343 video game industry company is changing its name to Halo Studios. The game giant announced, just before the 2024 Halo World Championship finals, that all future Halo projects will be made in Unreal Engine 5. Unreal Engine 5 is the latest version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. They also unveiled multiple new game projects in development and will be released soon.
“We’re not just going to try to improve the efficiency of development but change the recipe of how we make Halo games. So, we start a new chapter today,” said Halo Studios head Pierre Hintze in a statement.
Halo games used to run on Halo Studio’s own Slipspace Engine, which took the company a significant number of developers to maintain.
“We believe that the consumption habits of gamers have changed—the expectations of how fast their content is available,” said Hintze. “On Halo Infinite, we were developing a tech stack that was supposed to set us up for the future, and games at the same time.”
Switching to Unreal Engine 5 allows Halo Studios to focus on creating games that truly resonate with fans, enabling them to work on multiple projects at the same time. Halo is the latest major franchise to make the switch from a custom engine to Unreal Engine 5, following in the footsteps of Tomb Raider and The Witcher. It’s safe to say that Epic is quite excited about this development.
Bill Clifford, Vice President and General Manager of Unreal Engine at Epic Games, stated:
“Halo is such an incredible franchise and it’s awesome to see Halo Studios already pushing the boundaries of Unreal Engine 5. We’re honored to support the Halo team in realizing their creative visions through Unreal Engine. Project Foundry’s work demonstrates how they can bring Halo to life with beautifully detailed, uncompromised worlds.”
To highlight the future of Halo, Halo Studios developed “Project Foundry.” It’s not a game or tech demo, but an exploration of what a Halo game could be in Unreal Engine 5, serving as both a vision and a training tool.
