Halo, Gears of War, and Forza, are Xbox’s biggest and most iconic franchises. The trio are synonymous with the brand. So while Xbox has become far more open to porting some of its “other” exclusives to PlayStation, this trinity is supposed to be off-limits. But, the recent developments suggest otherwise.
Microsoft recently confirmed its plans for the franchise ahead of the final match at the 2024 Halo World Championship on Sunday in a video titled “A New Dawn.” In the video, which offers a glimpse into the future of Halo with test footage, 343 Industries reveals that it’s reorganizing itself into Halo Studios with “multiple” new games in development, all of which will use Unreal Engine 5.
This is excellent news and all following the largely disappointing performance of Halo Infinite—it was initially delayed by over a year and is still missing plenty of promised features, including split-screen co-op—but one expert believes that this is a precursor to a historical if potentially debilitating move for the Xbox brand.
According to Digital Foundry chief Richard Leadbetter (via Eurogamer), switching to Unreal Engine 5 makes for “easier” multi-platform development than porting across the existing Slipspace engine, saying “an engine designed for deployment across multiple platforms would be easier to work with than existing technology build for Xbox and PC.”
While more and more games today are using Unreal Engine, many long-standing franchises continue to use proprietary engines. Halo was one of them. Since 2001 with Halo Combat: Evolved, Bungie and later on, 343 Industries, has consistently refined the Blam! engine before eventually switching to the Slipspace Engine for Halo Infinite in 2021. Considering that the Slipspace Engine likely took considerable resources to make, most expected 343 Industries to continue using it for future Halo entries, but apparently that’s no longer the case.
It’s worth noting that this is 100% speculation, even if it comes from a trustworthy source. But the logic behind the move does make sense.
Making video games costs much more than ever, and getting them out to market takes longer. Unlike years ago when you could make a AAA title in a year or two, the development of today’s best-selling titles takes place across several years and there’s no guarantee they’ll ever succeed. Both Microsoft and Sony are aware of this after commercial and critical duds like Redfall and Concord, respectively. The latter, in particular, took over seven years and cost $400 million to make, which is an absurd amount of money for a game that faced closure just weeks into its launch.
As much as it hurts long-time fans of the Xbox brand, giving one of its best-selling franchises a chance to expand on other platforms with the move to Unreal Engine 5 proves that Microsoft is going the publisher route, and it isn’t the worst idea. There just isn’t any reason today for Microsoft to turn down potentially the chance to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of copies to customers on the PlayStation 5 and possibly even the Nintendo Switch 2. Not to mention, we no longer live in the 2000s. The console wars have long been over, and Microsoft even said so themselves.
However, Halo Studios was quick to note that “a new Halo game isn’t imminent,” so don’t expect to see the next Halo hit PlayStation anytime soon.
The best-case scenario here is that Microsoft will test the waters by porting over Halo: The Master Chief Collection to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. It’d be a lot of work for potentially little profit, but it’s the best way to test the waters as it would allow Halo Studios to buy more time to work on the next Halo game. This would mirror Konami’s strategy so far with Metal Gear after releasing Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater set to come out next year—on a similar note, Konami’s remake of Silent Hill 2 is doing extremely well among critics and Early Access players.
But it’s possible the phrasing meant a “new” Halo game isn’t in the works. Instead, Halo Studios may be working on a remake, starting with Halo: Combat Evolved.
Either way, it’s an exciting time to be a Halo fan. At the very least, if Halo Studios is remaking Halo from the ground up, it can guarantee that they’ll at least match the classic “Halo feel” of the gameplay and have the vision and cohesion of the earlier titles.
