343 Industries' community manager seemingly shut down rumors that the studio will only be supervising the Halo franchise, rather than leading the development of future Halo games.
Halo-centric podcaster and occasional leaker Bathrobe Spartan first popped up with the rumor that 343i would tackle "concept and pre-production in-house" before handing off development to other studios, citing anonymous former Halo developers as the source. The podcaster also pointed to the studio's falling headcount following layoffs in early 2023 as evidence.
After the claims were widely circulated and received a weird amount of traction, senior community manager John Junyszek responded to tweets calling the rumors "false" and factually incorrect. "It has been - and always will be - wild out there," Junyszek tweeted earlier this week, seemingly mythbusting the rumor.
it has been - and always will be - wild out there 🤠July 15, 2024
343 Industries previously released a very similar statement during those layoffs, when reports also suggested that the team would only franchise the Halo license out to other companies. "Halo and Master Chief are here to stay," studio head Pierre Hintz said at the time. "343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future, including epic stories, multiplayer, and more of what makes Halo great."
343 Industries is also currently hiring lead game designers, UI designers, systems designers, concept artists, sound engineers, and more - all roles that would indicate that at least some in-house Halo development would be taking place in the studio literally named after Halo.
The Halo House hasn't properly announced anything yet, but they are at least slowing down Halo Infinite support while "working on brand new projects" - right after the divisive FPS put out its best season ever. That "brand new project" might just be a remaster/remake for the original Halo: Combat Evolved, which already got a kind of underwhelming facelift in 2011.
While we wait for that new project, sprint through memory lane with our best Halo games ranking.
