"This was detrimental to Halo Infinite's post-release development": New Halo report reveals just how destructive "mass culling" Microsoft layoffs were at Halo Studios

Halo Studios, the rebranded 343 Industries that continues to shepherd Microsoft's flagship FPS series into the future, has been in the spotlight a lot this month — and not for good reasons. A few weeks ago, former art director Glenn Israel alleged that several "unethical and/or unlawful acts" occurred at the studio during his time there, prompting scrutiny from players and investigators.

Further comments have come from Israel and other developers, and a recent report revealed that a Halo multiplayer project (potentially an extraction shooter) codenamed Project Eker was allegedly in development in 2023, and could eventually come out either as a standalone release or as something tied to the next mainline title. Another report this week brought to light that the 2021 live-service shooter Halo Infinite was going to be a hub for future games.

However, a large number of developers reportedly left Halo Studios soon after Infinite's launch, which was then followed by a hiring freeze from Microsoft implemented in preparation for the firm's massive January 2023 layoffs that hit the studio particularly hard. At the time, affected Halo devs were very vocal about how poor leadership was — and now, a new report from known Halo insider Rebs Gaming reveals alleges just how destructive the layoffs were, and how poorly they were managed.

In his latest video, Mr. Rebs says his sources have confirmed that Halo Studios' studio head Pierre Hintze chose to lay off nearly the entire Halo Infinite campaign team and audio team, with former audio director Sotaro Tojima not replaced by Becky Allen until over a year later; these cuts reportedly hindered post-launch content development significantly.

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Mr. Rebs also noted he was told that in the wake of the layoffs, remaining employees at Halo Studios were saddled with "double the responsibilities and duties," leading to higher stress and a general feeling of being very understaffed. Allegedly, staff were so overwhelmed that they reached out to their laid off colleagues "to ask how to do jobs they weren't trained or hired for."

Reportedly, Hintze also controversially referred to the layoffs at the developer as a "mass culling" during a studio-wide Microsoft Teams meeting; this upset several of Rebs Gaming's sources, all of which felt that the use of that terminology was extremely disrespectful and devalued their contributions to the franchise.

Ultimately, all of this new information lines up with the criticisms of Microsoft and Halo Studios leadership that former Halo devs have voiced in the past, and after this story as well as everything Glenn Israel has alleged recently, the community is pushing for Microsoft to conduct an investigation of the developer and make high-level changes.

Notably, Israel himself has done the same, going so far as to comment the request on a LinkedIn post from the new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. "Ask for a certified third-party investigation into Halo Studios," he said.

One thing that seems clear is that there are some major issues with Halo Studios' development processes, and I hope that big improvements for them come sooner rather than later. As for what's next for Halo itself, Halo: Campaign Evolved — an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved — is coming this year, with a rumored July 28 release date.

What are your thoughts about the situation at Halo Studios? Do you believe Microsoft needs to step in and make major changes at the studio? Let me know in the comments, and by voting in our poll.

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