A new Halo game is reportedly in development using Unreal Engine

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 has been set up to begin building the next Halo game using Unreal Engine.

While I did enjoy Halo Infinite, it didn't turn out to be the big, franchise-reinvigorating game that many were hoping for. After the game's launch, many developers spoke up about issues at 343 Industries, revealing that the SlipSpace engine still had plenty of issues and relied heavily on legacy code from the older Halo games. Now, 343 Industries seems to be pivoting in a new direction.

According to the Seasoned Gaming on the Bitcast podcast, 343 Industries has set up a team to work on the next Halo game and they are using Unreal Engine. Of course, Halo Infinite also had some prototype work done in Unreal Engine, before all development moved over to the studio's own engine. However, after feedback from development on Infinite, we wouldn't be surprised to see the next Halo game finally move over to Unreal.

As for when we might see a new Halo game, if early work is only just beginning this year, it will take several more years to build out the game, test it and ship it. Given that we already know to expect next-gen consoles in 2028, the next Halo could end up being a send-off for the Xbox Series X, or an early next-gen game for Microsoft's next console.

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KitGuru Says: While I have no doubt that there is work being done on a new Halo game at 343 Industries, we're still so far off from that game becoming reality that it feels a bit silly to be talking about it now. In the meantime, Halo Infinite continues to get multiplayer-focused updates, including some brand new Firefight maps as part of the game's fifth season.

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