Why Halo Studios is Embracing Unreal Engine for Upcoming Games?

Xbox Game Studios has announced that its subsidiary, 343 Industries, will now be known as Halo Studios.

Along with the name change, the studio released a new video on YouTube called “A New Dawn” announcing that all future Halo projects will be developed using Unreal Engine 5. This includes several new Halo games currently in the works.

Earlier this year, rumors surfaced that 343 Industries was planning to shift from its custom Slipspace Engine to Unreal Engine for future Halo games. At the time, Microsoft did not confirm these reports, but now it’s official.

In a statement on Xbox Wire, Halo Studios’ head Pierre Hintze explained the reasoning behind this significant shift. He noted that the Slipspace Engine demanded considerable maintenance and staff resources. His team faced the dual challenge of developing a new game while simultaneously updating the engine.

“We believe that the consumption habits of gamers have changed—the expectations of how fast their content is available,” [However] “On Halo Infinite, we were developing a tech stack that was supposed to set us up for the future, and games at the same time.”

According to Halo Studios’ art director, Chris Matthews, Unreal Engine 5 offers opportunities that Slipspace Engine could not deliver.

“Some components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old. Although 343 were developing it continuously, there are aspects of Unreal that Epic has been developing for some time, which are unavailable to us in Slipspace—and would have taken huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate.”

“One of the primary things we’re interested in is growing and expanding our world so players have more to interact with and more to experience. Nanite and Lumen [Unreal’s rendering and lighting technologies] offer us an opportunity to do that in a way that the industry hasn’t seen before. As artists, it’s incredibly exciting to do that work.”

In terms of what’s next, the studio has already begun experimenting with Unreal Engine 5 through a project called “Project Foundry.”

Matthews explained that Foundry is not a game, but a research project meant to push the boundaries of what Unreal Engine 5 can offer Halo. Inspired by the foundry where Halo rings are born in the game’s lore, this initiative allows the team to experiment and prepare for the next steps in Halo’s development.

The goal was to test the engine’s capabilities across diverse landscapes, from the lush, foliage-filled Pacific Northwest, reminiscent of classic Halo biomes, to the Blightlands, an entirely alien world overrun by the Flood.

“We took the entire creative team and ideated on three locations—something old, something new, and something alien”.

The team’s work with Unreal has already yielded impressive results, with environments that push the visual limits in ways the Slipspace Engine could not.

Ultimately, Hintze summed up the studio’s vision by saying,

“Halo Infinite was the last remnants of how we made Halo games in the past. Now, we’re changing the recipe.”

What’s Next?

While Halo Studios hasn’t shared specific details about the next Halo games, Hintze confirmed that “a new Halo release isn’t imminent“.

Halo Infinite will continue to receive updates through the Slipspace Engine, including additional content and improvements to its Forge mode.

Hintze also expressed a desire to move away from constant teasers and vague promises. He stressed that the studio’s priority is to serve the Halo community with humility and deliver meaningful content when it’s ready.

With rebranding to Halo Studios and moving to Unreal Engine, the studio is now recruiting a new team to work on the new engine. Open positions include roles such as creative director, lead game systems designer, senior technical designer, hard surface artist, technical artist, and senior UX designer. These job listings can be found on Microsoft’s official careers site.

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