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===Upcoming and ongoing===
===Upcoming and ongoing===
*''[[Halo Waypoint]]'' - An in-house production for [[Xbox LIVE]].
*''[[Halo Waypoint]]'' - An in-house production for [[Xbox LIVE]].
*''[[Halo: The Television Series]]'' - An ongoing TV series in partnership with Steven Spielberg and Paramount+.
*''[[Halo: Outpost Discovery]]'' - A tour focused on the Halo universe.
*''[[Halo: Outpost Discovery]]'' - A tour focused on the Halo universe.
*''[[Halo Infinite]]'' - The sequel to ''Halo 5: Guardians'', and a spiritual reboot for the series.
*''[[Halo Infinite]]'' - The sequel to ''Halo 5: Guardians'', and a spiritual reboot for the series.
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*''[[Halo: Outcasts]]'' - A novel following Arbiter Thel 'Vadam and Spartan Olympia Vale as they seek out a rumored ancient artifact capable of liberating their peoples from Cortana and the Created's rule.
*''[[Halo: Outcasts]]'' - A novel following Arbiter Thel 'Vadam and Spartan Olympia Vale as they seek out a rumored ancient artifact capable of liberating their peoples from Cortana and the Created's rule.
*''[[Halo: Epitaph]]'' - A novel following the Ur-Didact after the events of ''Halo 4'' and ''Halo: Escalation''{{'}}s [[The Next 72 Hours]] arc.
*''[[Halo: Epitaph]]'' - A novel following the Ur-Didact after the events of ''Halo 4'' and ''Halo: Escalation''{{'}}s [[The Next 72 Hours]] arc.
*''[[Halo: The Television Series]]'' - A two-season television series in partnership with Steven Spielberg and Paramount+.


===Discontinued===
===Discontinued===

Revision as of 03:20, October 10, 2024

This article is about the game development company formerly known as 343 Industries. For other uses of the term, see 343 (disambiguation).
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 There is more information available on this subject at Halo Studios on the English Wikipedia.
Halo Studios
Halo Studios logo.
Company information

Date founded:

2007 (as 343 Industries)
2024 (renamed to Halo Studios)

Founder(s):

Bonnie Ross

Leader(s):

Pierre Hintze

Parent company:

Headquarters:

Redmond, Washington, USA

Website:

www.halowaypoint.com

Development information

Halo titles developed:

 

Halo Studios, formerly known as 343 Industries,[1] is a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios located in Kirkland, Washington. It is tasked with overseeing the Halo franchise and creating new properties for the series.

History

Origin

Before the formation of 343 Industries in 2007, the Microsoft Game Studios Franchise Development Group (MGSFDG) was responsible for expanding Microsoft's video game franchises. A prominent example of their contribution to the Halo franchise would be their arrangement with publishers Ballantine Books and Tor Books to publish a number of Halo novels over the years.[2][3]

343 Industries' logo.

Establishment

Following the end of partnership between Bungie and Microsoft in 2007, Microsoft sought to form a first-party studio from its internal development group to oversee the future development of the Halo franchise; thus, 343 Industries was established.[4] The team's name is a reference to 343 Guilty Spark, the monitor of Installation 04. A small number of Bungie employees transferred to 343, notably Frank O'Connor and Chad Armstrong. In addition, several members of the new studio were hired from the Halo fan community, including Jeremy Patenaude and Jacob Benton of Ascendant Justice and later Jeff "GrimBrotherOne" Easterling.

Projects and partnerships

343's first project was Halo Waypoint, a downloadable Xbox LIVE application developed in conjunction with Certain Affinity and released in 2009. Waypoint is also accessible via the official Halo website.[5] Certain Affinity also created the maps in the Defiant Map Pack, the first map pack to be released by 343, and has since worked with 343 Industries on several projects.

In 2010, 343 released the first episode of their official podcast. After Bungie announced they would discontinue Halo-related Bungie Weekly Updates on July 7, 2011, 343 Industries started publishing the Halo Bulletin, a weekly writeup of Halo news.[6]

343 Industries often works with outside companies to produce content; these include ONE and MoreFrames, who created several motion comics based on Halo: Evolutions stories, as well as Sequence, who have worked on the terminal videos in 343's game releases as well as Halo: The Fall of Reach - The Animated Series. 343 Industries' first game release, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, was developed in conjunction with Saber Interactive and released in 2011. Saber Interactive also worked on Halo 2: Anniversary, a similar remastering of Halo 2 released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection in 2014. The top-down shooters Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo: Spartan Strike were co-developed with Vanguard Games, while Halo Wars 2 was co-developed with Creative Assembly. Blur Studio created the CGI cinematics for Halo 2 Anniversary and Halo Wars 2, while Axis Animation produced those for Spartan Ops and Halo 5: Guardians. The tabletop games Halo: Fleet Battles and Halo: Ground Command were co-developed with Spartan Games.

Reclaimer Saga

343's first major in-studio game project was Halo 4, the first game in the Reclaimer Saga, a new series of games and other media.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection was the first Halo release on the Xbox One console, marking the onset of a phase of the series known as "The Journey". This multimedia project would encompass a number of works, including the digital series Halo: Nightfall, which would tie into the next major game in the series, Halo 5: Guardians.[7] The Halo Channel was introduced as a next-generation replacement for Halo Waypoint on the Xbox One,[8] while Halo: The Television Series would release on Paramount+ on March 2022.

A New Dawn

"If you really break Halo down, there have been two very distinct chapters. Chapter 1 – Bungie. Chapter 2 – 343 Industries. Now, I think we have an audience which is hungry for more. So we're not just going to try improve the efficiency of development, but change the recipe of how we make Halo games. So, we start a new chapter today."
— Pierre Hintze on the studio's change of name[1][9]

On October 6, 2024, during the Halo World Championship in Seattle, 343 Industries announced with a trailer that the studio would rebrand itself as Halo Studios alongside the initiation of Project Foundry, a multi-discipline research effort on what is required to build Halo in Unreal Engine 5, while also serving as a training tool for Halo's development process going forwards.[9] It was also announced that multiple new Halo games are in development, and that Unreal Engine 5 would the standard engine for all future Halo games. The change to Unreal was made such that the studio would no longer be required to divide their attention between game development and upkeep for the games' engine, allowing games and updates to be developed and delivered to fans more quickly. This change would also allow the studio to bring in more industry talent without requiring them to be trained on the Slipspace Engine.[1]

Universe development and storytelling

Although Halo "expanded universe" fiction has always shared the same continuity as the games, under Bungie's watch material from outside the games was generally regarded as ancillary and was rarely intertwined with the games in a significant way; references to the novels, for instance, rarely amounted to more than throwaway lines. This was in part due to a disconnect between Bungie and Microsoft's Franchise Development Group, who were largely responsible for the creation of secondary media at the time.[10] An effort was made to keep different pieces of media as their own, self-contained "bubbles," so that they would not have a significant impact on other stories. For example, Frank O'Connor stated that the story of Halo Wars effectively exists in a bubble, having little bearing on the Halo story at large. According to O'Connor, this approach was "safer" from a development perspective, but it made many pieces of fiction seem extraneous or "disposable," as they had no crucial impact on one another.[11]

Circa 2008, however, 343 Industries decided that all future media they released would be more heavily interconnected. This included further integrating the fiction of the games and the novels into a seamless whole, with different pieces of media complementing one another in meaningful ways. Even though the main game series is still the primary focus of the studio, all other fiction has been stated to have a resonant impact on the games' stories in a way unlike before. For example, the novels of the Kilo-Five Trilogy and The Forerunner Saga have direct connections to the story of Halo 4.[11] 343i also sought to establish more characters to tell stories with in different parts of the Halo universe, with studio head Bonnie Ross stating that the previous approach of killing characters at the end of games made it more difficult to tell connected stories.[12]

By 2016, 343 Industries had come to deem the stories of their past games overly complex and decided that in the future, the Halo games would have "simpler" narratives while secondary media would be used to tell deeper stories,[12] with individual narratives being kept in their own "swimlanes".[13] According to Bonnie Ross, "while we love our transmedia, sometimes I do think we do tell a little bit too much story in our games; you know when you have a gun and then you have aliens shooting at you, it is kind of hard to digest a lot of story." Ross cited Halo Wars 2 as an example of a game story that followed the studio's new approach.[12]

Studio mythos

343 Industries has built up a mythos of in-jokes related to Unicorns, which is referenced in the background of the FOTUS armor permutation. There is also a tongue-in-cheek in-universe counterpart of the studio itself, named the "434 Combat Readiness Lab".[14][15] 343 Industries also has a in-universe company with the same name.

Projects

Upcoming and ongoing

Released

Discontinued

  • Halo Channel - A former "next-generation" hub of Halo multimedia.

Known employees

  • Bonnie Ross – General Manager [17]
  • Frank O'Connor - Franchise Development Director, formerly an employee of Bungie [18]
  • Kevin Grace - Managing Editor [19]
  • Jeremy Patenaude – Content Creator (Formerly of AscendantJustice.com) [17]
  • Gabriel Garza - Artist [20]
  • Nicolas Bouvier - Senior Art Director[21]
  • David Ellis (formerly of 1up.com) - Content Producer [22]
  • Jason Pace - Creative Director for Halo Waypoint [23]
  • Kenneth Peters - Senior Franchise Writer[24]
  • Joseph Staten - Halo Infinite's campaign project lead[25], later promoted to Head of Creative[26]
  • Sotaro Tojima - Audio Director[27]
  • Kenneth Scott - Visual Design Consultant[21]
  • Kevin Franklin - Design Director.[28]
  • Brian Reed - Lead Writer, formerly of Marvel Comics[29]
  • Daniel Price - Senior Service Engineer [30]
  • David Wu - Chief Technology Officer [31]
  • Sally Huang - Producer [32]
  • Chris Buckley - Graphic Designer
  • Kiki Wolfkill - Executive Producer and Head of Transmedia[33]
  • Neill Harrison - Art Manager [33]
  • Brad Welch - Lead Designer [33]
  • Tom French - Multiplayer Director[34]
  • Maggie Oh - Senior Technical Artist[35]
  • RJ Ranola - Environment Artist[35]
  • Patrick Gillette - Gameplay Animator[35]
  • Kathy Gehrig - Associate Producer[35]
  • Lani Blazier - Franchise Creative Producer[35]
  • Nicole Makila - Producer[35]
  • Hoop Somuah - Senior SDE[35]
  • CJ Markham - Motion Capture Supervisor[35]
  • Jeff Easterling - Writer
  • Josh Dean - Senior Lighting Artist[36]
  • Nick Ardizzone - Narrative Designer and Yapyap's voice actor[37]
  • Darren Bacon - Lead Concept Artist[37]
  • Adam Wong - Senior Producer for Halo Transmedia.[38]
  • MacKay Clark - UI Artist.[39]
  • Dan Chosich - Creative Strategy and Narrative Experience Director
  • Matt Campbell - Narrative Animator
  • Paul Crocker - Associate Creative Director
  • Horia Dociu - Publishing Team's Art Director
  • Joel Yarger - Music Supervisor
  • Brian Jarrard - Community Director[40]
  • John Junyszek - Community Manager[41]
  • William "Pixelflare" Cameron - Marketing Designer.[42] Cover artist for Halo: Point of Light.
  • Riley Hastings - Esports Content Producer.[43]
  • Lace Yamamoto - Business Administrator.[44]
  • Brie Chin-Deyerle - Senior Gameplay Engineer.[45]
  • Leonard Holman - Senior Software Engineer.[46]
  • Andrew Witts - Lead Multiplayer Designer.[47]
  • Alex Bean - Multiplayer Designer.[48]
  • Irene Zhu - UX Designer.[49]
  • Bereket Kifle - Software Engineer Lead.[50]
  • Nina Marien - Program Manager.[51]
  • Aubra Moore - IT Engineering Manager.[52]
  • Erika Martinez - Game Editor Producer.[53]
  • Ani Shastry - Graphics Development Manager.[54]
  • Tahir "Tashi" Hasandjekic - Esports Lead.[55]
  • Sam "misplacedyank" Nylen - Community Manager.[56]
  • Paul Bertone - Technical Design Director

Former

  • Justin Korthof - Community Manager,[57] now working at Robot Entertainment.
  • Ryan Payton - Creative Lead;[58] Narrative Designer for Halo 4,[59] left in Summer 2011, now the founder of Camouflaj.
  • Armando Troisi - Narrative Designer, left in April 2013. Now working at Fathom Interactive.[59]
  • Jonathan Goff - Community Manager,[17] now working at Bungie.[60]
  • Kynan Pearson - Lead Multiplayer Level Designer,[35] left in June 2013.[61]
  • Jacob Benton – Content Creator (Formerly of AscendantJustice.com),[17] left in April 2013, now a designer at Bungie.[62]
  • Chad Armstrong - Designer, formerly an employee of Bungie,[63] now working at Crystal Dynamics.[64]
  • Scott Warner - Design Director. Worked at Visceral Games, before joining Ubisoft San Francisco.[65]
  • Christopher Schlerf - Senior Writer, left in November 2013.[66] Worked at BioWare[67] and Bungie before freelancing.[68]
  • Jessica Shea (Formerly of Hawty McBloggy)
  • Corrinne Yu - Principal Engine Programmer,[69] left in November 2013. Now working at Naughty Dog.
  • Paul Ehreth - Level Designer, left in September 2014.[70]
  • Vic DeLeon - Lead Mission Artist, formerly of Bungie.[71] Left in March 2, 2015.[72]
  • Joe Waters - Senior Software Developer,[35] he passed away on December 24, 2015.
  • Che Chou - Studio Producer.[73] Left on September 30, 2016.[74]
  • Morgan Lockhart - Narrative Designer.[75] Left in November 2016.
  • Josh Holmes - Executive Producer.[59] Left in December 2016.
  • Dan Ayoub - Executive Producer.[76] Left on May 11, 2017, and he's now working on Microsoft Studios's Mixed Reality department.[77]
  • Chris Haluke - Lead Campaign Designer. Left on May 18, 2017.[78]
  • Andy Dudynsky - Community Manager.[79] Left on May 30, 2018.[80]
  • Kazuma Jinnouchi - Music Supervisor/Composer.[81] Left on July 13, 2018.[82]
  • Lawrence Metten - Multiplayer Design Lead. Left on September 2018.[83]
  • Jeremy Cook - Halo Wars 2 Art Director.[37] Left on March 25, 2019.
  • Tim Longo - Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Infinite Creative Director.[84] Left on August 16, 2019.[85]
  • Mary Olson - Halo Infinite Creative Director. Left in October, 2019[86]
  • Chris Lee - Studio Head of FPS Game Development. Resigned from Halo Infinite's development on October 28, 2020.

Sources

  1. ^ a b c Xbox Wire, Halo Studios: New Name, New Engine, New Games, New Philosophy (Retrieved on Oct 6, 2024) [archive]
  2. ^ Halo: Combat Evolved portal page: MGS Development Group Expands (archived page)
  3. ^ halo.bungie.org: Interview with Eric Nylund
  4. ^ IGN: Halo: Reach Will Be Bungie's Last Halo Game
  5. ^ Halo - Official Site
  6. ^ Halo Waypoint: The Halo Bulletin 6/15/11
  7. ^ Eurogamer: 343's master plan for Halo 5: Guardians
  8. ^ Halo Waypoint: Halo Channel Revealed at Gamescom
  9. ^ a b [M10 Halo Waypoint, Community Update - A New Dawn] (Retrieved on Dec 25, 2024) [archive]
  10. ^ The Sci Fi Show: Episode 005: DC Reboot/Eric Trautmann
  11. ^ a b Game Informer: The Future Of Halo Wars And Halo's Expanded Universe
  12. ^ a b c YouTube - D.I.C.E Summit 2017 (Day 2) - IGN Live (presentation by Bonnie Ross)
  13. ^ Twitter: GrimBrotherOne
  14. ^ Halo Waypoint: Catalog Interaction (post 2964800)
  15. ^ Halo Waypoint: Official Halo: Nightfall DISCUSSION (post 2988810)
  16. ^ Tech Crunch - Ridley Scott Halo Feature Among Microsoft’s First Dozen Xbox Original Titles
  17. ^ a b c d Major Nelson: #343: Interviews with members of 343 Industries about Halo and more
  18. ^ flickr, Frank O'Connor's Business Card
  19. ^ Tobias Buckell Online, Halo: Evolutions
  20. ^ Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, About the artists
  21. ^ a b IGN - Halo 4 Art Director Steps Down at 343 Industries
  22. ^ Halo Waypoint, 343 Industries Podcast #1
  23. ^ YouTube, Welcome to Halo Waypoint (Retrieved on Jun 1, 2020) [archive]
  24. ^ Halo Waypoint, Canon Fodder 1/22/2016: Armory Amore
  25. ^ Halo Waypoint, "Familiar Facts," August 2020 (Retrieved on Aug 14, 2021) [archive]
  26. ^ Halo Waypoint, Inside Infinite - March 2021 (Retrieved on Aug 14, 2021) [archive]
  27. ^ Twitter, 343 Industries
  28. ^ Twitter, Kevin Franklin
  29. ^ Halo Waypoint, Dark Horse Announces Halo: Initiation
  30. ^ LinkedIn, Daniel Price
  31. ^ LinkedIn, David Wu
  32. ^ LinkedIn, Sally Huang
  33. ^ a b c Making Halo 4: First Look
  34. ^ Twitter, Tom French
  35. ^ a b c d e f g h i j YouTube: Working at 343 Industries (HD)
  36. ^ Artstation, Josh Dean
  37. ^ a b c Waypoint|Page=Canon Fodder #100: Sweet Centennial
  38. ^ Twitter, Adam Wong
  39. ^ Twitter, MacKay Clark
  40. ^ LinkedIn (Retrieved on Jun 8, 2021) [archive]
  41. ^ Twitter (Retrieved on Jun 8, 2021) [archive]
  42. ^ Twitter, Pixelflare
  43. ^ Twitter, Riley Hastings
  44. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Lace Yamamoto (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  45. ^ 343 Industries, Brie Chin-Deyerle: Engineering the Future (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  46. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Leonard Holman (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  47. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Andrew Witts (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  48. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Alex Bean (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  49. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Irene Zhu (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  50. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Bereket Kifle (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  51. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Nina Marien (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  52. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Aubra Moore (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  53. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Erika Martinez (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  54. ^ 343 Industries, Employee Spotlight: Ani Shastry (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  55. ^ Pure Xbox, Halo Infinite's First Esports Event Has Been Locked In (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  56. ^ LinkedIn, Sam Nylen (Retrieved on Oct 19, 2021) [archive]
  57. ^ Twitter, SixOkay
  58. ^ Twitter, Ryan Payton
  59. ^ a b c GameInformer: UPDATE: Halo 4 Loses Its Creative Director
  60. ^ Twitter, Jonathan Goff
  61. ^ Halo Waypoint, Farewell Friends
  62. ^ LinkedIn, Jacob Benton
  63. ^ NeoGaf: View Single Post - Halo: Reach |OT3| This Thread is Not a Natural Formation
  64. ^ https://twitter.com/Fuvfuxn
  65. ^ Twitter, Scott Warner
  66. ^ Twitter, Schlerf
  67. ^ BioWare, Introducing Some Dev Team Leads for the Next Mass Effect (Retrieved on Jun 1, 2020) [archive]
  68. ^ LinkedIn, Chris Schlerf
  69. ^ Eurogamer: Halo programmer Corrinne Yu joins Uncharted dev Naughty Dog
  70. ^ Twitter, Paul Ehreth
  71. ^ LinkedIn, Vic DeLeon
  72. ^ Twitter - Vic DeLeon
  73. ^ LinkedIn, Che Chou
  74. ^ Twitter, Che Chou
  75. ^ Halo Waypoint, Halo Community Update 7.7.15
  76. ^ Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Exclusive
  77. ^ Halo Waypoint, Community Update: Beach Battle
  78. ^ Twitter, Chris Haluke
  79. ^ Halo Waypoint, The Halo Bulletin: Your Journey Begins - 11/6/2014
  80. ^ Halo Waypoint, Thank You
  81. ^ Making Halo 4: Composing Worlds
  82. ^ Twitter, Kazuma Jinnouchi
  83. ^ Twitter, Lawrence Metten
  84. ^ Twitter, Tim Longo
  85. ^ Kotaku, Halo Infinite Creative Director Leaves Company
  86. ^ Windows Central, Halo Infinite Lead Producer Mary Olson departs 343 Industries and joins Midwinter Entertainment
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