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343 switches to Unreal amid studio pivot

343 switches to Unreal amid studio pivot

Halo maker 343 Industries is switching from its own proprietary tech to Epic's Unreal Engine.

That's according to a Bloomberg report, which says that the company has made the switch owing to problems with its own Slipstream engine. This is apparently not the first time that 343 has contemplated making the switch, with its own tech proving challenging to use for much of the last two decades.

This news comes amid a pivot for 343 Industries. The studio has reportedly been hit hard by the layoffs at Microsoft. There were reports that the developer would no longer be working on the Halo franchise, instead supervising other outfits working on the IP, but Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty has insisted that this is not the case.

“343 will continue as the internal developer for Halo and as the home of Halo,” he said.

The company is working on a new project called Tatanka in collaboration with Austin, Texas' Certain Affinity. This apparently began as a battle royale game, but might move away from that formula.

343 is the latest company to move away from its own proprietary tech in favour of an off-the-shelf option. Last year, Cyberpunk studio CD Projekt switched from its Red engine to Unreal


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.