343 Industries becomes Halo Studios, confirms switch to Unreal Engine: 'The original Halo franchise was a graphics showcase, it was best-in-class… and that's what Halo needs to be again'

Earlier this year it was reported that 343 Industries was planning to switch from the Slipcase to the Unreal Engine, though Microsoft did not confirm the report. Now it's official. With the six-and-a-half-minute mash note to Unreal embedded above, 343 Industries has left behind Slipcase as well as the name 343 Industries, officially rebranding as Halo Studios for future projects.

The aging code of Slipcase was apparently a problem during the creation of Halo Infinite, and the developers are bullish on Unreal's improvements. "Halo Infinite was the last remnants of how we made Halo games in the past," says VP and studio head Pierre Hintze. "That was our recipe and what we're doing now, we're changing the recipe."

The possibilities are showcased in three landscapes created as part of Project Foundry, a research project lead FX artist Daniel Henley calls "an effort to show ourselves how far we can push things using Unreal 5." He goes on to say, "The original Halo franchise was a graphics showcase, it was best-in-class. That's what Halo was when it first was released and that's what Halo needs to be again."

The aforementioned report also claimed that at least 95 staff had been laid off, and that there had been conflict in the studio between those who wanted to jump to Unreal and those happy to stay with Slipcase. Now that things have been settled, the newly dubbed Halo Studios is hiring again, with positions for a creative director, lead game systems designer, senior technical designer, hard surface artist, technical artist, and senior UX designer all currently advertised on Microsoft's careers site.