How Halo Studios Evolved a Classic – Halo: Campaign Evolved

Developer 343 Industries has rebranded as Halo Studios and confirmed that all future titles in the franchise will be built using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5. According to details shared by Xbox Wire, the organizational shift marks a complete departure from the proprietary Slipspace Engine as the studio restructures to support multiple game projects simultaneously.

Studio Head Pierre Hintze explained that the transition reflects a major structural pivot for the team. "If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters. Chapter 1 – Bungie. Chapter 2 – 343 Industries," Hintze stated in an interview shared by Xbox. "Now, I think we have an audience which is hungry for more. So we're not just going to try improve the efficiency of development, but change the recipe of how we make Halo games. So, we start a new chapter today."

Moving Away From Proprietary Engine Maintenance

A primary factor in abandoning the Slipspace Engine is the resources required to maintain internal tech stacks. Halo Studios Chief Operating Officer Elizabeth van Wyck noted, "The way we made Halo games before doesn't necessarily work as well for the way we want to make games for the future. So part of the conversation we had was about how we help the team focus on making games, versus making the tools and the engines."

Studio Art Director Chris Matthews highlighted that core parts of the Slipspace architecture had grown outdated over time. "Respectfully, some components of Slipspace are almost 25 years old," Matthews told Xbox Wire. "Although 343 were developing it continuously, there are aspects of Unreal that Epic has been developing for some time, which are unavailable to us in Slipspace – and would have taken huge amounts of time and resources to try and replicate."

Matthews added that adopting Unreal Engine 5 grants access to advanced rendering and lighting tools like Nanite and Lumen, while also facilitating onboarding for new staff familiar with industry-standard development pipelines.

Project Foundry and Future Development

To evaluate Unreal Engine 5, the studio created a research exercise called Project Foundry. Rather than serving as a traditional public tech demo, Project Foundry was designed as a research exercise to establish pipeline standards for upcoming releases across three distinct biomes: a Pacific Northwest-style environment, a frozen region known as the Coldlands, and a Flood-corrupted landscape called the Blightlands.

Matthews emphasized that Project Foundry was built to reflect real production goals rather than conceptual polish. "Where this type of work's been done historically, across the industry, it can contain a lot of smoke and mirrors," Matthews stated. "The ethos of Foundry is vigorously the opposite of that."

Hintze added that the studio intends to use the content built during this research phase in incoming software, stating, "our intent is that the majority of what we showcased in Foundry is expected to be in projects which we are building, or future projects."

Despite the pivot to new Unreal Engine 5 projects, Halo Studios confirmed that Halo Infinite will continue to receive support on the Slipspace Engine, including ongoing Operations, updates to Forge mode, and competitive play via the Halo Championship Series. The studio clarified that a new Halo game is not imminent and has not disclosed specific project titles or release windows.

---

• Xbox Wire Hero image: https://xboxwire.thesourcemediaassets.com/sites/2/2026/07/MSFS2024_GOODYEAR_BLIMP_SCREEN_16x9_Noscop_x2-fb0ca81eeaae328132cc.jpg