what you need to know
- A new report from YouTuber Sean W suggests the battle royale is moving from Halo Infinite, codenamed “Tatanka,” to the Unreal Engine, and maybe even Halo itself.
- We exclusively unveiled Tatanka as a Battle Royale Lite Halo game earlier this year, designed to appeal to new audiences.
- Ever since the departure of Halo boss Bonnie Ross, many fans have wondered what direction change might lie ahead for Microsoft’s flagship shooter franchise.
- We’ve been investigating Sean W’s rumors for the past week and can tentatively confirm some aspects of it.
Halo Infinite could be set for a major change of direction, according to new reports that we can tentatively confirm, at least in part.
Last year, we exclusively revealed that Halo Infinite would be given its own battle royale-esque codename, Tatanka, in development between 343i and partner team Certain Affinity. Following the leak, CA released a statement confirming its deeper commitment to the Halo franchise, and just last week indicated that the team is doing “great work” on Halo Infinite.
Halo Infinite has been in a bit of a turmoil lately. The live service leaves a lot to be desired, and 343i is struggling to return to the necessary update pace that live service shooters generally enjoy at the likes of Fortnite, Valorant, and Apex Legends. Blizzard is also launching Overwatch 2 this week, increasing the pressure on Halo Infinite to keep up.
The game’s long-awaited Forge mode is coming later this year, but Season 3 of content has been pushed back to Spring 2023, with Season 4 coming even later, of course. In conversations with past and present 343i employees who have asked to remain anonymous, Halo Infinite’s internal Slipspace engine has been blamed for a majority of the problems with the game’s ongoing development. Two separate sources described the launch status of Slipspace’s developer tools as “not present”. The descriptions paint a bleak picture for contractors and new 343i employees who have had to work with a ‘difficult’ engine that had little documentation and pipeline maturity. To that end, these recent rumors might not come as a surprise.
Report: Change of direction for Halo
Last week, YouTuber Sean W shared a video detailing some of the rumors he’s heard about Halo Infinite, as well as some speculation about what might happen in the future. At its core, Sean W reported that Halo’s tatanka battle royale-like mode may be moving to the Unreal Engine. If it weren’t already there, it would potentially mean dropping much of the work already done on Slipspace.
First I copied the report. It didn’t make much sense to drop more than two years of work on Tatanka to switch everything to a new engine, but after speaking to Sean W and doing some research myself, it certainly looks increasingly like it is it Tatanka either gives up on Slipspace or has never been on Slipspace to begin with.
Information I received during the original Tatanka leak earlier this year indicated that the game was intended to feature Halo Infinite Forge’s user-generated content systems, alongside further development of Halo Infinite itself. At first glance, moving to a new engine might not be consistent with the design goal of integrating Halo Infinite content, which would continue to exist entirely on a separate engine. But the information we’ve received could point to a broader change in direction for the Halo franchise.
It seems Halo is indeed preparing for a broader switch to the Unreal Engine, known for games like Gears of War, Fortnite, and many others. Sean W.’s report was also confirmed by ACG’s Jeremy Penter, as well as some of our own sources. I wanted to gather more details to try and paint a more complete picture of what’s going on with Halo right now before I write a report, but here’s what we know so far.
Some details on the specific plan remain vague, we have some preliminary indications that this change may also extend to the entire franchise, not just Tatanka, as 343i prepares to explore the future of the franchise. With 343i founder Bonnie Ross and Slipspace architect David Berger no longer with the company, the studio seems eager to break new ground to adapt to the rapid pace of development in the world of shooter service games. The move to a more popular engine with mature tools and, perhaps more importantly, a high level of experience from the game development staff could be the key to figuring out Halo’s future.
At the moment, however, there doesn’t seem to be any real indication that Halo Infinite itself will shut down. The development of Forge doesn’t stop and neither does the development of Season 3 or 4.
Speculation: why this could be good
The Halo Infinite live service just wasn’t ready when the game was released last year to great fan and media acclaim. While there were reservations about the relatively anemic offering of maps, modes, and progression, everyone seemed intent on giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt – surely the company that pushed the idea of a console service game would have Halo Infinite nailed down? Right?
Fast forward to now, and we know Halo Infinite’s live service just wasn’t ready yet. Six-month seasons are an outlier in an industry where service games are common a month Seasons, with new Battle Passes packed with cosmetics that provide a sense of progression and reward while maintaining competitive balance. Halo Infinite’s seasonal updates were also somewhat lacking, adding minimal amounts of maps and new features compared to other competing games.
At the moment, however, there doesn’t seem to be any real indication that Halo Infinite itself will shut down. The development of Forge doesn’t stop and neither does the development of Season 3 or 4.
It has been difficult, to say the least, to pin down a single narrative as to why this is so. Some of the people I spoke to blame former game director Chris Lee, while others blame studio head Bonnie Ross. The only consistent area of irritation, however, is with the Slipspace engine, which has become somewhat notorious in comments surrounding Halo Infinite for being difficult to implement.
I know from information and conversations I’ve had about Tatanka that the game was going to include Halo Infinite, and Certain Affinity was given the Halo Infinite source code to develop its implementation. We know a few fragments of how Tatanka is intended to play from leaks in the Halo API, although if the game does indeed switch engines as rumored, it’s essentially anyone’s guess as to how much of the original plan will be retained.
Rather than depicting the sequel to Halo Infinite, it’s possible that Tatanka could eventually grow to depict the next phase of Halo itself as an entirely separate, standalone experience. On another engine, Microsoft’s original plan to integrate the Forge mapping tools might be dashed, but they might still be able to convey Halo Infinite’s cosmetics by leveraging Halo’s social APIs.
Microsoft registered the trademark “The Endless” a few months ago, which could indicate some kind of campaign DLC for Halo Infinite. There were some possible suggestions that The Endless may also move to Unreal Engine and become a standalone experience, although we can’t confirm anything about The Endless at this time.
The Unreal Engine is widely used in the gaming industry, and Microsoft’s internal teams from The Coalition to Undead Labs have a wealth of experience with the tools. Microsoft and Certain Affinity have both already established internal tools and pipelines for working with Unreal Engine, at a time when it’s widely rumored that working with Slipspace is problematic at best. Microsoft’s use of contractors may also exacerbate Slipspace’s problems, as training new employees to use the tools that literally nobody else in the gaming industry uses will undoubtedly create a speed deficit – and speed is of the essence in today’s live service environment. Game world absolutely crucial.
Of course, I caution against taking all of this with a pinch of salt until we get some official statement from Microsoft or some form of concrete physical evidence. But as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire, and right now there is a lot of smoke.
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