What’s next for Halo? – Polygon

Microsoft is having a Halo issue

343 Industries is an internal Microsoft studio that was created after Bungie left the series creator. It’s currently in disarray. In January, Microsoft laid off a lot of staff. Recriminations followed, with former staff laying the blame for this — and for the perceived disappointment of Halo Infinite — at the door of “incompetent” leadership. Joe Staten (a Bungie veteran) was drafted into the team to help get InfiniteHe was now back on the right track and on his way to leave after several leads (including studio head Bonnie Ross) left in 2022. Kiki Wolfkill, the Halo franchise’s head, also left. Phil Spencer, the Xbox chief and the studio had to deny rumors that 343 was no longer working directly on Halo. Instead they would be outsourcing them to third-party companies.

In late January, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier painted a picture of a studio “all but starting from scratch.” At least 95 people at the company had lost their jobs in the layoffs, including many key development staff. 343 will move from using its own Slipspace Engine — a point of pride for a developer that had always put its tech credentials to the fore — to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. There will be no story updates. Halo InfiniteBloomberg reports that the project is in progress, as unreleased multiplayer games languish due to technical problems, and an external studio Certain Affinity working on a battle royale-style spinoff. Polygon also received information from several sources regarding the Unreal Engine 5 shift and the Certain Affinity games.

All this lies behind the story of Halo Infinite. This is the third mainline Halo video game, starting at 343. Infinite was released in late 2021 to a reasonably warm reception: It had transposed Halo’s trademark first-person shooter gameplay to an open-world setting without losing too much of what made it special, while the multiplayer mode, released separately as a stand-alone, free-to-play game, initially seemed to hit the mark. However, the Xbox Series had delayed the release of the game by over a year. Microsoft blamed COVID-19 for the delay, however it was only forced to back it after the disastrous game demo in 2020 that received widespread ridicule.

The demo showed Halo’s true state of affairs. As soon as you saw it, a delay to the game seemed inevitable, but somehow it was being presented to the public as the centerpiece of a Xbox’s yearly summer showcase, with a 2020 date still attached. It was confusing. Either 343 didn’t fully appreciate the problems with its own game, or Microsoft felt too beholden to the power the Halo brand has over Xbox fans to let go of it in a new console launch year, even when it might be actually harmful not to. Whatever it was, Halo and those responsible for it looked dysfunctional.

Wiser heads prevailed, and the game was salvaged — or was it? Halo Infinite Although it was good in its initial launch moment, the game was not meant to be extended beyond that point. Infinite was to be a live game platform that would last for at least a decade, which would be expanded rather than supplanted with sequels, not unlike Bungie’s Destiny (although it’s fair to point out that Bungie itself needed a fresh start with Destiny 2This plan will be implemented.

The Slipspace Engine and 343 were not up for the challenge. The launch of features promised was delayed long. Some features, such as the Halo local co-op, which was a feature of the original game, were canceled. Amid growing disquiet from the game’s community about the pace of updates, the game’s third multiplayer season has been delayed by months. There have been reports of no expansions. Infinite’s campaign are in production are the death knell for the original idea of InfiniteAs a permanent universe of Halo. It’s possible that the game’s free-to-play multiplayer side can be kept running, but season 3 will have to be brilliant, and accompanied by a rock-solid roadmap, to start winning back the trust it needs.

Image: 343 Industries/Microsoft

It’s not immediately obvious what Microsoft, and what remains of 343 Industries, should do next. A demoralized and downsized studio will need to knuckle down on the multiplayer roadmap while drawing fresh plans for the future of Halo on a new engine; it’s not clear it has the resources to do either, never mind both. Spencer, Xbox Game Studios Chief Matt Booty, 343 Industries Head Pierre Hintze, who claimed 343 was still important to Halo’s development, were careful to create space for other collaborations such as that with Certain Affinity. This seems like it will be needed, in both creative terms and resources.

If it’s to serve as the guiding light, though, 343 will need its own, strongly held and carefully maintained vision for Halo. And there’s an argument that this is exactly what it’s been missing from the start.

After Bungie decided to leave Microsoft and create 343 as its caretaker studio, Halo was able to get rid of all the franchise hoopla. Safely cocooned within the Microsoft campus at Redmond, 343 was part of the mothership; it couldn’t happen again. Microsoft hired a lot of very talented people to work there, but the studio had no identity, and no purpose beyond servicing someone else’s creation. Its name is an Easter egg. 343 Guilty Spark, an AI character that’s memorable from Microsoft, was its original title. Halo: The Evolution of Combat).

The result was an easy way to create cover songs that are proficient but miss the main point. Halo 4Although it was impressive as a technical demonstration for Xbox 360’s console, the game felt largely empty. Halo 5This fun multiplayer experience was married with a campaign of sci-fi cliches that were almost entirely unrelated to what Halo meant to be. Infinite strained hard to re-create the look and feel of classic Halo, and then put those elements in a box that was the wrong shape (and hadn’t been taped together properly).

Image: Bungie

Image: 343 Industries/Xbox Game Studios

The truth is that, setting aside the striking iconography of Master Chief’s mirrored visor and the arcing ringworlds, Halo’s soul resided deep in Bungie’s code: the weight and recoil of the weapons, the whack of the melee, the floating jump, the elastic, looping combat encounters. Bungie carried those secrets when it went. All those identifying marks can more readily be found in Destiny than in 343’s Halo games. Asking another team to re-create that magic is like tasking a developer outside of Nintendo HQ with making a Mario platformer — it’s never going to feel right. Forming a Bungie cover band was a thankless task, and the fault for Halo’s current parlous state lies more with Microsoft for this misconceived plan than with any of the individuals that have worked at 343.

Microsoft may want to reconsider whether the claims that small-scale Halo stories are being outsourced are true. The Bungie magic cannot be reclaimed, therefore it is important to look at what Halo may have. Studios with their own strong identities might have distinctive takes on Halo that could cut through 20 years of mythmaking and fan service and redefine it, similar to Konami’s intriguing plans to bring back Silent Hill.

For one of gaming’s most beloved series, and the flagship Xbox franchise, what has happened to Halo InfiniteAnd 343 Industries is an extreme failure. The roots of that failure go all the way back to 343’s founding in 2007. The studio can rebuild, and build a new future for Halo, but it will need help — and to be given the opportunity to discover its own identity at last.