Halo SWITCHING To Unreal Engine?!?
Alright, what’s up? I’m doing another Halo video because Halo rumors are always fun to cover. This one isn’t really a rumor anymore, though. Jason Schreier of Bloomberg dropped a bomb: Microsoft and 343 Industries will still make Halo games, despite the rumors. However, with the mass layoffs (at least 95 people) and an engine pivot to Unreal, they’re focusing only on multiplayer in the near future. It looks like 343 is hitting the reset button.
The big topic right now is the engine pivot to Unreal, which is confirmed by Jason Schreier. Sean W. originally broke this news back in October, and even I was skeptical. I just couldn’t see it working. Having worked in development, the thought of switching to Unreal just didn’t seem fiscally sensible. Not only do you have to pay a license to Epic (which Microsoft can afford), but it seemed like the amount of change needed for Halo would be immense.
I can’t say I know Slipspace or Blam that well, but it seemed like its proprietary nature was a major factor in Halo’s slow development. When developing in a proprietary system, you not only have to train new hires, but they also encounter unique ‘gotchas’ within that system. Unreal, being open and widely taught, makes it easier for people to jump in and start working. So, it makes sense that you can bring new employees on really quickly, but you definitely lose a lot of the legacy feel of Halo. I don’t know how I totally feel about it, but it’s happening, so my feelings don’t really matter.
Tonka Certain Affinity will be pushing Unreal. Johnny Owens says Halo transitioning to Unreal is both surprising and sensible. As commercial engines become bigger, more general, and reliable, it makes less sense to invest in developing your own. I agree. I’ve worked at companies where we rolled our own frameworks, and eventually, we just couldn’t keep up with open-source frameworks. It doesn’t make sense to keep developing your own, especially when those open-source frameworks solve problems you haven’t even encountered yet.
There will still be proprietary engines, especially at first-party studios. The incentives are often different – to create the best-looking and most performant game possible on specific hardware. A specialized engine can have an advantage over a general one. Blam will always work better on Xbox hardware, whereas Unreal tries to work great on everything. It’s surprising that this change is happening at a first-party tentpole franchise, the best place for a proprietary engine. Yet, they’re moving to Unreal. In the best-case scenario, the ubiquity of Unreal can help lower development costs, especially for games that aren’t trying to push boundaries.
Here’s the thing: Unreal Engine looks amazing. If you’ve seen the new Fortnite update and what they’re doing with nanites, they’ve nailed the graphics. Unreal is not a shitty engine; it’s a freaking dope engine that a lot of dope games are built on. The biggest problem is transitioning a game to Unreal. It frustrates me knowing that because we’re going Unreal, we’re going to be losing content. If Tatanka was going to come out this year, switching to Unreal is going to cost them at least another two years.
Patrick Wren, a former 343 dev, said it took a minimum of six months to ramp up someone on Slipspace just for them to do minimum work, and then another six months to really work at speed. Colby painted an interview that the ramp-up time was three to four months in an interview with Kevin Kulek. It depends on what you’re doing and where you are in production. It fluctuates. Some are quicker, and some take a bit to learn new tools. After about three or four months, I was in the engine designing my first Outpost read out of sondring. Devs are saying it used to take people six months to get onto Slipspace, so hopefully, that’s reduced with Unreal. Bathroom Spartan said they had leaks from December that showed Tatanka was still being built in Slipspace.
They could have been working to release Tatanka in Slipspace and then decided to transition it all over to Unreal. Jess Horden also corroborated the rumor. Originally, he couldn’t corroborate it, but now he can. There was a big internal tug-of-war. Some teams wanted to stick with Blam and Slipspace, while others wanted to go Unreal to solve a lot of problems. I think their biggest problem is bringing on junior devs and dealing with contractor turnover. Bringing on contractors who know Unreal will make them a lot more efficient than bringing on contractors who have to learn Slipspace, only to fire them again.
It seems like there was an internal tug-of-war, and once Bonnie Ross and some of the team who were more Slipspace-focused were out, the Unreal side won. They also released a Windows Central report which talked about potentially bringing Halo to other devices with the move to Unreal. Some people took that to mean it’s coming to PlayStation, but my bet is it means we’ll see some Halo stuff going to mobile. Mobile seems to be a big place that Microsoft wants a passion for, and part of why I think the Activision move is happening is so that they can get a greater mobile presence.
So, Sean W. was right, and I was wrong. Congratulations, Sean! I should never have doubted you. But hey, expect two more years of Infinite at best, and then it looks like we’re just going to move everything over to Tatanka, which some are saying is going to be a standalone game. Let’s see where that goes. Catch you guys in the next video. Peace!
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