343 Industries has evolved. The new team, simply dubbed Halo Studios, has multiple Unreal-powered projects in development, and is entering the next chapter of the franchise and changing the recipe for how it makes Halo games.
Join members of the Halo Studios Team and go behind the scenes with “Project Foundry” – a multi-discipline research project designed to explore the creative potential of Unreal for the next generation of Halo games.
Join members of the Halo Studios Team and go behind the scenes with “Project Foundry” – a multi-discipline research project designed to explore the creative potential of Unreal for the next generation of Halo games.
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00:00♪♪
00:03Chris Matthews, take one, mark.
00:06This is Kasey Wu, take one, mark.
00:09I was told that I can just be my authentic self, Chris.
00:12For six years, I don't want to be in front of a camera.
00:15There's so much to do and so much fun to be had when you play Halo
00:19that I feel like I never run out of things to do.
00:22I love intricate stories that take place across lots of different worlds,
00:26have lots of different meaningful characters.
00:28What made Halo successful at the beginning?
00:31What is the legacy of Halo and what's the soul that we want to bring forward
00:34and what's the craft of making Halo games?
00:36And how do we set our studio at best to go deliver on that?
00:40We knew we had to make a change in order to take us into the future.
00:44When I first heard about Halo moving to Unreal Engine,
00:47my first thought was, this is going to be a really hard secret to keep.
00:50I think fans are going to be excited about the future of Halo
00:54because of the possibilities that are afforded us by using Unreal.
00:59Before, we really had to split our focus in thinking about building an engine,
01:04supporting it, being really kind of a tech company and a studio at the same time.
01:08Since we've made the change to shift to UE,
01:12we can bring Halo forward in ways that people have never seen before
01:16while still being true to what Halo is.
01:19The founding project was an effort to show ourselves
01:23how far we can push things using Unreal 5.
01:26A new studio art director, Chris, came to me and said,
01:29hey, I have this crazy idea.
01:31He said, hey, there's this thing called Project Foundry that I want to do.
01:34Let's make it happen.
01:36Foundry specifically is based around the same concept of the foundry in Halo lore.
01:43It's the place where Halo rings are born.
01:46It's not a game, it's a research project for our studio
01:50so we can prepare ourselves for the next steps of making Halo games.
02:16The original Halo franchise was a graphic showcase.
02:19It was best in class.
02:20That's what Halo was when it first was released
02:22and that's what Halo needs to be again.
02:32So once Project Foundry had been approved,
02:34we took the entire creative team and we ideated on three locations,
02:40something old, something new and something really alien.
02:43We had the Pacific Northwest, which is sort of traditional Halo biome.
02:47We were trying to shove as much foliage in there as humanly possible
02:51to make it really feel like you're on a hike in the Cascades.
02:55The Coldlands, which was the second biome that we took on,
02:58it was more of a technical showcase where we could play with shaders,
03:02we could play with deformable landscapes and terrains.
03:06Unreal affords us more opportunity than we've ever had in the past.
03:10You know, on the surface it might just look all like snow,
03:13but how many layers of things combine to really give that winter look?
03:19And then our third biome was the Blightlands,
03:21which is any land that's been completely taken over by the Flood.
03:26I wanted to give our team the opportunity to really express an alien world,
03:31a really alien world,
03:33taking something way further than they may have actually done in previous Halo games.
03:38What's impressed me about watching the Halo team work in Unreal
03:41is how beautiful everything looks, how incredible the environments look.
03:45I don't think we've seen anything quite like it in Unreal Engine before.
03:48Fortunately, we have a studio that's really passionate about Halo,
03:51about the look and the feel, and I think there's a lot of hunger
03:55to really collaborate, to move forward together.
03:58Foundry was an initiative that touched on every part of the creative process,
04:02everything from concept art, VFX, characters, vehicles, and weapons
04:07to make the future games of Halo.
04:09Creating an asset, taking this design,
04:12now we can really dig into material foundations.
04:15What is it actually made of? How is it physically accurate to the world?
04:20Now we get to take all the wonderful legacy assets that we have,
04:24bring them to life, and bring them to today's standards.
04:29We are really excited to be not just working on multiple projects,
04:34but also expanding our studio.
04:36As a lifelong Halo player, I think the game's only going to get better
04:38when we get those new, unique perspectives
04:41and people bring in their expertise and passion for the Halo franchise.
04:46We are looking for new talent as the projects that we're working on
04:50kind of get further and further into their development cycles.
04:53It is great to be part of a team like Foundry,
04:55because you can kind of see that force multiplied as people come in
04:58and take on challenges, and you can do more.
05:01Imagine a place where you have the commitment
05:04that this is what we want to do, Halo games,
05:07and create those experiences.
05:09And you can express your talent, your creativity,
05:12and your professional ambitions in that place.
05:15We're looking for designers, we're looking for artists,
05:17we're looking for engineers.
05:19It feels like a new beginning for the studio in a lot of ways.
05:22And I think that's pretty rare.
05:25And I think we arrived now at a point where
05:27you see the beginnings of people to start to believe in the process.
05:32There's so much momentum that we have right now
05:34and focus and clarity on not just what we're building,
05:37but why we're building, and kind of this next phase of Halo.
05:42The worlds that we're building, the stories that we're going after.
05:47The potential at Halo right now is huge.
05:50Halo Infinite was the last remnants of how we made Halo games in the past.
05:55That was our recipe.
05:57And what we're doing right now, we're changing that recipe.
06:17Halo Infinite
06:20Available Now