As a long-time Halo fan who’s witnessed the ebb and flow of this iconic franchise, I must say that the recent shift towards Unreal Engine 5 by Halo Studios has given me a glimmer of hope that’s been missing for quite some time. The focus on game development over engine maintenance is music to my ears, as it could very well mean an end to the agonizing wait for content updates we’ve endured with past releases like Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Infinite.
2024 saw a significant Xbox announcement during the Halo World Championship 2024 esports event on Sunday night. Halo developer 343 Industries unveiled their rebrand to “Halo Studios” and a move towards using Unreal Engine 5, marking the end of the Slipspace Engine created for 2021’s Halo Infinite. It was soon confirmed that all future Halo games will be constructed using Epic Games’ technology suite, with this tech stack already serving as the base for several active projects in development.
The news was delivered in a seven-minute long studio update trailer the developers labelled “A New Dawn,” in which various members of the Halo Studios team presented Project Foundry — a tech demo built internally to showcase what many of Halo’s classic designs and environments might look like in an Unreal Engine 5 game. What has me truly happy about this switch, though, aren’t pretty graphics; instead, it’s the stated goal of helping “the team focus on making games, versus making the tools and the engines.”
In a discussion on Xbox Wire, key members from Halo Studios highlighted that some aspects of Slipspace have been around for nearly 25 years. They also mentioned that a significant part of their team was dedicated to maintaining and updating the engine. This aligns with what was previously reported about Slipspace last year. By transitioning to Epic’s more contemporary engine, developers aim to optimize their resources and improve their development process, addressing issues such as slow updates, adding fresh content for players, and adapting to the preferences of their audience.
Reading those words has given me the first bit of optimism I’ve felt for Xbox’s flagship franchise in a long time, as I’d argue the biggest reason why Halo Infinite failed to generate long-term player interest is because it was bereft of an adequate content suite for well over a year. Compared to previous Halo releases that launched feature-complete and gave fans plenty of ways to play out of the gate, Halo Infinite’s paltry collection of playlists were frustratingly meager, and even beloved modes like Infection, Firefight, and the critically important mapmaking tool Forge didn’t come until late 2022 or beyond.
It’s my hope that with Unreal Engine 5, Halo Studios will be able to develop future experiences far more efficiently, hopefully ensuring that we’re never left with another Halo 5: Guardians or Halo Infinite situation where a Halo game releases with scant offerings and only gets a full content spread months or years later. I’m also looking forward to seeing how “aspects of Unreal” that “would have taken huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate” in Slipspace, such as the engine’s impressive rendering and lighting tech, will influence future iterations of Halo’s worlds.
One thing I’m definitely iffy about in the wake of Halo Infinite’s rocky development is the studio’s decision to start working on multiple projects, but again, the Unreal shift — along with multiple recent leadership changes — gives me a reason to temper my skepticism. The use “of the industry-leading engine” should certainly make onboarding new developers, growing the team, and hiring contractors for outside help easier (Halo Studios has multiple positions open), though just last year, it was hit particularly hard by Microsoft layoffs.
In essence, we can’t determine if this “new era” for Halo will be successful until we have the outcomes of Halo Studios’ work, which won’t be available for quite some time since a new Halo game isn’t expected soon. However, I believe that Halo could greatly benefit from a significant change and a comprehensive restructuring in its development process, and it’s reassuring to see this happening.
For the upcoming installments of the iconic sci-fi franchise, gameplay will be available via Xbox Game Pass, just like all of Microsoft’s original games. Currently, you can play the single-player campaign of Halo Infinite and the Master Chief Collection, which includes all previous Halo games upgraded for modern gaming, through this all-inclusive subscription service.
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2024-10-07 05:39