Halo Moves to Unreal Engine 5; 343 Industries Confirms Rebrand to Halo Studies

‘Halo’ fans got a huge news, with Microsoft giving fans an update on the status about Xbox’s well-known franchise. 

The franchise will be moving to Ureal Engine 5, a game engine produced by Epic, from 343’s proprietary Slipspace engine. 

This announcement was accompanied by a six minute and 34 second video, that showed how the franchise looks in three different biomes. 

The first biome was a traditional grassy and mountainous space that audiences will be familiar with, with the Master Chief fighting off two Elites (Sangheili). 

A second location saw a Forerunner structure on a planet completely overtaken by the Flood. 

Finally, fans were shown a Forerunner structure on an icy planet. 

Developers from the studio, which will now be rebranded as Halo Studios, spoke about the move to Unreal 5, and that this work won’t be used in a game, but research called Project Foundry. 

In the video, fans also learnt that there are multiple ‘Halo’ games in development, and that Halo Studios is keen to expand its developers.  

Halo Studios confirmed that they will be shifting how they make ‘Halo’ games in the future, with a confirmation of “we are changing that recipe.”

The last game in the Halo franchise was ‘Halo Infinite’ which released back in December 2021.

Since then, ‘Halo’ has been adapted into a live-action streaming series on Paramount+ with the first season releasing in 2022 and the second season releasing in early 2024. 

This adaptation was cancelled on Paramount+ back in July 2024.

The first ‘Halo’ game, ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ released in 2001, and brought the franchise to mainstream attention, where several sequels followed. 

There are also several books in the ‘Halo’ franchise, with ‘Halo: Empty Throne’ to be released in December 2024.