Halo Studios replaces 343 for new Halo games in Unreal Engine 

343 Industries is no more, replaced by the newly-branded Halo Studios. As the developer of Microsoft’s flagship gaming series moves into the future, a new brand is needed for the creation of multiple new Halo games. 

After more than a decade of mixed reception, the 343 Industries moniker has been laid to rest. Named after the iconic villain of Combat Evolved, the studio has rebranded as Halo Studios for the development of the series’ next era. 

Multiple Halo games announced 

Revealed at the end of the Halo Championship Series 2024, the newly-branded development studio confirmed that multiple games are in development, all created in Unreal Engine 5. 

While not confirmed, a video of tech demos for recreating the look and feel of the FPS series in Unreal heavily suggests a remake of the 2001 original Combat Evolved. 

Tech demo footage of protagonist Master Chief in his Mark V armour for the original game was shown in exquisite detail alongside Flood-infected biomes, snow biomes and gorgeous forest scenes. All of this was created for a project dubbed “Foundry” which gave the studio time to properly determine what Halo in Unreal Engine could be. 

“We’ve intentionally been really quiet up to this point, but I think [today] is about just sharing where we are, what our priorities are as a studio, and where the team is. We’re really proud of what came out of Foundry,” the studio said. 

A new engine for a new era 

The often-maligned Halo Infinite was a fantastic game and its Slipspace Engine was carefully designed to bring the open-world game to old and new harder alike. However, with the engine’s proprietary nature, the on-boarding of new talent — or Microsoft’s penchant for contractors — sadly stunted development. 

This has sadly affected the live-service nature of Infinite with finally set to receive some new weapons almost three years after launch. While the core gameplay is sublime, its post-launch support has been mixed.

With the new era of Halo, the move to Unreal Engine should help the studio create games more efficiently as its no longer developing an engine as well as a new game. 

“It’s not just about how long it takes to bring a game to market, but how long it takes for us to update the game, bring new content to players, adapt to what we’re seeing our players want,” the studio explained. “Part of that is [in how we build the game], but another part is the recruiting. How long does it take to ramp somebody up to be able to actually create assets that show up in your game?”

There is still no announcement on what the next game in the series will be, but the franchise doesn’t appear to be heading towards a full reboot. With new books set just before the events of Infinite, the awesome story of Halo’s universe is still ongoing.