343 Industries Reportedly Switching From Its Own Slipspace Engine To Unreal For Some Games

343 Industries, Halo Infinite’s developer, is switching to the Unreal Engine from its internal Slipspace Engine in order to develop some future Halo Infinite games. 

The following news is from a Bloomberg Report claiming that Unreal will switch from Slipspace in the beginning with an unnamed game, Tatanka. This is according to 343 sources. According to Bloomberg, 343 is developing Tatanka with Certain Affinity, who has helped develop various Halo games for more than 15 years. The project reportedly started off as a battle royale but has potentially evolved in different directions. 

Bloomberg reports that future Halo games “will also explore using the Unreal Engine,” but that some within the studio are skeptical of dropping Slipspace entirely in favor of Epic Games’ Unreal, with worry that the switch in code engine will negatively impact the way it feels to play a Halo game. According to sources familiar with Slipspace and 343’s use of it, Bloomberg that the engine, which is apparently built on decades-old code, is difficult to use and buggy, and sometimes a pain point for developers working on Halo games. Apparently, in multiple instances throughout 343’s history, studio management has mulled over switching to Unreal, but that it didn’t actually happen until Pierre Hintze took over the studio late last year following the departure of 343 head Bonnie Ross and engine lead David Berger. 

The report also states that 343 doesn’t plan to create new Halo Infinite story content. This is despite the fact that many Halo Infinite players believe this story content will be coming. Actually, Bloomberg According to reports, some developers were creating prototypes using the Unreal Engine as well as pitching new Halo game ideas. However, many of those developers were reportedly laid off earlier this month so it’s unclear if these prototypes are still being developed. 

This news comes on the heels of earlier reports that Microsoft had announced it would be laying off 10,000 workers as part its ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $69Billion. 343 Industries was reportedly one of the studios hit hardest by these layoffs, and shortly after they occurred, Halo Infinite creative director Joseph Staten departed from the studio to rejoin Xbox Publishing. Rumors that 343 Industries would no longer develop Halo games and instead oversee the franchise began to spread following that, but last week, Hintze released a statement that said “343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future.” 

[Source: Bloomberg]

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