@Poll, Yes.
First of all, that Unreal Engine footage looked beautiful, although it still has the shiny/clean look that Unreal Engine tends to have, I hope they tone that down just a tad and make it more dirty and gritty but otherwise, it looked stunning and it still looks like Halo. Also a plus that they've seemingly kept for the most part, the Halo Infinite art style.
Pierre seems focused on all the right things, it's not just the engine changes but how he speaks about him changing the studios culture, workflow, how the teams are organized, etc. Talking about improving the efficiency of development beyond just an engine change, how they make Halo games, acknowledging that gamers want their content out faster nowadays and them needing to react to that. These things are in Pierre's wheelhouse too as he was a Producer or Production Lead for most of his career.
Talking about it being a new chapter, a fresh start, focused on growing and expanding the Halo world.
My primary concern with Unreal Engine is the "feel" of Halo but I've also read in the past from developers themselves that engine has absolutely nothing to do with the "feel" of a videogame, I don't know shit so I don't know if my concerns are unwarranted. That being said, Pierre specifically notes and makes heavy emphasis on the importance of it needing to still feel and sound like Halo. It shows to me how seriously they take that concern which alleviates my concerns, it shows that they wouldn't make this change if it doesn't feel like Halo still.
Pierre's "do more, say less" approach works for me.
Halo games (plural) in development is awesome, and they're all on Unreal Engine, so I wonder if they're all AAA releases? It was great to hear that Pierre has recalibrated the studio to enable them to work on multiple projects at once. Previously it was just like, a mainline Halo team then a tiny publishing team (which Pierre was apart of) working with multiple external studios. Previously it felt like 343i was set up a bit messy, you had a Campaign team separated from the Multiplayer team, a Publishing team separated from everyone else.
Pierre genuinely seems grateful to be there and understands how big of a responsibility he has to the studio and to the fans.
I don't like the logo, Lol. At a quick glance it's too unclear but I don't give a fuck about the logo, Lol. The name itself is eh, it would be cooler if it was called "Halo Studios" and they actually had more than one studio, Lol. Otherwise it's a generic name but it's probably better than 343 Industries at this point in time just because of the baggage that name carries, always found it funny that 343 named themselves after a character who to videogame only players, was a psychopath bastard robot though, Lmao.
It is a bit sad to see Slipspace go Tbh and I'm no fan of Unreal Engine slowly monopolising the AAA engine market but it's not really arguable that this is for the best, multiple benefits and very few cons that I can think of.
1. They no longer need a large portion of their staff working solely on an engine in their only damn studio in Redmond, it's a distraction which takes funding and resources away from the rest of the studio that actually makes the games. They can focus solely on making the videogames now and can now set up multiple teams and create different games simultaneously in their single studio.
2. Slipspace still used BLAM! as a base, some of it is still outdated as fuck by almost 25 years. They have more things available to them in Unreal Engine which would have taken years to replicate in Slipspace and a huge amount of resources. Bungie went through the same issues as 343i when they tried to overhaul BLAM with Tiger Engine but it was well known a disaster for Destiny 1 development, they overhauled it once again for Destiny 2 and I don't know if they got things right this time but 343 opted to instead skip a 2nd massive overhaul and jump to Unreal Engine.
Neither side is "right" over the other here, but it shows that attempting to overhaul BLAM was a disaster for Bungie too, even if they may have got it right the 2nd time around, there's nothing wrong with 343i instead going "yeah, fuck that, lets try Unreal Engine instead" which to be quite honest would probably be even less work than overhauling Slipspace for a 2nd time.
3. Every developer in the industry knows Unreal Engine, instead of spending months learning how to use Slipspace before they can even get started, they can jump right in. This is especially important with Microsoft's shitty contract policy which is never going but seemingly only applies to fully integrated studios like 343i and Turn 10. This contractor policy is a nightmare for proprietary engines. You hire someone on contract, have to spend months teaching them Slipspace and then months later they're gone and they can't be rehired.
Having internal engines doesn't really gel well with this shitty contract policy, Turn 10 only seemingly gets away with it because they also have the equally large Playground Games co-developing everything with them on the same engine but 343 doesn't have that. Having said that, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Fable 2 swaps to Unreal Engine, I bet it has been a bit difficult for Playground to hire. Although, the contract policy won't apply to Playground being a British studio and also a limited integrated one.
4. Talent sharing, information sharing, between Xbox Studios, since almost all of them are on Unreal Engine now they can provide a lot of help and assistance to each other, they can help each other improve each others games, teach them better Unreal Engine techniques and they have one of the best Unreal Engine developers in the industry in The Coalition.
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Pretty much all those rumours about Slipspace being a major problem were confirmed true by this interview.
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- Was worried about Forge before I saw Fortnite UGC and now I'm no longer worried.
- Was worried about the feel but Pierre banging on about how important that is has alleviated my concerns.
- Other concerns are not about Halo itself but the wider industry (Unreal Engine's slow monopoly) so irrelevant to the point of Halo.
Pierre is saying all the right things, it seems like in these 2 years he has streamlined the studio, made a lot of internal changes and also switched them to Unreal Engine whilst supporting Halo Infinite. He sounds like he has a plan and that makes me confident because Pierre seems on the ball, even despite being slapped with layoffs and a messy team/videogame.
I've kind of not even thought about Halo lately, busy with other games, but I have the excitement brewing inside me once again. Now Pierre's going to go quiet again until he has something worth speaking about, I say let the man cook.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 08 October 2024
