Just before the final match at Sunday's 2024 Halo World Championship, Microsoft shared a surprise video concerning the future of the Halo franchise. Among the several things said and shown in the video were several test scenes of familiar locations and characters from Halo all displayed in Unreal Engine 5. Yes, the Slipspace engine is already being relegated to the trash bin.
Also notable is how 343 Industries is being rebranded as Halo Studios. This "new dawn" for the Halo franchise comes with the engine change and the fact that "multiple new games using it (Unreal Engine 5) are in development." Also notable is a change in philosophy at the studio in terms of culture, workflow, and how its teams are organized.
Of course, Halo Studios needed to be confident in the switch to Unreal – this isn’t a decision taken lightly. The team had to be sure that the first Halo games to come out of a non-Slipspace engine would look, feel, and sound right. The team began experimenting, and it resulted in a research project known as Project Foundry – the source for all the new clips we saw today.
“When we decided to do Foundry, it wasn’t, at that point, in our plan,” says COO Elizabeth van Wyck. “But we needed to pause and – ‘validate’ is not the right word, but educate and understand what our capability is, and assess it, so we actually know we’re on the right path.
“We’ve intentionally been really quiet up to this point, but I think [today] is about just sharing where we are, what our priorities are as a studio, and where the team is. We’re really proud of what came out of Foundry.”
“When we decided to do Foundry, it wasn’t, at that point, in our plan,” says COO Elizabeth van Wyck. “But we needed to pause and – ‘validate’ is not the right word, but educate and understand what our capability is, and assess it, so we actually know we’re on the right path.
“We’ve intentionally been really quiet up to this point, but I think [today] is about just sharing where we are, what our priorities are as a studio, and where the team is. We’re really proud of what came out of Foundry.”
Halo Studios crafted three distinct biomes for Foundry: "Something old, something new, and something truly alien."
For something old, we see a biome inspired by the Pacific Northwest – a staple of the series – but in dramatic new form. Waterfalls crash over mountains, a running creek becomes the site of a tableau pitching the Chief against two Covenant Elites, and the team pushed Unreal to include as much foliage as technically possible.
For something new, we see the Coldlands location, a region locked in a deep freeze, with snowdrifts covering plateaus, and ice reflecting what’s above and refracting what’s below. And for something alien, we see the Blightlands, a brand new take on a Halo location – a world consumed by the parasitic Flood. The express purpose of the Blightlands was to see how this new-look Halo team could push the world itself farther than previous Halo games – the results speak for themselves.
For something new, we see the Coldlands location, a region locked in a deep freeze, with snowdrifts covering plateaus, and ice reflecting what’s above and refracting what’s below. And for something alien, we see the Blightlands, a brand new take on a Halo location – a world consumed by the parasitic Flood. The express purpose of the Blightlands was to see how this new-look Halo team could push the world itself farther than previous Halo games – the results speak for themselves.
The announcement of Halo moving on to Unreal Engine 5 was only made this past weekend, so there are certainly elements of that rumor that have been proven to be true. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will actually release their most iconic franchise on PlayStation 5.
