engine 5 with incredible next-gen visuals.
Today, one of Xbox's biggest studios made a surprise announcement; 343 Industries has changed its name to Halo Studios, and Halo is now moving to Unreal Engine 5. There's also multiple new Halo games in development, potentially hinting at a mainline sequel and perhaps some sort of cross-platform F2P multiplayer release that could bridge PC, Xbox, and maybe even PlayStation.
While the Tatanka battle royale mode has been cancelled, Halo Studios did just announce a third-person mode for Halo Infinite, and we have to wonder if Certain Affinity is helping Halo Studios on their new UE5 projects.
Halo Studios execs had some interesting things to say about what's next for the fan-favorite shooter franchise:
"Since we made the change to bring Halo to UE, we can bring Halo forward in ways that people have never seen before while still being true to what Halo is," said Halo Studios chief operating officer Elizabeth Van Wyck.
"We are excited not to just be working on multiple projects, but also expanding our studio.
"There's so much momentum we have right now, and focus and clarity on not just what we're building, but why we're building, and kind of this next phase of Halo."
Halo certainly dazzles in Unreal Engine 5, and the Halo Studios team has certainly been cooking up some incredible things behind the scenes.
"Unreal affords its with more opportunity than we've ever had in the past," said studio art director Chris Matthews.
"Halo Infinite was the last remnants of how we made Halo games in the past. That was our recipe. And what we're doing right now is changing our recipe,"VP and studio head Pierre Hintze said.
Halo Studios is now actively recruiting across multiple disciplines for their next-gen Halo games.