Tag Archives: 343 Industries

Ever since the disappointing launch of Halo: Infinite, Microsoft and 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) have been laying somewhat dormant, with the biggest news arriving during last year’s Halo World Championships in the form of the UE5-developed ‘Project Foundry’. Ahead of this year’s championships, a Halo insider has claimed that two projects are currently in the works to be released next year.

The Halo franchise is in a bit of a limbo right now, with fans of the classic franchise patiently waiting to see what the team have been working on ever since announcing the rebranding of 343 Industries to Halo Studios. Following some teasers earlier this Summer, the team have confirmed that they will host a “deep dive” into the future of Halo at the upcoming Halo World Championships.

There has been a big shake-up behind the scenes at Microsoft for Halo. After the Slipstream engine proved to be a failure that hampered the development of Halo Infinite, future titles will be developed with Unreal Engine 5. On top of that, 343 Industries is now known as Halo Studios. 

With Halo Infinite failing to become the decade-long platform that Microsoft and 343 Industries were hoping it would evolve into, there have been many leaks and rumours discussing the team’s plan for the franchise’s future. In amongst talk of a switch to Unreal Engine 5 as well as a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, 343i have announced a surprise 3rd-person mode coming to Infinite next month.

Back in October last year we reported on a leak which claimed that following the relative failings of Halo: Infinite, the team at 343 Industries dropped future use of their bespoke Slipspace Engine – instead opting to use Unreal Engine 5 for the next title. Though yet to be officially …

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced some restructuring plans, which impacted many parts of the business. On the gaming side, 343 Industries was hit the hardest with a lot of lay-offs, including most of the campaign team that had worked on Halo Infinite. Now, rumours claim that a new small-scale team …

343 Industries has gone through a lot of changes in the last six months, with many members of the leadership team leaving Microsoft. Joseph Staten, who was brought back to Microsoft in an effort to steer Halo Infinite back on track, has moved on from his 18 years at Microsoft …

343 Industries has gone through some major changes this year. A round of layoffs at Microsoft in early 2023 saw the majority of the campaign team let go and other major studio leads have also departed the studio in recent months. Now, Frank O'Connor, the franchise director for Halo, is …

Long before Halo Infinite's 2021 launch, 343 Industries said that ray-tracing would be coming to the game in a post-launch update. Unfortunately, it looks like the game's upcoming RT support will be pretty basic.  Last night during AMD's RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT launch, the company revealed that …

Despite promises to include local and online co-op with Halo Infinite, a recent roadmap update confirmed that 343 Industries has cancelled split-screen features. This was largely seen as odd, as players have been able to use a glitch to activate split-screen since launch, and the feature seems to work really …

Halo Infinite's first year has been rough to say the least. Content droughts, progression system issues and delayed features have really soured the overall opinion of the game and unfortunately, 343 still hasn't managed to get on top of it. 

Last month, 343 confirmed that it is finally ready to publicly test Halo Infinite's long-awaited campaign co-op feature. Today, the studio announced that the co-op beta will be arriving on the 11th of July.  This is in line with the roadmap 343 published around the launch of Season 2. Aside …

Earlier this week, 343 Industries revealed the new roadmap for Halo Infinite, which unfortunately includes another extended six-month season, with highly anticipated features still months away. Unfortunately, according to Halo Infinite lead, Joseph Staten, this is the best we're going to get right now, as the team continues to tackle …

There have been plenty of rumours surrounding Certain Affinity recently. Not only is the studio reportedly working on its own original IP for Xbox Game Pass, but the studio has also recently “deepened” its relationship with 343 Industries and is currently working on a big Battle Royale mode for Halo …

Aside from a rumoured Monster Hunter style game, Certain Affinity is continuing its development work on Halo Infinite, working alongside 343 Industries and other studios. Today, Certain Affinity announced that it is “deepening” its relationship with 343, and will become more involved in growing Halo Infinite moving forward.  Certain Affinity …

As 343 Industries was gearing up to revamp the Halo franchise with Infinite, the company brought in some new leads to help shape the game, including former Rainbow Six Siege gameplay designer, Andrew Witts, who helmed Infinite's multiplayer development. Now that the game has shipped and is on its way …

After years of development hell, the live-action Halo TV series is finally on the way thanks to a partnership between Microsoft, Showtime and Paramount. The series is set to debut in just under two months time and now, we have our first full trailer.  The Halo TV series trailer aired …

Yesterday marked the launch of Halo Infinite, the first mainline game in the series since 2015. Previously, 343 Industries has stated that Infinite is the beginning of ‘the next ten years of Halo' and today, we have our first sign of that being true, with Microsoft filing a trademark for …

Over the weekend, a Halo Infinite designer sided with the community and agreed that multiplayer is still too stingy with XP rewards. Now this week, 343 Industries has detailed the next set of changes to get things right, and this time, the change is much more substantial.  When complaints of …

Microsoft surprised us all this month with an early launch for Halo Infinite Multiplayer, giving everyone the chance to jump in early and play all the launch-day maps and modes. There was one problem that immediately stood out – Battle Pass progression. While 343 has taken some small steps to …

Following a surprise launch yesterday evening, Halo Infinite has already gone on to become the most played Xbox Game Studios title on Steam, wiping out the record that Forza Horizon 5 set just a week ago.  Forza Horizon 5 just had the largest day-one launch of a game in Xbox …

Microsoft has been slowly phasing out the Xbox 360 and closing down online services. Now with the Xbox Series X/S in the wild, and the older Halo games being replaced by the Master Chief Collection, it is time to take the Xbox 360 Halo titles offline, a process that will …

Microsoft began publicly testing Halo Infinite multiplayer earlier this year with the first flight, which accidentally revealed a bunch of story spoilers buried within the game files. Now, we're starting to see leaks focusing more on the multiplayer side of the game, with the latest information pointing towards 23 maps …

During the Halo Infinite multiplayer preview a few weeks ago, players quickly discovered that assassinations weren't present in the game. As it turns out, 343 Industries made the decision to remove them and it doesn't sound like they will be coming back.  Assassinations have long been a feature in Halo …

The Halo Infinite technical preview is set to kick off today and just as promised, 343 Industries gave us a first look at the playtest in a stream last night. Unlike the E3 trailer, the stream gives us a direct look at a full Halo Infinite multiplayer match.  The match …

Late last week, 343 Industries revealed that Halo Infinite will begin public playtesting soon. Now, it has all been confirmed, with the first ‘flight' set to take place starting from tomorrow, giving us our first hands-on with Microsoft's flagship exclusive.  The first Halo Infinite technical preview will focus on multiplayer, …

343 Industries promised that Halo Infinite public playtests would kick off over the summer and sure enough, the studio is sticking to that. In this week's latest development update, 343 began detailing content for the first Halo Infinite flight, which would kick off as soon as next weekend.  The first …

While Halo Infinite did have a good showing at E3 this year, the lack of specific release date has led to plenty of concern in the week following the event. Fortunately, Xbox head, Phil Spencer, recently clarified the lack of final release date in an interview, indicating that the team …

Ever since Microsoft delayed Halo Infinite last year, we've been wondering when the game might come out. So far, we've only had a tentative ‘Fall 2021' release window, but one of the game's voice actors may have just revealed a more specific release date.  Last week, actor Verlon Roberts, who …

Aside from developing new titles like Halo Infinite, 343 Industries is also busy maintaining and updating older games in the series, like The Master Chief Collection and Halo Wars 2. While the Master Chief Collection appears set to live on for years to come, 343 is stepping back from Halo …