According to a recent rumour, Halo’s next single-player story campaign is already in development at 343 Industries and will be built in Unreal Engine.
The next Halo single-player campaign may already be in development. At least according to a recent rumour. The future of the long-running Halo franchise is currently in question. Developer 343 Industries has reportedly restructured the team behind 2021’s Halo Infinite, following a recent wave of layoffs at Microsoft. Infinite director Joe Staten left earlier this year. Halo Infinite has continued to receive multiplayer support in recent years. But 343 has reportedly scrapped earlier plans for further solo campaigns that would have continued the story of Master Chief and his new AI counterpart, The Weapon.
This doesn’t mean that the Halo story won’t continue in an all-new game, as the same insider reports that the Infinite post-launch story DLC plans have been cancelled also suggest that 343 Industries is preparing for a brand new Halo project.
The developer is reportedly already working on a new Halo multiplayer title in collaboration with Certain Affinity, the studio that helped make Halo Infinite multiplayer. This will mix battle royale gameplay elements from titles like Fortnite with extracted shooter mechanics. The project, codenamed Tatanka, will reportedly be the first Halo game to be built in the Unreal Engine instead of 343’s proprietary Slipspace engine.
Tatanka may not be the only new Halo project to be made at 343 Industries’ studio. According to a recent rumour, the developer is already working on a new single-player campaign. This news was shared on the latest episode of Hoeg Law’s Bitcast livestream. Co-host Ains said that he had heard that this campaign was being developed as part of 343’s Unreal-based Halo remake. He added that he’s unsure when this campaign will be released, but he guesses it won’t be for at least a few years.
Microsoft or 343 Industries have officially confirmed neither Tatanka nor this newly rumoured Halo single-player campaign, but the latter has maintained that the Halo franchise remains a cornerstone of the Xbox brand despite recent layoffs and the large-scale acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft.
It’s safe to say that the cliffhanger ending of Halo Infinite left fans wanting more single-player content. Halo Wars 2’s antagonist, Atriox, unleashed more of the Endless powers that threatened Master Chief in Infinite.
If these latest rumours are true, this and other loose ends from Halo Infinite could be picked up in the next Halo single-player campaign. Which will reportedly be developed using Unreal Engine 5. In the meantime, Halo Infinite players can dive into the upcoming Season 5 multiplayer content later this week. The latter includes the return of Firefight mode and new character cosmetics modelled after the dreaded Flood.
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