343 Industries Rebrands To Halo Studios, Announced A Move Over To Unreal Engine 5

Massive changes have happened at 343 Industries, the studio currently behind the Halo series, as the developer ushered in "A New Dawn" with a studio rebranding that was announced before the final match at the Halo World Championship 2024 in Seattle, Washington, USA on 6th October 2024. Moving forward, 343 Industries is no more as the studio is officially Halo Studios, which they unveiled a new tech demo and confirmed several Halo games are in the works, which they're busy recruiting for.

However, that's not the only major announcement made during the esports tournament event, as the studio confirmed that it will be switching engines from Slipspace to Epic's Unreal Engine (UE) 5. Based on a report by Windows Central in 2023, the Slipspace engine has been causing a myriad of technical issues for the developer "due to its aging code," which resulted in delays of a few multiplayer modes for Halo: Infinite.

Accompanying the developer's rebranding and the announcement of the move to UE5 is a research project known as Project Foundry," a tech demo reel that showcases the potential of bringing the Halo franchise to UE5. Halo Studios' lead artist, Daniel Henley, stated, "The original Halo franchise was a graphics showcase. It was best in class. That's what Halo was when it first was released, and that's what Halo needs to be again."

As for plans at Halo Studios, Halo: Infinite will continue to receive support through multiple updates and gameplay content through the Slipspace Engine while "multiple Halo games" are in the early stages of development as of writing. After the announcement, Hintze spoke to Xbox Wire, explaining that the studio rebranding and the move to UE5 can be viewed as a "turning of a page" for the team.

If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters. Chapter 1 – Bungie. Chapter 2 – 343 Industries. Now, I think we have an audience which is hungry for more. So we’re not just going to try improve the efficiency of development, but change the recipe of how we make Halo games. So, we start a new chapter today.