[Grisham]

Halo’s developer is reportedly switching to Unreal Engine | VGC

Halo Infinite has suffered numerous delays and cuts, which are potentially partly due to its tech…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries is reportedly planning to ditch its proprietary Slipspace Engine for Unreal.

That's according to journalist Jeremy Penter, who wrote on Sunday: "I can only confirm that many sources are saying this and very clear that it's already been decided and Halo is for sure switching to Unreal."

If accurate, it's not clear what this decision would mean for Halo Infinite itself, which 343 has publicly committed to supporting for a decade.

A game engine is a framework used for the development of games, often incorporating tools and systems for elements such as graphics, physics, networking and more.

As the cost and effort associated with creating an original engine are high, most game developers opt for an off-the-shelf solution such as Epic's Unreal Engine or Unity.

If 343 has indeed decided to switch to Unreal, it would follow a long line of development road bumps, as well as significant departures – including the lead engineer behind the Slipspace Engine himself, who was confirmed to have left last month.

VGC has asked Microsoft for comment on this story.

 

[Mickmrly]

A trillion dollar company that can't even make a proper game engine for one of its biggest franchises. Well, at least Gamepass is still good.

 

[Amorous Biscuit]

What a devastating mess this whole Slipspace Engine endeavour has been. This is a wholly self inflicted L for 343 (again!)

Must be a miserable time working for them, it just seems like you're always putting fires out somewhere.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Maybe the next one will have more than one biome and repeating corridors now.

 

[The Bloody Nine]

Can't wait to see the new and exciting ways they fuck this up. Clowns.

 

[Joe T.]

Le sigh.

 

[Franky Family]

343i is so sorry that I'm not even the least bit surprised, if this info turns out to be true

 

[Nikana]

Not too surprising other than the they rebuilt slipspace specifically for infinite and it still couldn't do what they needed smoothly.

Engine development costs have ballooned and Epic knows it which is why they are getting behind UE5 even more so than their previous engines from a PR perspective.

 

[Chozofication]

Honestly it can only be an improvement.

 

[WesternBlood]

343 Industries output on the Slipspace Engine

343 Industries output on the Unreal Engine

Something tells me it won't be just the Engine. If you have terrible writers and playspace engineers, then all you are going to do is continue to make Craig look ugly, but in higher def.

 

[Night Sky]

Just hand it over to Id and have done.

 

[quickwhips]

I said this a while ago. Microsoft has a leadership problem and a hiring talent problem to make the talent produce. Either hire me to fix or use unreal engine. Called it.

@SpartanN92

 

[Dacon]

Yeah MS definitely should keep these people in charge of Halo

 

[quickwhips]

My least favorite thing is naming a studio after a game so that is all they produce. Let them rebrand and just make a game that they want.

 

[JORMBO]

I don't know much about this type of thing. What's wrong with their current engine? Will switching allow them to make stuff faster? Infinite is a really good game that needed more content.

 

[Musky_Cheese]

I don't know much about this type of thing. What's wrong with their current engine? Will switching allow them to make stuff faster? Infinite is a really good game that needed more content.

Apparently they can't update the game effectively with this engine.

 

[WesternBlood]

It isn't entirely the fault of the engine. 343 Industries doesn't have competent developers, at least not like developers who can build and maintain an engine that isn't Unity or Unreal. Case in point the "bug" where the game was downloading gigabytes of data per match because it was programmed to keep downloading banners over the web, to then store in RAM during each reload/error instead of caching them on the HDD.



Wasn't Halo: MCC written in Unreal 4?

At some point you have to realize the magic is gone because the people who made a great game no longer have the passion or even exist in the physical space of working on this franchise any more.