When Microsoft—a company that did “$198 billion in revenue and $83 billion in operating income” in 2022—made the decision to lay off 10,000 workers last week, some of which comes from their video game operations, especially 343 Industriessupervisors of Halo series.
343, which is currently plagued by a combination of layoffs and critical departures, doesn’t appear to be in good shape. As we reported last week:
Patrick Wren, Halo Infinite’s former multiplayer designer, tweeted Wednesday night: “The layoffs at 343 shouldn’t have happened and Halo Infinite should be in better shape. “The reason for both of that was the poor leadership from the higher ups during the development of Halo Infinite, which put a great deal of stress on the people who were working hard to make Halo the best it could be.”
Even before yesterday’s wave of layoffs, 343 Industries was facing a wave of high-profile layoffs because of Infinite aura has been struggling to deliver seasonal updates and new features on time. Most notable is the departure of studio head Bonnie Ross previous September. More recent, multiplayer and longtime director Halo Veteran Tom France disclosure he’s leaving in December. And yesterday, amid the chaos, Bloomberg report that Halo director and longtime writer Joseph Staten was at the top of the Xbox publishing business when the studio made the “difficult decision to restructure.”
Those blows leading to last week’s report that development in the future Halo games will be assigned to external studios, with 343 games assigned to supervisory roles. The reports seem to have caused 343 tweets the following statement on the official site Halo account, rejecting them (to some extent) and saying that 343 “will continue to grow Halo Now and in the future”.
Halo and Master Chief are here to stay.
343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and into the future, including the epic stories, multiplayer, and more that make Halo so great.
Pierre Hintze
studio head
It’s a short statement that has nothing to do with reporting other studios may be currently making Halo game (not a new game anyway, based on Creative Assembly’s work on ) halo war).
