Just yesterday, Microsoft confirmed the layoff of 10,000 people by the end of March in several sectors, and the studio in charge of Halo would have already lost more than 60 employees. The main cause of these layoffs, would be the inability of 343 Industries to manage the flagship franchise of Xbox, pushing the new leaders of the studio to make drastic decisions. According to information from Spartan bathrobeincluding host of the eponymous podcast, big changes are expected for Halo Infinite and the Halo franchise.
343 Industries should no longer develop games
What emerges first from the information relayed by Bathrobe Spartan is that 343 Industries should no longer be in charge of the development of future games, but will rather have the role of supervising the various projects around Halo.
This means that Halo would become a franchise, which various studios could exploit to bring different ideas to life, while taking advantage of the resources of 343 Industries including the Slipspace Engine, the engine developed and used for Halo Infinite.
We could thus be entitled to several smaller projects around the franchise, rather than large FPS taking many years to develop. 343 Industries and Creative Assembly had already tried the exercise with Halo Wars 2, a real-time strategy game rather appreciated by fans of the genre, but also fans of the license.
Halo narrative/solo content canceled
Still according to Bathrobe Spartan, the dismissals mentioned yesterday within the studio mainly impact the solo/narrative content of Halo. The change of position of several people, such as Joe Staten, and the non-renewal of the various contractuals, mean that the studio loses many staff, in particular in charge of the DLC of the Halo Infinite campaign.
If you’re playing Halo primarily for its campaign, then you’ll be disappointed to hear that the narrative content for Halo Infinite has been canceled, and that single-player generally would have no place in 343’s strategy at this time. Industries.
The decision to rule out single-player/narrative content would come from the fact that it is difficult to monetize, and that it does not allow satisfactory retention of players, in addition to having been difficult to produce in recent years.
Nothing changes for Halo Infinite’s multi-tracking
Finally, if you enjoy Halo Infinite and the multiplayer follow-up provided by 343 Industries, you should be happy since these various decisions would have no impact on future seasons.
If the long-term vision is still pretty hazy, the studio has already laid out the details for a Season 3 which should be pretty solid. Although the game was originally thought to last 10 years, today it seems difficult to imagine that it will succeed.
Hopefully 343 Industries will speak soon to clarify the situation at least about Halo Infinite For the rest, we will most certainly have to wait many years before seeing new Halo projects emerge.
Remember, however, that Certain Affinity would work on Tatanka, an ambitious Battle Royale for Halo Infinite, developed by a large team of 100 developers.
