343 Industries Employee LinkedIn Profiles Reveal Development Already On For Next Halo, Unreal Engine 5 Being Utilized

As of late 2023, Halo Infinite appears to be in a greater position than it was left initially. Partly, the game officially welcomed Firefight to its lobbies. Additionally, the game was also recorded welcoming over 30 million players as well. However, this title was painted an entirely different color after its release. Despite the high praise it initially received, Halo Infinite was vacant on content outside of the story mode. And things were looking to go south with Joe Staten said to be on his way out from 343 Industries.

And alongside the underwhelming release of the Paramount+ television series, morale surrounding the IP only added fuel to the fire. Enough doubt was casted that studio head Pierre Hintze had to clarify that Halo isn’t going anywhere. And later solidified Halo is to stay as long as Xbox remains a platform. And currently it has show to stand by its word.

At the same time, one report did foreshadow the intent for Halo moving forward. Partly, there are no plans to add story DLC to Halo Infinite. Additionally, the team would completely abandon its Slipspace Engine for Unreal Engine. In a new finding via LinkedIn, a new Halo game has been in development since 2022.

Former art director Jason Dinges for his experience noted working at 343 Industries from April 2022 to March 2023 that he  “worked on Halo’s next unannounced release.” Dinges was at 343 Industries since 2011 and only left the developer since last year for Lost Boys Interactive. Additionally, senior character systems designer Ian Slutz on his profile writes “Building player systems and assets in Unreal Engine 5.”

This new embrace for Unreal Engine continues to be a major initiative at Xbox Game Studios with a handful of developers now using the suite. Even Gears developer The Coalition, initially comprised of Epic Games, is now a support division under Xbox Games Technology Group; likely to assist development for Unreal Engine 5. You can read the full report by heading here.

What has you most interested in this new discovery behind Halo?

Source: LinkedIn, (1)