Microsoft’s Halo studio 343 Industries might very well have begun development on an UE5-powered new Halo installment.
Back in October of last year, we reported on a podcast from Seasoned Gaming, in which editor-in-chief Ains claimed that 343 Industries is currently working on the next Halo campaign within Epic’s most recent game engine. “It is part of that restructuring that is building the next generation of Halo on Unreal [Engine]”, Ains said in the podcast, although this next Halo single-player campaign is likely still years away.
Fast forward a couple of months and we now have some additional information that might support the above-mentioned rumor about a new UE5-powered next Halo entry. As spotted by Xbox insider ‘Idle Sloth’ on X, former Art Director at 343 Industries, Justin Dinges, was working on the next “unannounced” Halo release between April 2022 and March 2023. Before his work on this next Halo release, ‘Dinges served as Game Director as well as Art Lead on Halo Infinite. He also worked on both Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians as an Environment Artist.
Interestingly enough, although these might not be connected, 343 Industries Senior Character Systems Designer Ian Slutz, has been building “player systems and assets in Unreal Engine 5”.
(FYI) According to Justin Dinges’s (Art Director) LinkedIn page, 343 has been working on the next unannounced Halo release since April 2022
Also, Ian Slutz (Senior Character System Designer) has been building player systems and assets in UE5
Sources:https://t.co/IczfsyieBj… pic.twitter.com/Wxwu1ui6Q6
— Idle Sloth💙💛 (@IdleSloth84_) January 9, 2024
An interesting find, and one that would support last year’s rumor that Halo studio 343 Industries is moving away from using Halo’s Slipspace Engine in favor of Unreal Engine 5 – something that Windows Central’s Jez Corden found likely back in October last year. “Just to clarify, I KNOW for a fact D. Berger has left 343i, what I’m inclined to believe is the rest of Sean’s report about Tatanka potentially switching engines, and potentially being separate, but no hard confirmation yet”, Corden wrote back then.
As said, a new Halo is likely still years away, but we’ll update you on this matter as soon as we learn more. For now, discuss the possible switch for Halo to Epic’s Unreal Engine below.
