Any Halo fans hoping to hear something about what's next for the long-running Xbox franchise should tune into Halo World Championship 2025. That's according to the Halo Studios team, which shared an update via Halo Waypoint on Monday.
"We don’t usually comment on such matters, but this time we want to enter the chat and share a little more perspective for Halo fans who might be on the fence about whether to attend this year’s event," the team says, addressing recent speculation surrounding when exactly something will be seen.
At last year's championship, Halo Studios shared that it was rebranding away from its prior name, 343 Industries, while also unveiling an Unreal Engine 5 teaser called Project Foundry that served as an exploration of the Halo universe using the new technology.
The studio confirmed that it was switching to Unreal Engine 5 for future projects, abandoning the Slipspace engine that was used to build Halo Infinite and had served as a successor to the Blam! engine of the original Halo games.
"Speculation is always fun, but if you want the official scoop on what Halo Studios has been working on, you won’t want to miss this year’s Halo World Championship. We really hope you’ll join us in Seattle this October!"
What projects is Halo Studios working on?
It's interesting to me that Halo Studios continues to emphasize "multiple projects" as opposed to just saying the team's next game. There are a couple of different possibilities worth mentioning.
Rumors abound that Halo: Combat Evolved is getting a remaster or remake of some kind, which would line up with the assets seen in the Project Foundry teaser, as well as comments from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer.
During the Xbox Games Showcase 2025, Spencer noted that 2026 would see a "new Fable, the next Forza, Gears of War E-Day, and the return of a classic that's been with us since the beginning."
While Halo wasn't mentioned by name, it's hard to imagine exactly what other classic Spencer would be referencing.
If this does pan out, then I sincerely hope it leans more toward a remake rather than a remaster. Halo: Combat Evolved was already remastered and can be played on Xbox and PC as part of the Master Chief Collection.
Perhaps Halo Studios could take a page from Capcom's Resident Evil remakes, reimagining scenarios and level design while keeping the same story and tone?
As for other projects, it feels safe to suggest another game would be the next actual mainline entry in the series. I'd certainly hope that this would be a sequel to Halo Infinite and not yet another soft reboot, but we'll see.
If there's anything else in the pipeline, I hope the team isn't afraid to explore various genres. A third-person shooter that's essentially Helldivers 2 in the Halo universe would be awesome.
I'd also love to see Halo Wars 3. I know 2017's Halo Wars 2 didn't light sales charts on fire, but the story and characters were well-received, so much so that the Banished enemy faction was then used in Halo Infinite.
No matter what, I'll be tuning into the Halo World Championship this year with a fair bit of interest. Halo is special to me, and I'd like to see it roar back in a big way.
The championship is being held Oct. 24 through Oct. 26, and will be available to watch live on Twitch and YouTube.
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