Don’t expect to hear anything new about Halo in the coming years.
New details on the future of the Halo series at Xbox have come about from a notable leaker. Following the launch of Halo Infinite back in 2021, questions have continued to linger when it comes to what’s next for Xbox’s flagship franchise. Generally speaking, Infinite didn’t reach the heights that Xbox and developer 343 Industries hoped it would, which has since led to a change in direction for the first-person shooter IP. Now, some early insight into upcoming plans for Halo have emerged, and they aren’t necessarily encouraging.
In an extensive thread from @BathrobeCast on X (formerly Twitter), new information about Halo and what has been happening behind the scenes at 343 Industries has been revealed. The report claims that after Halo Infinite’s launch, many developers ended up leaving 343 Industries. While this is normal to some degree, the voluntary departures have been combined with layoffs and contractors not being converted to full employees. As a result, 343 is said to have slimmed down to a team that’s less than 300 people in total, the majority of which is said to consist of team members tied to business aspects of the company.
As for the next Halo game, it’s said that two entries in the series are in the works right now. Both games are still very early in development and are merely in pre-production with one seemingly being tied entirely to PvP gameplay. The other is assumed to be a new mainline Halo installment of some sort that could take place after the events of Halo Infinite. However, this project still seems to be incredibly far off as 343 is retooling its development and production methods.
Likely the most concerning thing about this report is that 343 Industries still seems to be relying heavily on contract workers. This is something that was a major talking point with Halo Infinite’s development as 343 and Microsoft’s reliance on contractors led to major difficulties throughout development. Despite currently changing how its development pipelines will function, it seems that contract workers won’t be going anywhere and will remain a huge part of how 343 operates.
For now, it sounds like Xbox isn’t going to put any attention on Halo publicly in the coming months and years, which means that fans should expect to be patient when it comes to the future of the franchise. While Halo will certainly continue to be a major component of Xbox and its long-term strategy, the aftermath of Halo Infinite has led to sweeping changes at 343 that will result in the series laying low. Hopefully, whatever does come next is more in line with what fans want to see from the beloved shooter franchise.
