Microsoft Unveils Halo Studios Rebrand, Charts New Course for 'Halo' Franchise

The news was revealed during the 2024 Halo World Championship at Seattle's Convention Center

Microsoft renamed its Halo development team from 343 Industries to Halo Studios. This suggests a new chapter for the classic science fiction franchise. The news was revealed during the 2024 Halo World Championship at Seattle's Convention Center, when a short video titled "A New Dawn" gave fans of the game, a glimpse of what lay ahead for the brand.

The head of Halo Studios, Pierre Hintze, offered an explanation of the importance of this change. In a blog post, he stated, "We're not just improving development efficiency, but redefining how we make Halo games." The Slipspace engine, which has powered the franchise since its beginning, will be replaced by Epic's Unreal Engine 5 in upcoming Halo games as part of this transition. It is expected that using Unreal will speed up production and draw in fresh talent familiar with the popular engine. Studio art director Chris Matthews stated that Slipspace has to be updated because certain components are almost twenty-five years old. Although no new games were officially announced, Unreal Engine 5 was used to create the footage that was displayed during the event as part of an internal research effort called "Project Foundry."

The Slipspace engine will be used to support the current installment in the series, Halo Infinite. This statement brings in a new era in the glorious past of Halo and comes in the wake of 343's internal reorganization following Microsoft's significant layoffs in early 2023.