I guess, like a said unlike the former 343 leadership that created a situation with too many people with creative control. Hintze is going to make sure they stick to what they’re doing and get it out there.
Sad as well SlipSpace was squandered. I do get the reason for UE 5. It’s basically a new team and all the principal architects of SlipSpace are gone. Using Id tech or any other would take time especially since they haven’t been used on this scale and the support for those engines are not as robust as unreal. I’m thinking they also wanted to start with something solid. On the unreal part I have no faith in the engine. It hasn’t lived up to any of the promises also it’s a hug on the systems. This is not the first time they’ve tried unreal. They tried it for infinite and it just didn’t work well with an open world and that caused 343 to then build Slip Space. I do however like that Halo is moving again and this team seems interested in doing right for the fans, so I do have hope.
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Well said. We’ll see. Interesting shift nonetheless.
UE is indeed a multiplatform engine but so are a lot, Ubisoft doesn’t use unreal. EA"s DICE engine is also multiplat then there is Crytek and even Id tech. I personally don’t think this is why they’re using UE 5.
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I think that it is good news as 343i was over their collective heads developing with the Slipspace Engine, whose roots are the BLAM Engine.
I love Halo and that defended the 343i games from those to overreacted and ridiculed them. This new HALO team are on their last chance with me. Whatever that they produce needs to be stellar and feature complete DAY ONE.
Also, they need to finish the stories that they begin to tell. The Reclaimer Trilogy was abandoned. The Evil Cortana was scuppered. I pray that they do not do the same with this Atriox and the Endless arc.
I mean, what other engine Halo could use that’s not a “multiplatform engine”?
People are acting as if that’s a big hint to multiplatform, when it’s not at all.
Most Xbox mulitiplatforms aren’t in UE.
Games get ported with every engine. And when the porting rumors started, no one said Starfield and Halo are expected to change their engines to get ported.
It’s very easy: you either could make, evolve and sustain your own engine, or not.
Many years ago, before any porting talk, and before even this generation, 343i were thinking about developing Halo Infinite in UE, then they decided that a bespoke engine is more suitable.
That didn’t work, either for technical issues, lack of talent, change in the nature of the game/gaming, financial problems, … or a combination of that.
That leaves them with 3 logical options: spend more time, effort and money on Slipspace. Id Tech. Unreal Engine.
No one thought that Slipspace was working great with Xbox and PC but it’ll be hard to port to other consoles.
Halo could come to other consoles (I for one wish for multi-player to), but they didn’t change their engine for that.
But it’s easy to see why this correlation was “speculated” and repeated everywhere.
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I feel like anyone whose mind went straight to multiplatform when they saw UE5 is completely ignorant of like the last 6+ years of what’s been happening at 343.
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It’s almost like it’s born of bad-faith. Xbox has more studios using UE than any other first-party, and have done for years.
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Here is an art demo from a solo developer:
If one person can do this it shows how productive the team can be in using UE5.
This is just animation and art assets, obviously a game is far, far more than this.
But I think it needs to be stressed that UE5 is a tried and true engine that has been stress tested in nearly every capacity (not all, obviously).
This is an engine that can do a large scale Battle Royale if needed. It has all the components for the networking and scale handled to near perfection. It can do vehicles very well. It can do physics well. It can be compatible with new hardware as well as the current hardware. Look at Metahuman, it has better looking humanoid characters than the great majority of video games. Halo Studios could even go the Hellblade route and scan digital actors.
That, and Xbox has a ton of teams using it. They’ll all benefit from each other greatly. It just makes too much sense to use it.
The great thing is the transferability of assets. They can make an FPS game and use the exact same assets and drop them into a Spartan Assault (dual stick shooter) sequel, or a new Halo Wars, etc.
I personally hope they consider making a lore-accurate TV show in UE5.
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UE 5 also has some well known problems, but I share your enthusiasm.
I think, more importantly, Halo seems to be in good hands now.
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I think the main reason we should think of Halo maybe going multiplat on other consoles is because reporters with good track record have heard about.
Maybe it won’t happen, but we shouldn’t rule it out because of things we think they should do first.
Yeah, who really knows the future. I have to imagine the MP going multiplatform at a minimum. I just don’t think that was even in the top 3 reasons that they changed engines though.
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Yup, changing engines is just going to help Halo Studios all around. Since they have more resources available to them just because they’re using UE5.
Throw in the tech they will share between all other Microsoft Studios and multiteam development that won’t be hindered by the use of an engine that not everyone is familiar with. It gives Halo Studios a better chance if getting everything they want done with less issues.
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I do have to wonder would that make much sense. Xbox games are to some extent multiplatform at least to PC. Of the 4 games SOT was pretty much the only success and that has dropped off from the Playstation. I think it’s around number 70 now. Other than COD, FORTNITE and a few others I don’t see many other multiplayer games succeeding on PlayStation. Concord tried and failed miserably. besides all this they will need a bigger team and more development time. I think unless they have developed effective remedies for this leaving the multiplayer how it is should be fine especially now that it seems the Google app monopoly is about over. There are easier and better ways without needing to waste scarce resources.
I personally think that a multiplayer game that you can’t play with everyone in your group is one that your group moves on from. If you’re trying to steal players from big tent pole forever games available on every platform, not being on every platform is a handicap when you’re already on an uphill battle.
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I agree their decisions for right now are the best that could be taken, however I do hope they are more open in the future to other engines, and I do hope other engines in the future rise to compete. The unreal engine in my opinion hasn’t really lived up to any of the promises. One of the games that managed to use the full features looked and performed averagely. I’m talking about Immortals of Aveum.
I do hope Microsoft builds Id Tech engine up as something much bigger and I hope the Cry engine can get investment to rival Epic. I would hope the same for other third-party engines out there, at this point I’m just so tired of seeing UE.
My point is when you are on mobile and PC then you’re practically everywhere. As I also said if you can remedy the problems by all means go for it. It’s just when you look at some of these big live games they number thousands of developers. Even looking at Ubisoft that has the most devs over twenty thousand and yet they are struggling to have yearly releases. You know games like Valorant are just getting on consoles and yet have remained on top for years without them. The Crossfire X and Blizzard games have done well without consoles, heck Hell divers is not even charting on console. I would agree consoles can be a handicap if PC and Mobile were not involved but in my opinion success in both is all you need.
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The build up could take years though, as everything Epic offers is already hard to match.
This post demonstrates about the whole situation: support, documentation and likely ease of use will be something Microsoft and Crytek will have to likely exceed to get people away from Unreal.
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Indeed. One would have thought there’d be investors largely interested in growing the game engine business. It seems right now Epic is the only one with a vision of it.
On the buildup it could take years but starting now would be good. For all the buildup, Unreal engine to me as been a big disappointment. It boasts visuals that are nothing but a hug on the system. It feels more suited for a walking simulator. The performance from Cry engine and Id tech seems better and deliver splendid visuals as well. It’s amazing to think Crytek gave us Ryse last gen.
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You’re absolutely right about that and it ties into @Jeans point about it not being perfect. Others have mentioned that we haven’t really seen a high profile FPS game built in it.
Optimization is going to be crucial so that it’s performant and feels as solid as all the other engines you listed there, including Slipspace.
But I will say that this one problem is better to have than the dozen or so problems the SS engine had.
Secondly, it’s one problem that many Xbox teams will be addressing together. I think there are 6 projects using UE5? They can justify investing some engineers into optimizations so that all teams can benefit.
There’s likely a Microsoft fork of the UE engine that their engineers are tinkering with to ensure “to the metal” support for the Xbox platforms. Likely why Hellblade 2 runs hitch-free on the Series X as compared to PC.
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