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Windows Central

Technology

Brendan Lowry

Halo's Unreal Engine 5 shift sparked the first optimism I've felt for Xbox's flagship in ages, and pretty graphics aren't the reason

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One of the biggest Xbox announcements of 2024 came on Sunday evening when, during the Halo World Championship 2024 esports event, Halo developer 343 Industries announced a rebrand to "Halo Studios" and a shift to Unreal Engine 5 — sunsetting the Slipspace Engine the studio built for 2021's Halo Infinite. Shortly afterward, it was confirmed that all future Halo games will be built on Epic Games' tech stack, and that it's already being used as the foundation for multiple projects in active development.

The news was delivered in a seven-minute long studio update trailer the developers labelled "A New Dawn," in which various members of the Halo Studios team presented Project Foundry — a tech demo built internally to showcase what many of Halo's classic designs and environments might look like in an Unreal Engine 5 game. What has me truly happy about this switch, though, aren't pretty graphics; instead, it's the stated goal of helping "the team focus on making games, versus making the tools and the engines."

In an interview on Xbox Wire, various leads from Halo Studios zeroed in on the fact that "some components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old," and that there was a need for "a large portion of its staff simply to develop and upkeep the engine" — confirming much of what was said about Slipspace in a report last year. With the move to Epic's far more modern engine, developers hope to reorganize their resources and streamline their creation process, ultimately addressing "how long it takes for us to update the game, bring new content to players, [and] adapt to what we’re seeing our players want."

Reading those words has given me the first bit of optimism I've felt for Xbox's flagship franchise in a long time, as I'd argue the biggest reason why Halo Infinite failed to generate long-term player interest is because it was bereft of an adequate content suite for well over a year. Compared to previous Halo releases that launched feature-complete and gave fans plenty of ways to play out of the gate, Halo Infinite's paltry collection of playlists were frustratingly meager, and even beloved modes like Infection, Firefight, and the critically important mapmaking tool Forge didn't come until late 2022 or beyond.

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It's my hope that with Unreal Engine 5, Halo Studios will be able to develop future experiences far more efficiently, hopefully ensuring that we're never left with another Halo 5: Guardians or Halo Infinite situation where a Halo game releases with scant offerings and only gets a full content spread months or years later. I'm also looking forward to seeing how "aspects of Unreal" that "would have taken huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate" in Slipspace, such as the engine's impressive rendering and lighting tech, will influence future iterations of Halo's worlds.

One thing I'm definitely iffy about in the wake of Halo Infinite's rocky development is the studio's decision to start working on multiple projects, but again, the Unreal shift — along with multiple recent leadership changes — gives me a reason to temper my skepticism. The use "of the industry-leading engine" should certainly make onboarding new developers, growing the team, and hiring contractors for outside help easier (Halo Studios has multiple positions open), though just last year, it was hit particularly hard by Microsoft layoffs.

An Unreal Engine 5 scene of Master Chief dueling a Covenant Elite. (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

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At the end of the day, we won't know whether this "new dawn" for Halo pays off until the fruits of Halo Studios' labor is actually in our hands, and since "a new Halo game isn’t imminent," that won't happen for a long time. With that said, I think a big shakeup and a major overhaul to the way it's developed is something Halo sorely needs, and I'm glad it's getting that.

Whatever's next for the legendary sci-fi property will be playable through Xbox Game Pass, as all of Microsoft's first-party releases are. Halo Infinite's single player campaign is accessible through the all-you-can-eat subscription service now, as is the Master Chief Collection that bundles all of the pre-Xbox One Halo games in one modernized package.

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