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Microsoft recently announced its intention to lay off more than 10,000 employees due to the unstable situation in the economy. It is known that the studio 343 Industries, which is the developer of the games of the Halo franchise, has lost at least 95 people. But according to studio head Pierre Hintze, fans shouldn’t worry about the future of Halo.
Insiders confirm that the Halo franchise will remain in the hands of 343 Industries, however, the studio will be reorganized. In particular, it was decided to abandon the 343 Slipspace engine, which the developers call “buggy and difficult to use”, since it is based on the code of the 1990s and 2000s era. It was the Slipspace engine that caused problems with the development of multiplayer modes such as Extraction and Assault.
Instead of Slipspace, the studio will use the popular Unreal Engine. It is reported that the decision to move to another engine was made after the studio left the head of Bonnie Ross (Bonnie Ross) and head of development David Berger (David Berger). The first project on the Unreal Engine will be a game codenamed Project Tatanka. It was previously speculated to be the battle royale mode in Halo Infinite, which is being developed in conjunction with Certain Affinity.
Windows Central sources confirm the information about the transition to Unreal Engine. There was a fierce fight within the studio over the changes, with one camp of developers pushing for a move, while another argued that Halo should stay on Slipspace. Interestingly, the development teams were limited to completely different non-disclosure agreements (NDA), which prevented normal communication within the studio.
According to unconfirmed reports, 343 Industries has a prototype of the Forge Mode map editor in Unreal Engine. It is also known that the assembly of Project Tatanka on the Slipspace engine has not been updated since December, which indirectly confirms the information about the transition to the Unreal Engine.
Development of story content for Halo Infinite has also been halted, so there is no need to wait for new campaign chapters at this time. For now, 343 Industries will focus on creating multiplayer content. Microsoft has no plans to close Halo Infinite before the release of Project Tatanka, which means the game will continue to receive scheduled updates, including Season 3: Echoes Within on March 7th.
