Following recent reports about the future of Halo Studios following the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, notable leaker Rebs Gaming has revealed some more details about the “troubled” development of the most recent release. The YouTuber has noted that Halo Studios worked alongside a support studio dubbed Abstraction since 2023 to develop the game and help the team transition its work over to Unreal Engine 5.
The engine choice also led to its own set of problems, since much of the work on Halo: Campaign Evolved was originally done on an older game engine dubbed Blam. Abstraction was tasked with easing the process of converting engines while also helping bring in features like 4-player co-op to the game. However, it was reportedly removed from the project, and Halo Studios had set up deadlines and expectations that have been described as “unrealistic”.
Citing a source, the YouTuber has reported that all of the work that had been done by Abstraction had been tossed out, and that the team working on Halo: Campaign Evolved started from scratch in implementing the features they needed. This also led to Abstraction not showing up in the in-game credits. This move also meant that Halo: Campaign Evolved would suffer from numerous bugs.
As for the move to Unreal Engine 5, the leaker noted that Halo Studios faced plenty of troubles. The development team was reportedly told by leadership that assets that had been created for use in Blam could easily be brought over to Epic’s engine. However, this turned out not to be the case, and 100 percent of the assets that had been created had to be redone to become compatible with Unreal Engine 5. This, in turn, meant that the project would be hit by several missed deadlines.
The team faced more problems due to mismanagement by the studio’s leadership, which also led to a multiplayer game getting canceled. Additionally, the missed deadlines meant that the development team had to crunch quite hard in the final year of Halo: Campaign Evolved’s development. The leaker also brought up that the same mismanagement led to the game not including in-engine cutscenes, and rather, opting for pre-rendered cinematics.
In a previous video, the insider had reported that the team is currently working on a few projects – a remake of Halo 2 in a similar vein as Halo: Campaign Evolved, and a new multiplayer project. While no details have been revealed about either of them, the multiplayer title was reportedly being developed using the same technology as Campaign Evolved, with some work having been done on it on a prior multiplayer project headed up by John Williams before all work shifted to the Halo remake. It’s unknown where Ekur, the alleged cancelled extraction shooter turned Super Big Team Battle spin-off, fits.
A new mainline entry in the Halo franchise is also reportedly in the works, and is said to be in the concept stages for now. Such a late start on the project is seemingly due to the fact that Halo: Campaign Evolved required an “all hands on deck” approach to wrap up its development.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Read our review for more details.
