what do you want to know
- A new report by YouTuber Sean W suggests that Halo Infinite’s battle royale, codenamed “Tatanka”, is turning into an Unreal Engine and possibly Halo itself.
- We unveiled Tatanka earlier this year as a Halo Battle Royale Lite game designed exclusively to appeal to a new audience.
- Since the departure of Halo CEO Bonnie Ross, many fans have been wondering what might change the direction of Microsoft’s take on the flagship shooting franchise.
- We’ve been investigating the Sean W rumor for the past week and can tentatively confirm some aspects of it.
Halo Infinite could be set for a major change in direction, according to new reports that we can at least partially confirm.
Last year, we exclusively revealed that Halo Infinite would be getting its own codename, similar to Battle Royale. your grandmother, in development between 343i and partner team Certain Affinity. Following the leak, CA released a statement reiterating its deep commitment to the Halo franchise and last week said the team is doing just that. “Great job” on Hello Infinite.
Halo Infinite has been in a bit of turmoil lately. The live service left a lot to be desired, and the 343i struggled to regain the speed required for updates that live service shooters typically enjoy in the likes of Fortnite, Valorant, and Apex Legends. The blizzard unfolds Surveillance 2 Halo Infinite is under even more pressure this week to keep up.
The long awaited game Shaping-modus It’s coming later this year, but with Season 3 of the content pushed back to Spring 2023, Season 4 will surely follow. In conversations with former and current 343i employees, who asked to remain anonymous, Halo Infinite’s internal slipspace engine was blamed for many of the problems with the game’s ongoing development. Two separate sources described the launch status of SleepSpace’s developer tools as “not current.” The descriptions paint a bleak picture for contractors and new 343i employees, who had to work with a ‘difficult’ engine that had little documentation and pipeline maturity. To that end, this latest rumor may not come as a surprise.
Message: Turning hello
last week, YouTube Shawn W He shared a video detailing some of the rumors he’s heard about Halo Infinite, along with some speculation about what might happen in the future. Originally, Sean W mentioned that a Halo mod like a Tatanka Battle Royale could be pushed to Unreal Engine. If it doesn’t already exist, it probably means that a lot of work already done in sleepspace is being dropped.
First I cross out the report. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to abandon over two years of work on the Tatanka to switch to a completely new engine, but after talking to Sean W. and doing some digging myself, it sure looks like the Tatanka will either abandon the slipspace, or was. Not in sleepspace. From the very beginning.
Information I found during the original Tatanka leak earlier this year indicated that the game was intended to feature content systems created by Halo Infinite’s Forge users, and that a new engine with progressions from Halo Infinite would likely be inconsistent with the design goal of incorporating Halo Infinite content. , which will exist as a completely separate engine. But the information we’ve got could point to a broader shift in direction for the Halo franchise.
It looks like Halo is already gearing up for an extensive switch to the Unreal Engine, known for games like Gears of War, Fortnite and more. Also confirms Sean W’s report ACG’s Jeremy PinterApart from some sources of our own. Before writing a report I wanted to gather more details to paint a more complete picture of what’s going on with Halo right now, but here’s what we know so far.
Some details about the specific plans remain a mystery, and we have some tentative hints that this change may extend to the entire franchise and not just Tatanka as 343i is set to explore the future of the franchise. Away from the company with 343i founder Bonnie Ross and Slipspace architect David Berger, the studio seems eager to explore new ways to adapt to the fast-paced development in the world of service shooter games. A move to a more popular engine with mature tools and perhaps most importantly, a higher level of experience on the game development staff could be the key to knowing Halo’s future.
At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any real indication that Halo Infinite itself is going to end. Forge’s development does not stop, nor does development in the third or fourth season.
Guess why this might be good
The Halo Infinite Live service wasn’t ready when last year’s game was celebrated by fans and media alike. While there were reservations about the relatively meager offering of maps, modes and progression, everyone seemed keen to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt – surely the company that pushed the console service game concept would nail Halo Infinite? On the right?
Fast forward to now, and we know that Halo Infinite Live wasn’t ready yet. A six-month season is an anomaly in an industry where service games are frequent one month Seasons, cosmetics with new Battle Passes that provide a sense of progress and rewards while maintaining competitive strategy. Halo Infinite also lacked seasonal updates, adding smaller batches of new maps and features than other competing games.
At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any real indication that Halo Infinite itself is going to end. Forge’s development does not stop, nor does development in the third or fourth season.
It is difficult to say why a single report is so difficult to say the least. Some people I spoke to blamed former game director Chris Lee, while others blamed studio head Bonnie Ross. One consistent area of ​​annoyance, however, rests with the slipspace engine, which has become somewhat notorious for being difficult to implement in the Halo Infinite chassis.
From the information and conversations I’ve had about Tatanka, I know that the game was intended to include Halo Infinite, and that certain Affinity obtained the Halo Infinite source code to build its implementation. We know a few bits about how to play Tatanka from the Halo API leak, though if the game really does switch engines as rumored, it’s basically anyone’s guess as to how much of the original plan will be retained.
Instead of portraying a sequel to Halo Infinite, it’s possible that Tatanka could eventually portray the next phase of Halo as a completely separate and independent experience. In other engines, this might ruin Microsoft’s original plan to integrate Forge mapping tools, but they could still bring Halo Infinite cosmetics using Halo’s social APIs.
Microsoft registered “endless” Trademarked a few months ago, which refers to some type of downloadable content for the Halo Infinite campaign. There was something there Possible suggestions That The Endless may migrate to the Unreal Engine and become a standalone experience, although we can’t confirm anything about The Endless at this time.
Unreal Engine is widely used in the gaming industry in general, and Microsoft’s internal team from The Coalition to Undead Labs has a lot of experience with the tool. Microsoft and certain Affinity already have internal tools and pipelines to work with the built-in Unreal Engine, at a time when it’s widely rumored that working with SleepSpace is problematic. Microsoft’s use of contractors can compound Slipspace’s problems, as training new employees to use tools that literally no one in the gaming industry can build creates a speed gap—and speed is everything in today’s live services world. Play absolutely basic
Of course, I’d caution against taking this with a grain of salt until we get some official statement from Microsoft, or some hard physical evidence. But as the saying goes: there is no smoke without fire, and now there is a lot of smoke.
