The 60 who were laid off were full time staff, contractors are being told their contracts are ending early
— Late Night Gaming (@LateNightHalo) January 19, 2023
Closer to 100 people might have lost their jobs at 343 today... Dude :( thats a lot of good, talented folk...
Sounds like the entire Campaign team is gone.
Procedural Technical Artist
Welp, I got laid off from 343i too. I'll be looking for new opportunities! Anyone need a Houdini tech artist?
— Stuart Cunningham (@stcunnin) January 19, 2023
Technical Environment Artist
Welp, I got laid off today, along with a lot of immensely talented people that I've had the honor to work with, many of whom, for the past eight years.
— Adam Grayson (@Sizukhan) January 19, 2023
Working on Halo was literally my dream job, and I've enjoyed every second of it, but more so, I've loved working with all of my friends at the studio who made Seattle feel like home <3
— Adam Grayson (@Sizukhan) January 19, 2023
Morale at 343 is going to be in the gutter, I wonder how hard news like this makes it to hire talent, especially with the looming threat of being laid off until March.
As a Halo fan I'm really tired of Microsoft business practices & policies slowly killing the thing I love
— Tyler Owens (@heytred) January 18, 2023
between the contracting policies they abuse for tax incentives & layoffs in the face of gigantic profits/executive bonuses... they set Halo up for failure
Another former 343 developer criticising Microsoft's shitty contractor policies...343 is definitely not getting a 2nd studio anymore, they might be forced to switch to Unreal Engine at this rate since Microsoft is never going to do anything about their contractor policy issue.
343 really got screwed by it, T10/Playground have each other, 343 had nobody but themselves, on a far more technically demanding IP...Creation will probably be safe from the contractor policy since Bethesda has 3 studios and employees cycling through multiple IPs, I'd expect Arkane/Tango to go fully Unreal Engine in the future though and luckily I think I heard ID Tech is relatively easy to use and a lot are already familiar with it since a lot of engines were built from it.
But I do think Indiana Jones will be Unreal Engine.
343 really got the short end of the stick on this contractor/engine shit. How do you even fix the issue? Can't open a 2nd studio, can't hire more people, the contractor policy isn't changing, it starts to feel like Unreal Engine is inevitable. Unfortunate.
