343 says it’s still making Halo, despite layoffs and speculation

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Infinite halo

Microsoft

343 released a terse statement that reinforces the notion that it’s still making Halo for Microsoft, after mass layoffs hit the company as part of a larger 10,000-employee cut at megacorp:

“Halo and the Master Chief are here to stay. 343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future, including epic stories, multiplayer, and more about what makes Halo great.

The brief statement was intended to quell rumors that 343 was being pulled from Halo after these layoffs and Halo Infinite’s general underperformance. Yet it almost raises more questions than it answers.

In the case of epic stories, it hasn’t always been clear what Halo’s next plans for Master Chief are, outside of a Paramount Plus series burning source material. No concrete plans have ever been set for future Infinite story content starring the Master Chief, nor any public information about a new mainline game continuing its story other than vague rumors of something called Halo: The Endless, referring to the new enemy teased at the end of Infinity.

And on the multiplayer side, while 343 was assumed to continue pumping out live seasons of Halo and forging updates, actually the biggest upcoming development for Halo multiplayer is this mystery project Certain Affinity is working on, a sort of Halo spin on a battle royale in a F2P standalone game. Something that is not made by 343, even if it uses Infinite technology.

Infinite halo

343

I guess one question I would ask about this whole situation is if 343 continues to work on Halo for the indefinite future, why? They’ve been at it for a decade and between Halo 4, 5 and Infinite have produced many deeply flawed entries, with Infinite perhaps the most problematic of all with its one year delay yet to produce a consistent live game. It’s absurd that what should be Microsoft’s flagship shooter franchise has consistently struggled to stay in the top 20 most played Xbox games at any given time.

Perhaps with a change of leadership things can change, but we still have almost no idea what should happen next, aside from vague rumors, and the biggest concrete thing we think we know, Certain Affinity’s game BR, doesn’t even come from 343 itself. It’s a weird situation, and I’m not sure 343 holding the keys to Halo for another decade is the right move.

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