What’s next for Halo? – Polygon

Microsoft has a Halo problem.

343 Industries, an internal studio Microsoft set up to produce Halo games, is 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 in to get Infinite He was now back on track and on his way to the exit after the 2022 departure of Bonnie Ross, studio head. Kiki Wolfkill, the Halo franchise head, also left. Phil Spencer, the Xbox chief, and the studio had to deny rumors that 343 would not be working directly on Halo games but instead were outsourcing them to third-party developers.

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 new story content. Halo Infinite Bloomberg reported that the project is in progress, as unreleased multiplayer games languish in tech problems, and an external studio Certain Affinity is working on a possible battle-royale-style spinoff. Polygon also received information from several sources regarding the Unreal Engine 5 shift and the Certain Affinity games.

All this is just the beginning of the story. Halo Infinite. 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. The game missed its launch date of the Xbox Series consoles by one year. Microsoft blamed the COVID-19 epidemic for the delay, but the company only decided to move it back after the disastrous demo it showed in the summer 2020, which was widely criticised for its quality.

This demo was probably the first sign that Halo as an enterprise was in serious trouble. 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, the relationship between Halo creators and Halo seemed to be deteriorating.

Wiser heads prevailed, and the game was salvaged — or was it? Halo Infinite Although it was an excellent game for the moment, its intended purpose was to last much longer. 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 2 To actually implement this plan

The Slipspace Engine and 343 were not up to it. The launch of features promised was delayed for many years. Some features, such as the Halo local co-op mode, which was a hallmark of the game since its inception, 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. According to reports, there have been no expansions. Infinite’s campaign are in production are the death knell for the original idea of Infinite As a persistent universe for 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.

The most recent roadmap Halo InfinitePublished in September 2022.

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, all claimed 343 was still central to Halo Development. However, the language of their protestations was carefully constructed to allow for outside collaborations like the reported partnership between Certain Affinity. It seems like these will be required, both creatively and in terms of resources. 343 Industries could definitely use fresh perspectives on Halo.

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 and Microsoft split, 343 was established as a caretaker for Halo. 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 was an Easter egg. (343 Guilty Spark, an evocative AI character, is the best example). Halo: Combat Evolved).

This was a recipe to create cover versions with proficiency that somehow missed the point. Halo 4 Although it was a great technical showcase for Xbox 360 and a game that was quite empty, it was still a good game. Halo 5 A multiplayer game was married to a campaign that featured cliche sci-fi that seemed almost 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).

Destiny 2.

Image: Bungie

Halo Infinite.

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 brought those secrets with them when it left. 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 question whether the rumours that smaller-scale Halo story projects are being outsourced elsewhere are true. It’s impossible to recreate the Bungie magic so we need to think about other Halo possibilities. 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 Infinite And 343 Industries is a terrible 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.

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