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[KaiserBecks]

Silent Hill disappeared for a decade+ and had a loyal fanbase.

Microsoft actually has spent a decade bombarding us with Halo garbage that just made people hate the studio and hate the games. Let's be real, nobody at MS is capable of making a Halo 3 tier game at this point. If they were, they would have done it. It's been a shit series longer than it's been a good one.

I agree, but Silent Hill's fanbase also had to cope with subpar sequels. I have absolutely zero confidence in 343, but just like with the Silent Hill franchise, I think it's not a bad idea to use a remake to bring an ip back on track. I guess we'll see.

 

[leizzra]

Well, contractors will have easier life with engine that they know. For 18 months of their work...

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Realistically how many people give a single shit about Halo these days? It's a franchise for old people and hasn't been good/relevant for a decade at least. Everyone abandoned it. The shitty Infinite live service and ghastly TV show was the last straw. Another Halo CE Remake is just embarrassing and shows how creatively bankrupt the whole enterprise is. Whatever engine they use doesn't matter one bit.

It's a big franchise, people still pay attention to it. Using the TV show you mention as an example, there aren't many game titles that have the numbers to inspire shows that actually get greenlit. I don't think Halo is actually particularly suitable for a TV show - it's why they had to change so much to make a TV show that might work, turns out it didn't work as well as they hoped.

But, the point is that there are relatively few games that have an audience that can justify the cost of production.

Infinite was generally well received by fans, I think.

So I guess the answer is, in comparison to other video game franchises, a lot of people still care about Halo. Microsoft will have the numbers, and wouldn't be continuing to pump money into the game if nobody cared.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

It was Bungies engine (BLAM engine).

Slipspace is basically just a heavily modified BLAM engine and that's the problem. Even Bungie ran into issues with Destinys content development because of their BLAM engine.

You can only do so much if you build off of what is the core issue. So rather than creating a new engine from scratch and making people learn it, they can switch over to UE.

Exactly, this is the first Halo related news in eons that actually makes sense!

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I wonder what it must be like to join a dev team that is going to work on nothing but one series? Is it exciting or does the worry that boredom is going to creep in come into it?

I have wondered the same but with games taking 5 years routinely now, you're looking at a decade if you decide to stay on for a second game. You might be looking to move to another job or company within a decade no matter where you work.

 

[Mattyp]

All this does in my opinion is solidify Microsoft and 343 incompetence, they've ditched the original engine with only releasing one game with it and now resorted to a short cut via UE5, it will be interesting when this game drops as I can't see the Series S holding it's own, thus the Series X version of the game will be held back for this reason.

? every game has been released on the Blam! Engine, Slipspace was just another iteration of that same engine even if just rebranded with some more work under the hood for next gen it’s still the same engine at its core, the same way as CoD is the same IW Engine from 2005 to 2024 and counting…

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

Would live to get excited, but let's wait and see.

 

[GinSama]

Hopefully it will the beginning of a new chapter for the games ahead....I hope that the lack of updates, news etc for the last few months almost year was because of this changes.

I'm still playing MCC but still think that infinite should have been better prepared specially post lunch.

Always down for more Halo campaigns and multi player. Is time for Ms to really invest on Halo with better supervision.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Would live to get excited, but let's wait and see.

Im sick of the long development cycles. Infinite took too long to develop and now the next game will have a similar ETA. Just fed up with waiting. Call of Duty fans are spoiled rotten by comparison. Switching to UE5 is supposed to fix the issue but I think I've lost any and all enthusiasm for the next game. Am I supposed to be happy that we might get another mainline halo game in 3 to 4 years from now? Pfffffffffft...

 

[Stafford]

It looks good but so did the first trailer for Infinite and the final game was nothing like it, visually, nowhere near as good looking. But this does look promising, even though we all know how taxing this engine is. Hopefully the next Xbox hardware is fully ready for it.

 

[Hohenheim]

I get that MS literally has nothing else but damn the Halo franchise is so old and decrepit and irrelevant at this point, just let it die for God's sakes

Fuck no!
A new Halo campaign is always welcome!
Couldn't care less about the MP personally, but those campaigns are always good.

Also, MS have nothing else?
Come on now.. that's just lazy.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

How is it Apex Legends was a 3 year dev cycle, with approx 110 devs, prior to its first release and Halo with all its resources cannot even pump and dump a quality BR game in that time.

 

[Snake29]

Engine trailer vs Gameplay is something different. This is some sort of same engine showcase they did with Halo Infinite back then, and we know how Infinite looked compared the engine showcase, it was not even close. I think UE5 is more flexible, but we still have to wait. The enviroments do look really good, but the characters in this project do not look great.

I will wait loosing my mind over this before we see the game itself. Also based on the video, the Next Halo isn't in active development atm. This is a research project....

 

[Darsxx82]

These are coherent decisions for the first time after many bad ones.

Moving to UE5 makes it easier to hire developers and at the same time boosts the technical graphic aspect of the game that SSengine did not allow.

A Halo with a more realistic and serious look but without losing identity is what I always wanted. From the footage shown it seems that the visual bet is serious.

PS. New Halo launch for the new hardware or XboxNext??

 

[Lucifers Beard]

I actually wouldn't mind seeing them remake Halo 3 on this engine since they've already done CE and 2. Some of the set pieces in that game are just fucking crazy. Also the multiplayer attached to that would be awesome since it's still the best version of Halo multiplayer.

 

[Radical_3d]

UE5 is a terrible engine for open world games. So this may be good news.

 

[GMAK2442]

Best of luck

 

[SweetTooth]

Poor Series S

 

[SpokkX]

My take - boring

Halo needs to feel and be something different. Sure it will look great but it will feels like just another UE game now

Halos engine was a big part of what made it unique

 

[midnightAI]

UE5 is a terrible engine for open world games. So this may be good news.

Well, no, it isnt, it's a terrible engine for open world games if the developer doesn't know what they are doing and/or adds too many GPU hungry UE5 features.... it needs a lot of cpu/gpu power to get the very best out of it (if you use Lumen, Nanite etc.). But at the end of the day UE5 'can' be used exactly like UE4, you can port your game to UE5 form UE4 without many changes and it should run fine.

 

[RespawnX]

Poor Series S

It’s obviously a next gen project with next Xbox 2-4 years away.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

In Pierre we trust

 

[Radical_3d]

Well, no, it isnt, it's a terrible engine for open world games if the developer doesn't know what they are doing and/or adds too many GPU hungry UE5 features.... it needs a lot of cpu/gpu power to get the very best out of it (if you use Lumen, Nanite etc.). But at the end of the day UE5 'can' be used exactly like UE4, you can port your game to UE5 form UE4 without many changes and it should run fine.

Yeah but UE4 is also terrible for open world games. I hope we go back to the old formula.

 

[RPCGamer]

It's a big franchise, people still pay attention to it. Using the TV show you mention as an example, there aren't many game titles that have the numbers to inspire shows that actually get greenlit. I don't think Halo is actually particularly suitable for a TV show - it's why they had to change so much to make a TV show that might work, turns out it didn't work as well as they hoped.

But, the point is that there are relatively few games that have an audience that can justify the cost of production.

Infinite was generally well received by fans, I think.

So I guess the answer is, in comparison to other video game franchises, a lot of people still care about Halo. Microsoft will have the numbers, and wouldn't be continuing to pump money into the game if nobody cared.

Think this is what it comes down too. Halo (and others) might not be at their peak, but if they can still make fun games and there's a big enough audience to support it, then it should just keep going.

 

[midnightAI]

Yeah but UE4 is also terrible for open world games. I hope we go back to the old formula.

Terrible? Arkham Knight, Days Gone, Fortnite, PUBG etc. again, its down to the developers, always has been

 

[Killer8]

I'm skeptical that a final game will look anywhere close to this good - not on Series hardware anyway. Presumably they will still want to target 60fps. While I could maaaybe see this kind of fidelity at 30fps late in the generation on a Series X, 60fps for UE5 typically means a lot of concessions. The Lumen reflections on the visor for example would be such a pixelated mess at 60fps that they might as well just go with Halo 3-style fake reflections.

What is somewhat disappointing is how we never really saw the Slipspace engine reach its potential. The demo of it at E3 2018 was impressive for the time and I assumed was running on a One X. The final Infinite product didn't even approach half of what they promised in that trailer. Something must've gone seriously wrong with the engine behind the scenes to necessitate such a downgrade and for this move to UE5.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Terrible? Arkham Knight, Days Gone, Fortnite, PUBG etc. again, its down to the developers, always has been

Out of them only Fortnite weren't plauged by technical problems on release. No wonder, it was created by the maintainer of the engine. And one can argue that the island in Fortnite is not that big too.

AK was unreleased on PC for almost a year to fix FPS dips and stuttering, Days Gone was a buggy and stuttering mess, PUBG is still far from ideal, Rebirth has it's own problems, Hogwarts Legacy is a stutterfest on PC... The list goes on.

 

[TBiddy]

Slipstream was shit, as was evident with the pisspoor presentation of Halo Infinite, complete with pop-ins and what not. This is a great move.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

I'm skeptical that a final game will look anywhere close to this good - not on Series hardware anyway. Presumably they will still want to target 60fps. While I could maaaybe see this kind of fidelity at 30fps late in the generation on a Series X, 60fps for UE5 typically means a lot of concessions. The Lumen reflections on the visor for example would be such a pixelated mess at 60fps that they might as well just go with Halo 3-style fake reflections.

What is somewhat disappointing is how we never really saw the Slipspace engine reach its potential. The demo of it at E3 2018 was impressive for the time and I assumed was running on a One X. The final Infinite product didn't even approach half of what they promised in that trailer. Something must've gone seriously wrong with the engine behind the scenes to necessitate such a downgrade and for this move to UE5.

Remember the Slipspace engine reveal?

Infinite never lived up to that.

 

[Kerotan]

At least making the PS5 ports will be easier now. Halo has a future on PS5/PC. Don't give up on them yet MS!

 

[clarky]

Remember the Slipspace engine reveal?

Infinite never lived up to that.

Smoke and mirrors. It was just an updated version of Blam!

Lies basically.

 

[Mercenary09]

I think they will make a great comeback because sometimes you need a fall to get back up & be great again.

LMAO they've been falling over and over again for well past a decade now. Yeah I'm sure this time they'll get it right.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Smoke and mirrors. It was just an updated version of Blam!

Lies basically.

Do you think UE5 has no code from much much much older versions of UE though?

 

[clarky]

Do you think UE5 has no code from much much much older versions of UE though?

Of course it does. What's your point?

"Slipspace" engine was touted as a new engine and a fresh start.

Halo Boss Reveals Reason Behind Infinite's New Slipspace Engine - IGN Unfiltered - IGN

343 Industries head Bonnie Ross revealed the Slipspace engine was created to fulfill a promise made to the development team before Halo 5.

www.ign.com

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Dragon Quest 11 was made with Unreal. It's just an engine it's artists who make the game look the way it is.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Of course it does. What's your point?

"Slipspace" engine was touted as a new engine and a fresh start.

Halo Boss Reveals Reason Behind Infinite's New Slipspace Engine - IGN Unfiltered - IGN

343 Industries head Bonnie Ross revealed the Slipspace engine was created to fulfill a promise made to the development team before Halo 5.

www.ign.com

In very few cases new is what we think it is.

 

[King Dazzar]

Surely the Xbox studio portfolio gives them other more console friendly engine choices? Yet they want to use UE5? Isn't that missing the advantage of acquiring all these studios?

 

[VitoNotVito]

I'm gonna change my name to Ryan Reynolds. It shuld get me so much p*ssy...

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Surely the Xbox studio portfolio gives them other more console friendly engine choices? Yet they want to use UE5? Isn't that missing the advantage of acquiring all these studios?

Do you want to train new hires for a year on your fancy bespoke engine or do you want them to get to work on day one?

Standardisation in the industry could help reduce development time from 7 years back to a more manageable 4.

 

[Ozriel]

Why id tech continues to be ignored is beyond me.

So they bought the ID engine for nothing? Unbelievable.

In the OP: “Switching to Unreal engine allows us to recruit wider and brings devs up to speed quicker”

You: “it’s beyond me why they aren’t using a proprietary engine?”

>Spend years developing a new engine
>Say it has a 10-year plan and will be used for the franchise moving forward
>First game using it looks bad and flops
>Change to UE5, a notoriously heavy engine

They spent years *upgrading* the engine for next gen. It’s still heavily underpinned by SlipSpace.

You guys keep saying you want better management. This is it.

Yep. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. What kind of publisher uses UE for their flagship games?

I take it you’ve heard of the Gears of War franchise before?
Moving to UE is perhaps the best decision they’ve made in a long while. Sticking with the outdated engine is the Disaster that’s already happened.

 

[Bernoulli]

Do you want to train new hires for a year on your fancy bespoke engine or do you want them to get to work on day one?

Standardisation in the industry could help reduce development time from 7 years back to a more manageable 4.

But they mostly use contractors

 

[Z O N E]

Slipspace has nothing to do with BLAM, it was created from scratch for Infinite and was worked on for 10 years. It's an another huge L for MS Gaming tech department because they have what in-house tech? Forza Tech?

BLAM-based engine is alive and well in Destiny 2 though and the game is clearly suffering because of it.

It's not entirely new, they even said it themselves:

If the timestamp doesn't work, it starts at 35:06.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

It's not entirely new, they even said it themselves:

If the timestamp doesn't work, it starts at 35:06.

No engine is written completely from scratch, it's a PR fallacy. You'd be surprised how amny idtech code is sprinkled all over the industry.

 

[Klosshufvud]

Slipstream was shit, as was evident with the pisspoor presentation of Halo Infinite, complete with pop-ins and what not. This is a great move.

Really? Halo Infinite runs really well on my PC, and unlike UE5 games have zero stutter and frame rate is rock solid.

I think this is really worrisome how studios are moving away from dedicated engines and by extension work force. Soon everything will be done by contractors. Third party engines, third party assets, third party work force. Sounds like the death of innovation and creativity right there.

 

[Z O N E]

No engine is written completely from scratch, it's a PR fallacy. You'd be surprised how amny idtech code is sprinkled all over the industry.

I mean, I know no game engine is created from scratch, but you literally said that, hence why I showed you that video:

it was created from scratch for Infinite

The fact is, Slipspace was the problem and they even know that hence why they're ditching it and that's GOOD news.

Halo's BLAM engine, albeit good and amazing at times, was one of the core problems of fixing and bringing in content.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

I mean, I know no game engine is created from scratch, but you literally said that, hence why I showed you that video:



The fact is, Slipspace was the problem and they even know that hence why they're ditching it and that's GOOD news.

Halo's BLAM engine, albeit good and amazing at times, was one of the core problems of fixing and bringing in content.

As a frequent UE user (video production and FX) I suggest you not to hold your breath about UE5. It is it's own can of worms.

 

[King Dazzar]

Do you want to train new hires for a year on your fancy bespoke engine or do you want them to get to work on day one?

Standardisation in the industry could help reduce development time from 7 years back to a more manageable 4.

Give me a list of games on console, running on UE5 which run great and have decent resolution? I'm happy for you to win me over. Now I might get impressed by something yet to be released from the coalition. But UE5 standardisation to me indicates a risk of quick release mediocrity and janky running games.

 

[clarky]

In very few cases new is what we think it is.

Then it should not be advertised as such.

See also Forza Motorsport "build from the ground neck up"

---

 

[M1chl]

Wait, is it made by Brits?

 

[Interfectum]

Looks like a fan modeling project in UE5.