The current foundation for Xbox’s Halo franchise is being restructured in the coming future. While established entries like Halo Infinite & Halo: The Master Chief Collection are to remain in their current form, new installments will follow by a different creed. This is namely due to the rebranding of 343 Industries at Xbox Game Studios.
Moving forward, the team will now be addressed as ‘Halo Studios’. What’s more, all new projects are now being constructed with Unreal Engine. Specifically Unreal Engine 5, the team has explored this option fully and even showcased some concepts for the future of the series. However, that does not mean attention will cease for pre-established games.
According to Halo Studios, the long-promised Halo 2 E3 Demo for Halo 2: Anniversary is officially coming this week. On Xbox Wire, the game studio shares that this plans to arrive this weekend in a new update on PC – November 9th.
This put us in a bit of a quandary. Even the original executable is difficult to work with, as you need an Xbox developer kit to get it to boot, which is in increasingly short supply even within the studio. But now, in 2024, we have the Digsite-developed tools to analyze and automate up-porting old assets, and the unearthed knowledge to know why Bungie built things the way they did in the demo.
Kenneth Peters, Halo Senior Franchise Writer
“Steven Garcia (known to the community as General_101) was vital in getting this scenario stood up and even improved over the original. He was a one-man army and did a significant chunk of the work in developing tools, updating scripts, and even arting the levels,” Peters further explained. The effort comes as part of a collaboration with modders within the community to realize for players.
Digsite team members Ludus, Neo Te Aika, Sean T, xScruffyDaSasquatchx, and Killzone then provided finishing touches to replicate the original demo experience and test for bugs. Without them, we would probably have only had a rather unceremonious drop of raw assets and that was it.” This will arrive as part of a client via Steam Workshop. There is no detail if this plan is intended to extend to console.
Are you excited for the Halo 2 E3 Demo coming to Halo: The Master Chief Collection?
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is out now for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Source: Xbox Wire
