Bathrobe Spartan, who has proven reliable regarding the popular series in the past, recently revealed some new information on the franchise's future and its developer.
- In 2023 and 2024 343i internal employees were cut down from around 500 to less than 280.
- The internal 343i communications and marketing teams were cut and now it's directly MS which manages them (some members of the old teams were transferred to the MS ones)
- The reliance on outsourcing increased as MS is not confident in 343 internal developing anymore *ouch*
- So for the next Halo projects 343 will just work on the Concept and Pre-Production phases (along with the "Lore check") while actual Production would be done by other SH, only supervised by 343 (similar to what done with Halo Wars 2 with Creative Assembly)
- 2 new big Halo projects in the works right now (most probably Halo CE Remake and Halo "7"), both in Pre-Production phase and the sooner release not until 2026 at least. One of them, probably Halo "7", will have a much higher players' number MP (so probably including the "Tatanka" MP project legacy made for 100+ players and in the works at Certain Affinity, initially planned for Infinite)
- Only 30% of current 343i is actually developing game contents, while all the rest are project management, producers and business roles
- Budget is now much more controlled by MS (which made new hires slower and more difficult as one of the results)
- Halo Infinite made a lot of money but still didn't meet MS targets for it. Now on "life support" after releasing already contractualized contents with external suppliers, with remaining support on Forge contents only
Halo Series Developer 343 Industries Will Only Supervise Development of Future Entries in the Series
The Halo series developer 343 Industries is reportedly only supervising the development of future entries in the series, which will be outsourced
wccftech.com