343 Industries, developer of the Halo series, has confirmed it is working on multiple new games for the franchise under a new name: Halo Studios.
In a surprise announcement last night, the freshly-rebranded Halo Studios debuted a first look at Project Foundry – its experimental look at how the Xbox flagship franchise will look developed in Unreal Engine 5.
All Halo games from here on out will use UE5, Halo Studios confirmed, ditching its own proprietary Slipspace Engine it toiled on for years.
Project Foundry is not a new game per se, more an advanced tech demo. Still, in a six-minute video and accompanying Xbox Wire blog post, it is made clear that the quality on show is supposed to be fully representative of what an Unreal Engine 5 Halo game could look like – and indeed, parts of Project Foundry could pop up in future projects.
“It’s fair to say that 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,” Halo Studios boss Pierre Hintze said.
Project Foundry includes a slice of Halo’s classic Pacific Northwest setting, stuffed full of trees and detail, and our first look at Master Chief himself battling a pair of Covenant Elites. Other areas that have been modelled include the Coldlands, a new and frozen location, and the Blightlands, a gooey, disturbing setting that has been taken over by Halo’s Flood.