After the disaster of Halo Infinite, it seemed like the franchise and 343 Industries had no future. However, there were reports that the American Studio was working on a new Halo title alongside Certain Affinity. Recently, 343 employees’ LinkedIn profiles also suggested the same thing.
Microsoft was one of several companies that laid off a significant amount of employees last year, including 95 percent of 343 Industries’ workforce. This decision appeared to be a sluggish means of closing down the studio. However, it turned out to be a necessary step in reorganizing the studio and moving forward from the past disaster.
(FYI) According to Justin Dinges’s (Art Director) LinkedIn page, 343 has been working on the next unannounced Halo release since April 2022
Also, Ian Slutz (Senior Character System Designer) has been building player systems and assets in UE5
Sources:https://t.co/IczfsyieBj… pic.twitter.com/Wxwu1ui6Q6
— Idle Sloth (@IdleSloth84_) January 9, 2024
The X (formerly known as Twitter) user Idle Sloth recently shared two interesting LinkedIn profiles. The first one was of Justin Dinges, who quit 343 Industries in March 2023 after spending over 12 years there. However, his last work at the American studio was as an Art Director for “Halo’s unannounced release.”
Meanwhile, the second profile is of the present 343 Industries employee, Ian Slutz, who is a Senior Character System Designer. He is currently “building player systems and assets in Unreal Engine 5.” Slutz has previously designed original bosses for Halo Infinite: Adjutant Resolution and Harbinger. On top of it, the rumors about a new Halo were strengthened when reports claimed the studio switching to Unreal Engine 5 for an unannounced new project.
Will Halo be enough to help Xbox?
Xbox is having a rough time, as they have been facing a lot of criticism from fans. One of the major complaints from fans has been the lack of exclusives, especially when compared to rivals PlayStation, which keeps dropping first-class exclusives. Even the so-called Xbox exclusives like Redfall and Starfield turned out to be disappointing.
While fans are asking for exclusives, Xbox is stern about its policies to release their games from major studios across all platforms, including rival PlayStation. Amidst all this drama, there is still hope with this unannounced Halo title. Despite the failure of Halo Infinite, the franchise still has a massive fanbase and is one of Xbox’s so-called exclusives. At this time, Halo is the only game that could put Xbox back into competition with Sony.
Even if the American giants plan to release this rumored Halo title on Xbox and PC, they should release it as a limited-time Xbox exclusive. After maybe a year on the console, Microsoft can finally release it on PC. We have already seen Sony do it with Final Fantasy XVI, which is currently a PlayStation exclusive and yet to be released on Windows.
