343 Industries’ rebranding to Halo Studios and its move to Unreal Engine 5 has been met with cheers from its fans. Some of them believe this will be the ‘reboot’ needed for the Halo franchise to stay relevant in current years. However, it seems the change did not come without sacrifice. According to a report, 343 Industries were working on Halo Infinite 2 and Project Tatanka before they were told to transition to the new engine.
Rebs Gaming claimed that one of their sources, a former Halo developer, said the work on a sequel is quickly underway after Halo Infinite launches. The team that built the story campaign was developing Halo Infinite 2, along with Project Tatanka battle royale, using the in-house Slipspace Engine. Derived from Blam Engine used by Bungie to create most Halo titles, Slipspace was used to facilitate Infinite‘s ever-expanding development.
“We moved right over to [Halo] Infinite 2 and started making stuff. We had such high hopes for Infinite 2. Gameplay was there, keep the team together and do a second pass to just improve,” stated Rebs Gaming’s source. “I think we could have done a good job.”
However, the situation dramatically changed in September 2022 when new leadership took over and mandated a shift to Unreal Engine 5. While the team spent months learning the intricacies of the new engine, it became increasingly clear that the shift was challenging.
By January 2023, the situation reached a critical point when Microsoft laid off a significant amount of 343 Industries’ creative team– including Reb Gaming’s source. By that point, the anonymous source is no longer sure if Halo Infinite 2 will be one of the projects moved into Unreal Engine 5.
Still, Project Tatanka lives on… in some form. What was once Halo Infinite‘s canceled battle royale mode, was remodeled into Project Ekur, Halo Studios’ first Unreal Engine project.
The former Halo Infinite 2 developer then added, that the campaign team never felt supported by the new change in leadership. “The idea that when new leadership took over that it somehow enabled more clarity into what was actually happening is laughable…”
To make this worse, the source claims that Halo Infinite 2 new leadership would rather they ‘outsource’ content than have a dedicated developer team. “[..] I bet if you talked to most of the people that got laid off they would say the new leadership would outsource campaign content.”
Both Halo Infinite 2 and Project Tatanka were ultimately shelved to make way for a ‘reboot’ or a ‘new direction’ for the franchise. It remains to be seen if shifting to Unreal Engine 5 is the right choice to revitalize Halo after sacrificing these projects.
