I thought Tatanka was a spinoff game, different modes, and not really the *next* major Halo game?

That was what we originally heard, but then later we heard that 343 had made the decision to expand Tatanka into a full Halo game in the wake of the mass layoffs:

https://www.engadget.com/343-industries-halo-unreal-engine-202439779.html

However, I did just see that there was a recent report stating that 343 has now staffed up a new singleplayer team after the old team was gutted last year, and that Tatanka may now have a singleplayer campaign afterall:

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/93809/next-halo-campaign-is-reportedly-in-development-at-343-industries/index.html

Valhalla Journal Day 13: The journey comes to a screeching halt as I attempt the mastery challenges. First set of 3 done easy, second set starts to become challenging but nothing too impossible. Third set … I start to lose my mind but eventually after hrs I do it and then we arrived at the fourth set and what should have been easy sent me into a spiral and required me to sleep before attempting again.

Thanks for the info! Wow!

I think Tatanka was always a standalone game but it was rumoured to be exclusively a standalone Battle Royale. Since Pierre taking over it has been rumoured to have been expanded into "something more" but what that means, we have no idea, it could mean that they're adding a story component to it but that'd be a pure guess with no rumours to back that up.

Imo, I wouldn't be surprised if Tatanka was outright cancelled since Pierre may have different plans than the previous leadership who greenlit it. Also they may want to focus on Infinite's live service, I do feel a little like, Tatanka is just going to fracture Infinite's already small userbase so it would have to come near the end of Infinite's life and Infinite is making good strides lately.

I feel like as well, now that Microsoft owns COD, they already own one of the biggest Battle Royales in gaming, they no longer have to try so hard to compete with Call of Duty, Halo should focus on just doing what it does well. I think instead of a Battle Royale, Halo should do a PVPVE mode that we've all been asking for, a true BTB 2.0 with a huge map and dozens of vehicles including scarabs, pelicans, phantoms, etc.

Also, I haven't been that impressed with Unreal Engine 5, in fact I haven't really been impressed by it at all, all the UE5 titles coming out seem a bit mid and it feels a little undercooked and now seeing how much content Infinite is throwing at us, how amazing Forge is, how much work it would be to switch to Unreal Engine, I'm starting to feel like they shouldn't...Idk, I trust Pierre though.

Xbox really needs to get their act together, seen so much negative news from Team Green in the last couple of days. Brazil Series S price increase confirmed. A Korean publisher talking about how difficult it is to work with Xbox since their representative for Asia is in the US instead of them having a representative for Korea that lives in Korea. Jez reporting that most of the banned 3rd party peripherals are racing wheels, fighting sticks, and controllers for the disabled (you will need to buy Xbox's $100 Adaptable controller to connect and use them now), while XIM cheating devices have somehow escaped the ban even though Xbox has the tech needed to block them, and that it will be difficult and expensive for 3rd parties to get their accessories approved due to Xbox requiring a security chip.

Step it up Xbox, get your shit straight please. 

Just feel like something doesn't add up with Certain Affinity.

They have 250+ full-time employees and only one job listing but we're told they're working on Halo: Tatanka which is a standalone Halo title expanded even further, a Monster Hunter-like title as an Xbox exclusive which will be AAA and they recently announced they're working on an original FPS codenamed Project Loro which doesn't yet have a publisher and they've been pitching for it. They're also still doing AAA co-development and AFAIK they're still assisting on Halo Infinite.

So a 250+ studio is working on 3 AAAs alongside co-developing/assisting other AAA titles?

Doesn't feel like enough, they could be severely undercounted but I got that 250 number from their own website, it could be that most of these projects are extremely early in development, we know Lobo is but the Monster Hunter could be as well, or they could be stretching themselves thin, or something could have been cancelled, interestingly I can see that Project Lobo (the FPS) entered development in December 2022, Pierre took over 343 on September 2022.

The impression I got from all of the reports we have seen since the 343 mass layoffs last year, is that Pierre decided to take Certain Affinity's work on Tatanka and moved it internal, expanding it from just a Halo Battle Royale mode into a full Halo game that will replace Halo Infinite when it releases. At first it seemed to be multiplayer only, but then last month we got that report that 343 has opened a new singleplayer team that is working on a campaign for the next game. Considering it was expanded into a full-on Halo Infinite sequel running on UE5, I'd say optimistically that we won't see a release until at least 2027, probably even later. As for Certain Affinity, they may still be working on Tatanka in a limited capacity, but it seems like most of their devs are now on Project Loro (their first ever self-created IP) and the Project Suerte Monster Hunter clone for Xbox that Jez leaked. I think they may be assisting on Last Expedition still as well. 

The Mass Effect teaser from yesterday was titled Epsilon which is the 5th letter of the Greek alphabet, alongside that, they released an image which clearly shows an Angara alongside a Geth and possibly Liara, in addition, it teased a transmission from Andromeda.

It very much looks like Andromeda will be required playing and is considered Mass Effect 4 whilst this is considered Mass Effect 5 and we'll be linking Milky Way with Andromeda.

Just like I wanted!

Destroy, Control and Synthesis fans all in shambles. Wait, that's all of us, oof.

I'm actually happy though for them to disregard all of the endings, Destroy even canonically can easily explain why Geth are still around, we rebuilt them, not exactly fucking hard is it? Lol. I see no green eyed MFs in that artwork so Synthesis is out and Control...Idk...They don't look controlled to me