The Halo franchise is reportedly switching to the Unreal Engine from 343i‘s custom Slipspace engine. The switch includes the rumored battle royale multiplayer mode for Halo Infinite, which has been in development for over two years.
- Related Reading: 343 Industries: Halo Studio Founder & Head Leaves Company, Microsoft Announces Leadership Restructuring
The woes of Halo Infinite and 343 Industries are seemingly not yet over. Halo Infinite had a particularly troubled launch: a release date delay, the departure of director Chris Lee, cheaters, support issues, and the fact that the Forge level editor and under-delivering Campaign co-op have still not been released are just some of the problems the game encountered during development and after release.
An upcoming battle royale multiplayer mode for Halo Infinite, codenamed “Tatanka,” was leaked in January. The project was supposed to be fully integrated with Halo Infinite, and developed by Certain Affinity in 343i’s in-house Slipspace engine.
All that is set to change, as a report from last week states that Tatanka development is shifting over to Unreal Engine because of the inadequacy of Slipspace. This is despite more than two years of existing development on Tatanka and its planned integration with Halo Infinite.
And that’s not all. A new report says that the entire Halo franchise is moving over to Unreal Engine. Slipspace has been described as a particularly unhelpful, unaccommodating engine with “non-existent” developer tools, and poor documentation and pipeline maturity. Following the departure of studio head and founder Bonnie Ross as well as Slipspace architect David Berger, 343i seems more than eager to phase out the engine and incorporate mature, reliable tools to handle development demands for future projects.
While the development of Halo Infinite continues as planned, it’s unknown whether Tatanka will still be part of Halo Infinite or release as a standalone property.
We’ll keep our readers updated with any further developments.
Source(s): Windows Central, Sean W