2024-10-13 09:08:03

343 Industries has changed its name to Halo Studios and confirmed it is working on multiple new games in the franchise.

The company took over Microsoft’s iconic shooter series from Bungie with 2011’s with ‘Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary’, and has now announced it has rebranded and restructured itself in what the developer has promised will be “a new dawn for ‘Halo’”.

The studio will be moving away from their proprietary Slipsace Engine in favour of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 after the company ran into problems with the development of 2021’s ‘Halo Infinite’.

In a blog post uploaded by Xbox Wire, Vice President and studio head Pierre Hintze said: “We had a disproportionate focus on trying to create the conditions to be successful in servicing ‘Halo Infinite’.

“[But switching to Unreal Engine 5] allows us to put all the focus on making multiple new experiences at the highest quality possible.”

In tandem with the rebrand announcement, Halo Studios released Project Foundry – a six-minute advanced tech demo for what upcoming games in the franchise could like like thanks to Unreal Engine 5.

Hintze added: “It’s fair to say that our intent is that the majority of what we showcased in Foundry is expected to be in projects which we are building, or future projects.”

While the studio boss confirmed there were several ‘Halo’ titles in the pipeline, Hintze insisted the company was still taking its “first step” and so wasn’t ready to announce any potential release dates yet.

He said: “We should talk about things when we have things to talk about, at scale. Today, it’s the first step – we’re showing Foundry because it feels right to do so – we want to explain our plans to ‘Halo’ fans, and attract new, passionate developers to our team. The next step will be talking about the games themselves.”

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