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Reportedly, the next Halo game may not be developed by 343 Industries, but by another studio, as it has suffered significant staff losses over the past few days due to mass layoffs at Microsoft. This is reported by the sources of a French Halo franchise blogger named Bathrobe Spartan, who has published new information about the situation. In particular, he reports on how the Halo franchise will develop, plans for the development of Halo Infinite, and the future of 343 Industries.
According to an insider, Microsoft management considers the release of Halo Infinite unsuccessful, because the goals set for the developers (including financial ones) were not achieved. Taking a day to verify information from its sources, Bathrobe Spartan estimated that 343 Industries lost about “one-third” of its employees, after taking into account transfers to other Microsoft teams and “non-renewing contracts with external contractors.” As a result, the “game development” studio will reportedly disappear as it plans to license Halo to other studios. In fact, this is already happening. SkyboxLabs is working on the Forge mode, Sperasoft is creating the maps, and Certain Affinity is developing the various modes. 343 Industries will become a kind of franchise coordinator, and this can still be called a happy ending, because initially there was information that the team had completely exhausted its credibility, and it was planned to transfer the series to another studio.
The thread notes that Xbox Publishing has already reached out to other developers in 2020 to submit new ideas for “new Halo experiences.” With this strategy, they want to give permission to other studios to build and support new Halo games at scale but on a smaller budget.
In the end, the thread ends on a cautiously optimistic tone, suggesting that these changes will mean more games in the Halo franchise, although it also means the loss of narrative single-player content in Halo Infinite in favor of multiplayer-focused updates.
