When Microsoft—an organization that made “$198 billion in income and $83 billion in working earnings” in 2022—made the choice to axe 10,000 employees final week, a lot of these got here from their online game operations, notably 343 Industries, the overseers of the Halo collection.
343, hit now by a mix of layoffs and key departures, doesn’t seem like in good condition. As we reported final week:
“The layoffs at 343 shouldn’t have occurred and Halo Infinite needs to be in a greater state,” former Halo Infinite multiplayer designer, Patrick Wren, tweeted Wednesday night time. “The rationale for each of these issues is incompetent management up high throughout Halo Infinite growth inflicting large stress on these working onerous to make Halo the very best it may be.”
Even previous to yesterday’s layoffs, 343 Industries has been dealing with wave after wave of excessive degree departures as Halo Infinite struggled to ship new seasonal updates and options on time. Probably the most notable was studio head Bonnie Ross’ departure final September. Extra just lately, multiplayer director and longtime Halo veteran Tom French revealed he was leaving in December. And yesterday, amid the chaos, Bloomberg reported that director and longtime Halo author, Joseph Staten, was headed to the Xbox publishing facet of the enterprise because the studio made the “tough resolution to restructure.”
These hits led to reviews final week that growth on future Halo video games was going to be handed off to outdoors studios, with 343 being relegated to a supervisory function. Studies which have seemingly led 343 to tweet the next assertion on the official Halo account, denying them (to an extent) and saying 343 “will proceed to develop Halo now and sooner or later”.
Halo and Grasp Chief are right here to remain.
343 Industries will proceed to develop Halo now and sooner or later, together with epic tales, multiplayer, and extra of what makes Halo nice.
Pierre Hintze
Studio head
That’s a brief assertion that does nothing to handle the report that different studios may now even be making Halo video games (which isn’t that new anyway, given Inventive Meeting’s work on Halo Wars), nor does it tackle the dimensions of the layoffs it was simply hit with, but it surely does at the least affirm that 343 themselves will nonetheless be immediately concerned indirectly within the collection’ future.
