343 Industries changes name to Halo Studios, confirms switch to Unreal Engine

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has announced during Sunday’s Halo World Championships that it is undergoing a rebrand. Changing its name to Halo Studios, the company will be switching game engines from the Slipspace Engine used in Halo Infinite, to the more popular Unreal Engine. Following these changes, the studio has confirmed that it will be growing its team as it works on “multiple projects“.

In a blog post titled “A New Dawn“, the company announces that “We are Halo Studios, and a new dawn is breaking as the future of Halo is being built with Unreal Engine 5“. The showcase shows off Project Foundry, which acts as a representation of what Halo can look like in the Unreal Engine. The post also presents a look at “a fresh beginning” for Halo after 2021’s Halo Infinite. Furthermore, the post confirms that the studio is working on multiple projects as part of the “next generation of Halo with Unreal Engine“.

The move from the 343 Industries’ proprietary Slipstream Engine to Unreal Engine is a notable, if not especially surprising, announcement. The decision to jump to Epic Games’ engine is rooted in a need to make development more efficient and to allow the developers to spend more time working on the games themselves as opposed to the tools and engines, according to company COO Elizabeth van Wyck. In an interview with Xbox Wire, she stated that “The way we made Halo games before doesn’t necessarily work as well for the way we want to make games for the future. So part of the conversation we had was about how we help the team focus on making games, versus making the tools and the engines”. A similar strategy can be seen in EA’s jettisoning of its proprietary Frostbite engine in favour of Unreal Engine for the upcoming Mass Effect game.

With Halo Infinite having received its last major batch of post-launch content earlier this year, the path is clear for a new Halo project to be announced. With the cancellation of the divisive live-action TV series a few months ago, fans are certainly keen on news of a new game. With the studio still growing, it is likely we may need to wait a bit longer for the formal announcement of any new projects.