The Halo franchise is one of the most respected first-person shooter series in all of gaming, mainly because of what it did for gaming in terms of online combat and the story that was put into it. However, recently installments haven’t been up to the quality that gamers expect it to be. 343 Industries understands this, and are working hard to make the next title, Halo Infinite, the best it can be. And to do that, they made a brand new engine for the game that would allow them more flexibility.
“The Halo engine is a very technical, engineering-focused engine,” said Boss Bonnie Ross while speaking to IGN. “It’s super hard for creatives to work in. It’s super hard for a lot of creatives to work in, at one time. We did a ton of work, on Halo 4, on the engine, to get it to look… I think it looked amazing for being on the last generation on the last year of the platform. We promised the team we would do the work on the tools, and pipeline, for Halo 5, so it wasn’t such a challenging environment to develop on. You know… ‘best-laid plans’… we didn’t do that, and the team, rightfully so, basically called us on it.”
She continued on about the new engine:
“One; we want to do more with Halo… and two; we want to have a team that can do their best creative work within our engine. So it really was taking the time off and, as we announced the Slipspace Engine last year, it is all to make sure we’re building the platform for the future of Halo.”
It’s admirable that they’re doing this much for Halo Infinite to make sure that it’s up to snuff, but whether they succeed or fail is very much in the air. Only time will give them the answer they seek.
