The Halo brand will reportedly be outsourced to outside studios.

On Thursday it became known that Microsoft will lay off 10,000 employees. Of course, they were scattered across several divisions, but the mass release also affected the game branch, especially Bethesda and 343 Industries, developers of the latest installments of the Halo series. The second study is not doing very well. Exclusive information (translated into English, for example here) was provided by a French insider with the nickname Spartan robewhich has a good reputation towards Halo.

According to him, the studio 343 Industries has lost about a third of its employees, which is a harbinger of coming changes. Even before the departure of Bonnie Ross last September, a small team led by Joseph Staten was reportedly trying to create several story additions for Infinite. However, after Ross’ term ended, the plan was rejected by new management, and the studio focused exclusively on multiplayer. Staten subsequently left 343, apparently voluntarily, unlike the others.

With Halo Infinite seemingly in financial ruin, 343 Industries is in for a transformation. The development of the game is almost complete, the only thing left to worry about is the multiplayer Infinite (which is now largely in the hands of Certain Affinity, Sperasoft and others). However, the Halo brand shouldn’t completely disappear, as it’s one of Microsoft’s flagships. However, new games, whether direct sequels or spin-offs, will be developed in third-party studios, which will also have access to the Slipspace engine. Then 343 Industries will only control the development in other studios, but not directly participate in it.

It is reported that the search for external partners began in 2020, i.e. even before the release of Infinite, one of the reasons is cost reduction. However, we do not yet know when a potential new collaboration will bear fruit.

In conclusion, it’s worth recalling that 343 Industries is a studio that was founded solely to develop other parts of the Halo series after the original developers at Bungie decided to split from Microsoft. The Coalition studio, which “took over” from Epic Games and is working on the Gears of War series, is also on the same page. However, there are no changes yet, although for some time there has been talk that in addition to Gears, a completely new brand is also being created in the offices.