Will Halo Switch to Unreal Engine?

Halo Infinite has certainly been full of controversy and speculation since its release and overall disappointing roadmap and feature list. However, with both the departure of 343i's CEO and massive pressure being applied by upcoming blockbuster releases of Overwatch 2 and Modern Warfare II, gamers have begun to speculate all sorts of wild claims and rumors that may be planned for the future of Halo Infinite.

TL;DR:

• Certain Affinity is working with 343i for a Halo Battle Royale.
• 343i has blamed their Slipspace engine for many of Halo's problems.
• Lack of DevTools may support rumors that the new BR is not on the current engine.
• New BR mode may not run on the current engine.
• Microsoft has numerous studios and tools for Unreal Engine and Slipspace has created a bottleneck for helping getting Halo in order.
• Running a game on multiple engines seems... unlikely.

Project Tatanka is a Battle Royale like mode being developed between Creative Affinity and 343 industries that has been in the works since around the release of Halo Infinite. This project is still in the works as updates have been released by a Certain Affinity as recently as last week, although details of the game mode are minimal at this point. Of course, the gigantic mess that Halo Infinite currently is also creating numerous problems with information flow and accurate sources as fans continue to be outraged by 343's cancellation of features and continued delays of forge mode and other highly anticipated features.

One of the most recent rumors about Halo Infinite is that this new Battle Royale mode will not run on the current Slipspace engine and will actually be run on Unreal Engine 5. These rumors were initially ignored as it would make little sense to drop all of the work and effort put into the mode at this point to move to a new engine, however, new rumors seem to point that the mode was never developed on the same engine to begin with. These rumors are being backed up by a continuation of problems with the current engine, including a complete lack of DevTools that would be needed to assist an outside company with creating the mode.  This rumor has been pushed by potential leaks reported by Youtuber Sean W.

There are also rumors that the core Halo Infinite game could also move to Unreal Engine. However, the logistics of this would be enormous and do not seem likely given how major features like Forge mode are still in the works.  Granted, 343s continuation of blaming their engine for their ongoing problems and Halo Infinite's absolutely disappointing performance as Microsoft's and Xbox's flagship game may actually be fueling these rumors and even may fuel an actual engine change to the game itself. The current speculation is that the Battle Royale mode would actually slowly overtake the old Halo Infinite system and instead of being added to the current game, the current game would essentially be re-added to the new mode.

Of course this is all speculation at this point and we have no clear information about what the future of Halo might involve. However, fans actually appear hopeful that the new modes and even possible upcoming campaign DLC will run on Unreal Engine instead of the current model.  One major support of these changes is that Microsoft has continued to try to support 343 and Halo by throwing money at the current problems, but the fact that no other industry or studio has experience with their engine has created massive problems with this solution as all new contractors and staff need to be trained like new. Which is likely not going over well as Microsoft has entire studios and massive support networks that are dedicated to the Unreal Engine.

While these rumors may have a lot of backing and sound theoretical uses, the problem will still remain that a singular game will not perform very well flip-flopping between game engines as the user tries to experience the game. If the Battle Royale mode stays as a mostly independent game from Halo Infinite and the campaign remains fairly separated from the multiplayer, this might actually be something that is possible and would not affect the user experience very much, but only time will tell what the future for Halo holds.