Big news for Halo fans: 343 Industries is becoming Halo Studios and will be using Unreal Engine 5 instead of the old Slipstream Engine for new Halo projects.
While they’re excited about the change, don’t expect new Halo games to drop soon. According to an Xbox blog, this is just the start of their journey. The restructuring will allow them to juggle several projects at once, which is a big shift from how they used to do things.
Halo Studios did give us a sneak peek with something called Project Foundry, which isn’t a game but shows off the cool stuff Unreal Engine 5 can do. In it, you’ll see familiar Halo landscapes, like places that look like the Pacific Northwest and even a world overrun by the Flood. Plus, there’s a detailed scene of Master Chief from Halo: Combat Evolved fighting an Elite, all thanks to the new engine.
Chris Matthews, the art director, explained in the blog that Project Foundry isn’t just a tech demo, but also not quite a game. It’s more like a blueprint for future Halo games, with parts that might even end up in those games.
“Everything we’ve made is built to the kind of standards that we need to build for the future of our games,” Matthews said. “We were very intentional about not stepping into tech demo territory. We built things that we truly believe in, and the content that we’ve built–or at least a good percentage of it–could travel anywhere inside our games in the future if we so desire it.”
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The decision to switch engines aims to better meet what players want. Pierre Hintze mentioned that before, a lot of effort went into maintaining the old engines, which slowed down content creation. With Unreal, they hope to speed up the whole process, says COO Elizabeth Van Wyck.
“It’s not just about how long it takes to bring a game to market, but how long it takes for us to update the game, bring new content to players, adapt to what we’re seeing our players want,” Van Wyck said. “Part of that is [in how we build the game], but another part is the recruiting. How long does it take to ramp somebody up to be able to actually create assets that show up in your game?”
Fans sometimes worry more about what’s next than what’s here.
While visuals are getting a lot of attention, Halo Studios knows there’s more to the game than just pretty graphics. They emphasize the story, the physics, and what it feels like to play as Master Chief.
“The spirit of Halo is more than just the visuals,” Matthews said. “It’s the lore. It’s the physics. Playing as the Chief, you’re this huge tank of a soldier–it’s the way that he moves, feels. We’re all really obsessed about what our players love about Halo. We’re constantly listening to this feedback–and that’s at the core of any initiative like Foundry, or any intention that the studio has about how we move forwards.”
For those still playing Halo Infinite, updates and new content are on the way, even as it’s powered by the Slipspace Engine. Meanwhile, if you’re into tabletop games, look out for Halo: Flashpoint, coming out on October 25.
