"It was best-in-class. That's what Halo was...that's what Halo needs to be again." 343 Industries rebrands, confirms franchise is moving to Unreal Engine 5.

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One of Xbox's developers is rebranding, while taking steps to bring Halo into a new era of Unreal Engine 5.

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Project Foundry is Halo Studios' work at bringing the franchise into Unreal Engine 5. (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

What you need to know

  • During the Halo World Championship 2024, Xbox Game Studios' Halo developer 343 Industries shared a big studio update.
  • Studio head Pierre Hintze shared that the team is officially moving to Unreal Engine 5, with an internal tech demo called Project Foundry exploring what Halo looks and feels like in the new engine.
  • 343 Industries is also rebranding to Halo Studios, with the team ramping up hiring for multiple projects.

There's a big shift coming for Master Chief and company. 

During the Halo World Championship 2024, 343 Industries studio head Pierre Hintze shared some big news for the team, revealing that 343 Industries is rebranding. The team is now being referred to as Halo Studios, with company ramping up hiring for multiple Halo projects. 

Additionally, the Halo franchise is officially moving to Unreal Engine 5, confirming a change first reported over a year ago. You can take a look at the studio's update video below, which shows off Project Foundry, an internal tech demo designed to test bringing Halo to Unreal Engine 5:

A New Dawn | Halo Studios - YouTube A New Dawn | Halo Studios - YouTube
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"The original Halo franchise was a graphics showcase. It was best-in-class. That's what Halo was when it first was released, and that's what Halo needs to be again," explains lead artist Daniel Henley.

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As part of this work, the team at now-Halo Studios is looking to hire across multiple disciplines for multiple Halo games. Work is still early in many respects, and the studio's most recent game, Halo Infinite, will still getting updates and new Operations for the foreseeable future.

“You asked why we consider this as a new chapter,” says Hintze, speaking an interview with Xbox Wire. “We want a singular focus. Everyone is in this place is here to make the best possible Halo games.”

Also speaking to Xbox Wire, art director Chris Matthews notes that portions of the Slipspace engine were decades old. As a result, there are aspects of Unreal Engine 5 that are easily accessible that would've been extremely difficult to recreate using Slipspace.

“Halo is such an incredible franchise and it’s awesome to see Halo Studios already pushing the boundaries of Unreal Engine 5,” said Bill Clifford, vice president and general manager of Unreal Engine at Epic Games. “We’re honored to support the Halo team in realizing their creative visions through Unreal Engine. Project Foundry’s work demonstrates how they can bring Halo to life with beautifully detailed, uncompromised worlds.”

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Samuel Tolbert
Samuel Tolbert
Freelance Writer

Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter @SamuelTolbert.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ShavedMonkey
    The Unreal 5 Engine demos are looking really nice, something l had wondered why the Halo franchise hadn't moved to for the last few generations. My only comment, and one in general for Halo (personal?) is the over saturation and brightens of colors selected (fluorescent greens, blues, purples etc.), if they could just make it look a little more gritty and realistic looking, that would be great.
    Reply
  • fjtorres5591
    ShavedMonkey said:
    The Unreal 5 Engine demos are looking really nice, something l had wondered why the Halo franchise hadn't moved to for the last few generations. My only comment, and one in general for Halo (personal?) is the over saturation and brightens of colors selected (fluorescent greens, blues, purples etc.), if they could just make it look a little more gritty and realistic looking, that would be great.
    Halo's classic look is bright and saturated. Fallout it ain't.
    Hyper realism they leave to others.

    When they talk about preserving the "Halo feel" that is a big part or it. The game themes are about galactic war and the possibility of genocide so the game balances it with antiseptic combat and bright shiny designs. Blood and guts and dark-n-gritty is Fallout and Doom, bright and saturated palettes is HALO and OUTER WORLDS. And since XBOX owns all of the above it lets them serve all markets.

    Different (brush)strokes for different folks, all within the same catalog.

    Preserving each franchise's identity and audience is one of the challenges of managing 40 studios and dozens of IPs, second only to sequencing releases efficiently, giving each game a chance to reach its audience without being cannibalized by another XBOX property.

    Tricky work ahead of them now that they own practically all the seminal shooter franchises from Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake to HALO and Gears and, of course, CALL OF DUTY.
    Reply
  • fjtorres5591
    The move to standard engines is inevitable, and not just for Halo.
    It is an industry-wide trend rooted in economics and efficiency.

    Maintaining a small army of developers working on an inhouse engine only pays off if you're a big publisher and you deploy it across multiple *big* franchises. EA and UBISOFT manage it. ID, TOO. Alternately, the engine needs to be uniquely specialized like BETHESDA's CREATION ENGINE, with its focus on physics and NPCs.

    This isn't to say SLIPSTREAM has no redeeming value but it is a matter of record that the delays and cost overruns of HALO INFINITE were rooted in trying to modernize it. Likewise, the big gap in Bethesda RPG releases owe a lot to the challenges of maintaining and updating their engine. It's saving grace, for now, is that it enables a unique type of game that while it has a very specific audience, it is a big and committed audience that values the replayability and mods the engine enables. For all the FUD and badmouthing STARFIELD gets over its XBOX exclusivity, the game is very much a success both financially and creatively. At this point it is clear large numbers of people will still be playing (and paying) in that sandbox five, ten years from now until a sequel arrives.

    For Halo, the biggest challenges are going to be moving FORGE output and multiplayer to the UE5.x runtime. Non-trivial. But the reward will be getting more regular releases, better aligned to the hardware of the day. Which isn't to say Halo will move to a COD-like annual release cadence but it might not be too much to expect biannual releases on four year cadences of two distinct product lines; say the MASTER CHIEF timeline on one side and ODST or HALO WARS on the other, both alongside the online multiplayer Forge-driven sandbox. Quite doable if the staff numbers devoted to slipstream are applied to game development.

    Halo has been the XBOX's premiere IP for most of its existence.
    It still can be.
    But a revamp was overdue.
    The gaming world is changing and the studios need to adapt to survive.

    Finally, while no games have been announced, it doesn't take much to guess a HALO CE REMASTER is on the table for 2025/26, with a new Master Chief Release for 2028 following.

    What is particularly interesting is the timing of Halo announcements in the past few weeks. A bigger reveal seems to be in the offing.
    Reply