It’s the dawn of a new era for Halo. During the Halo World Championships, held from 4 to 6 October 2024, 343 Industries announced plans for the franchise’s future, including its rebranding as Halo Studios and shifting all future titles to Unreal Engine 5.
During a six-minute clip shown before the championship’s grand finals, the studio unveiled Project Foundry, a tech demo showcasing a Halo game built in Unreal Engine 5. Check out the all-new look for Halo below:
The new graphics engine marks a shift away from the studio’s in-house Slipspace Engine, which was created for 2021’s Halo Infinite, the latest game in the franchise. The engine reportedly caused problems for the studio during the game’s development, largely because it used remnants of the outdated 2001 Blam engine.
Further issues were also presented during its unveiling at E3 2018 (rest in peace), and 2020’s Xbox Box Games Showcase, where it drew criticism from fans for having several issues including Level Of Detail (LOD) pop-in, poor shadow contrast, and a disappointing overall lack of detail.
During an interview with Xbox Wire, art director Chris Matthews admitted how “some components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old”, and that there are some aspects of the Unreal Engine 5 “which are unavailable to [the team] in Slipspace – and would have taken huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate.”
Halo Studios will operate under the leadership of Pierre Hintze and Elizabeth Van Wyck, who joined after the departure of then-General Manager Bonnie Ross in 2022, and series veteran Joseph Staten in 2023.
It seems to be full steam ahead for the newly re-branded Halo Studios, who have also announced multiple new games to come. This is largely due to the shift to Unreal Engine 5, which according to Hintze, allows the team to “put all the focus on making multiple new experiences at the highest quality possible.”
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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