343 Industries, the studio responsible for the Halo franchise within Xbox Game Studios, is changing things up in a few major ways. First and foremost, the studio announced that it is now going by a new title, Halo Studios. The team is highlighted, along with some shifts to the development process, in a way that really feels like more than just a rebrand.

With Halo Infinite pleasing many fans but not really hitting that major breakthrough within the gaming community, this might be more than just a name change and some updates to the development cycle. This is a lifeline to one of Xbox’s major franchises at a time when hopes are high for the platform but results are yet to be seen. The major change announced via Xbox Wire comes down to not a name change but a brand new way to build and create new Halo games.

Across new images and clips throughout the article, you’ll see familiar sites and characters, including Master Chief himself. These new visuals were created using Unreal Engine 5 and we learned that all future Halo projects will use the engine. In fact, Halo Studios shared that multiple new games using it are in development. Alongside the engine change, the studio is seeing changes in culture, workflow, and how its teams are organized. To match that new approach, 343 Industries saw it fit to change names, and Halo Studios is the new era.

As a primarily Xbox-centric videogame player, one who liked Halo Infinite quite a bit, this announcement worries me more than anything.

Yes, the visuals look great. Yes, a new chapter for the series is exciting. But wasn’t that what Infinite was? Isn’t this a pattern with Xbox Game Studios projects and teams we’re seeing at a frequency that is starting to feel like your favorite sports team announcing a roster rebuild every four years? You can only drive your community’s interest on hope for so long before you look out and see not many of them are left. Halo fans will always exist, but unless something truly major comes of this “new dawn”, this mission might be doomed from the start.

What do you think of the new Halo Studios announcement? Let us know where you see the franchise heading in the coming years in the comments.

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