343 Industries Is Now Halo Studios, Teases Unreal Engine 5 For Future Games

Whether you are a diehard Halo franchise fan or a casual follower, you will agree that Halo has struggled for a while despite being a revolutionary series. However, things might change as we finally see a ray of hope. Microsoft’s 343 Industries announced at the Halo World Championship 2024 grand finals that it is rebranding itself as Halo Studios and switching to Unreal Engine 5 for all future Halo games.

During the announcement, we also got to see the first title for Halo Studios currently codenamed Project Foundry. The Xbox Wire post on the Halo Studios topic says, “We’re entering a new dawn for Halo.” In the presentation video, we also see new visuals that were created using Unreal Engine 5 and as per the Halo Studios, this will be the new engine for all the upcoming Halo games.

Along with the engine and name change, the studio is seeing changes in culture, workflow, and how its teams are organized. Studio Head Pierre Hintze sees this transition as less of a complete departure and more of a new chapter as he says,

“If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters. Chapter 1 – Bungie. Chapter 2 – 343 Industries. Now, I think we have an audience which is hungry for more. So we’re not just going to try improve the efficiency of development, but change the recipe of how we make Halo games. So, we start a new chapter today.”

We also see multiple leadership changes made in the Halo Studios during the presentation as Microsoft introduced several key leaders of the new Halo Studios, including John Junyszek, senior community manager; Melissa Boone, chief of staff; Elizabeth Van Wyck, chief operating officer; Casey Wu, executive producer; Andrea Gaussmann, lead technical artist; Chris Matthews, studio art director; and Max Szlagor, studio design director.

Unreal Engine 5 Halo Looks Amazing

Chris Matthews, Studio Art Director, initiated Project Foundry to explore the potential of Unreal Engine 5 for future Halo games. The project focused on creating biomes inspired by diverse environments, such as the Pacific Northwest and a winter wasteland. Lenny Simon, Director of UE Licensing for Epic Games, supported Microsoft’s transition to the next-generation engine.

Bill Clifford, Vice President and General Manager of Unreal Engine at Epic Games said, “Halo is such an incredible franchise and it’s awesome to see Halo Studios already pushing the boundaries of Unreal Engine 5,” We also learned that the visuals we see in the presentation, aka Project Foundry is more than just one Halo game.

With 343 Industries becoming Halo Studios, we all can agree that Microsoft and Xbox want this franchise to succeed by fully focusing on one objective. If the studio does not face as much distraction as the previous one did, we might see some of the great Halo games on Unreal Engine 5 in the future. Xbox Game Pass could see a significant increase in subscribers due to Halo, as is anticipated with Call of Duty Black Ops 6.

What are your thoughts on 343 becoming Halo Studios and the new Halo games coming on Unreal Engine 5? Are you excited to see what the new Halo Studios cook? Share your thoughts in the comments below.