Amid enormous turnover at the game studio, 343 Interactive is working on a new game under the codename “Tatanka.” This comes after the firm pushed the reset button after the release of Halo Infinite.
According to the initial report by Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, Microsoft fired 10,000 employees on January 18th. The staff reduction had a significant influence on 343 Interactive, which is the primary design team for Halo Infinite. An insider stated that the layoffs substantially impacted the Halo Infinite campaign team.
A former member of the Halo pro-Ninja community called 343’s decision to launch the game without a battle royale option “delusional.” TimTheTatman concurred and suggested that the designers would have been able to avert the catastrophe had they included a battle royale mode.
According to a follow-up claim by Schreier, 343 is “beginning from scratch” and changing the development team’s focus to multiplayer content. This might mean that both content providers receive what they want.
343 Industries has decided to start the Halo series again from scratch
Schreier reported on January 31st that 343 Industries will continue to develop Halo video games, but “with huge layoffs (at least 95 people), a transition to Unreal as the game’s engine, and a concentration primarily on multiplayer for the immediate future, 343 is pushing the reset button.”
Following the departure of Bonnie Ross as former studio leader in late 2022, the source mentioned in his report that 343 would switch to using the Unreal Engine. According to reports, the transition to Unreal Engine resulted at the beginning of development on a new game that was given the codename Tatanka.
“That project, which 343 is developing alongside the gaming studio Certain Affinity, based in Austin, Texas, began as a battle royale but may evolve into new paths in the future.” Fans of Halo Infinite who were looking for more story-driven content got some disappointing news from the insider.
Instead of working on new missions for Halo Infinite, the developers developed prototypes on the Unreal Engine and pitched ideas for new Halo games. Fans of Halo Infinite have called 343’s lack of post-launch content and underwhelming plan an “embarrassing” absence of post-launch material. According to Schreier’s report, “the current intention for 343 is to support a “strong live offering” for the Halo Infinite Forge level editor.”
The reaction of the community to the news that 343 is shifting away from single-player content in favor of a prospective battle royale title will be very intriguing.
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