Next Halo game is reportedly in development on Unreal Engine 5 at 343 Industries

[John Elden Ring]

343 Industries has a dedicated team working on the next Halo game's campaign, new reports indicate.

These assertions match up with reports from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier from early 2023, which discussed how 343 Industries was hit particularly hard by the recent Microsoft layoffs. 343i had restructured its business following the departure of studio founder Bonnie Ross, with Master Chief Collection head Pierre Hintze taking over for Ross. The studio had outright eliminated some roles while also making layoffs and letting people go in the process.

Do I have any info on the Halo campaign? The short answer is nothing specific. What I can say, what I know anyway, is that yes, they do have a team working on the next Halo campaign. It is part of the restructure that is building the next generation of Halo on Unreal,

Ains said in the SG Bitcast 269 podcast.

I don't know--if I'm a betting man, I think I told a friend the other day that the earliest I would expect to see another Halo singleplayer campaign outside of Firefight and stuff they're doing in Infinite, is a couple years. It's going to be a while so don't hold your breath."

The next big Halo project is a unique mash-up that's codenamed Tatanka, possibly referring to the Lakota word for buffalo. Tatanka is being co-developed by Certain Affinity, a studio that has worked on Halo for quite some time, and is reportedly a mix of battle royale and extraction shooter.

 

[Vertigo]

It’s named Tatanka after Tatanka the wrestler as far as I know.

Guaranteed that this will repeat the cycle as they will struggle with UE5 just like everyone else. And knowing their pedigree is trash… expect shit tier results worse than what you’d expect from any other amateur hour dev…

343 is a bad joke. Shut em down

 

[flaccidsnake]

This has potential to be the last Halo game.

 

[reziel]

This has potential to be the last Halo game.

As it should be it last it's flavour after Bungie left. I wouldn't be surprised if it's transferred to Activision though.

 

[Zzero]

Buh, buh, buh Infinite was going to last a decade, guys?

 

[Vertigo]

Buh, buh, buh Infinite was going to last a decade, guys?

Xbox quit on the project too easily. I talk a lot of shit about it but they should’ve stayed the course and try to fend off the onslaught of new tentpole releases and GaaS flops. Yearly campaigns would’ve done plenty. I guess expectations were way too high for arena PvP. That era is over.

A big part of making a live service work is to actually just to keep going.

Actual narrative driven halo game probably 5 years away. Tatanka is a PvP spin off (that’ll do better than infinite cuz BR). I have no doubts that 343 will fumble Unreal Engine 5 development. Creative Assembly who knows…

The Activision teams that worked on Destiny with Bungie are those best geared for Halo at the moment (Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios [Raven Software for helping tune game and engine for pc]). From both engine experience and gameplay design aspects and expected content delivery. Too bad they’re all working on CoD…

PS - engine change pretty much guarantees next halo won’t move, shoot or feel like halo. I’d be upset if I was still a fan but real Halo ended perfectly and I’m fine with it.

 

[Snes nes]

This has potential to be the last Halo game.

Sucks to hear but probably true. It was talked about quite a bit when the og Xbox was around.

 

[flaccidsnake]

As it should be it last it's flavour after Bungie left. I wouldn't be surprised if it's transferred to Activision though.

If I was running MS, I would commission Halo prototypes from Id, Machine Games, and Raven. 343 never made a great one, but they're still carrying on as if it's the 360 era. Halo needs its God of War 2018, and 343 doesn't have the sauce to make it. Fuck, I'd be curious to see The Coalition make it.

 

[ethomaz]

Goodbye gunplay…
And performance.

 

[Arc]

I guess I’m being a bit facetious, but I’m serious too.

I liked Infinite. It’s like the kid in class that has been failing forever, but did something respectable last time out. It was at least good, and felt like Halo, which are some incredibly minimal standards, but after 4 and 5, that’s where we’re at.

To an extent, I’m surprised Infinite unspooled as badly as it did. On launch, most felt… similarly? Then came the delays for multiplayer content which weren’t alarmingly different than Halos of the past, but paled in the age of the Fortnite F2P shooter with weekly content, and everything just went to hell, PR and reception wise, from there.

I’m surprised it’s this game that finally got a bunch of untouchable 343 devs fired, but I suppose if you look at the budget and ambition for the game, the development disaster, and what ultimately resulted… yeah. It even ended up hurting the Series consoles by missing launch.

But we’re here now. To the point of the gif, now is the time for 343 and Microsoft to organize and figure out what went wrong, to rebuild the team and management (something Microsoft seems to struggle with) in the right ways. We don’t need a Halo for a long time, its brand power is so diminished, so take that time to give it a long rest, and figure out behind the scenes what to do.

But even that’s the optimistic take. It’s probably just time that Halo joined the league of forgotten mega franchises crashed and burned by people who didn’t understand them, or have what it takes as a plurality. Even already it just exists as some good memories, and a great MCC GamePass playthrough. Maybe stop sullying the memory and let it be.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Saw this and didn't even post once I saw 343 wasn't worth taking up the internet space.

 

[Johnic]

Why? The same studio that failed to deliver, what, 3 times now? This guy comes to mind.