Halo’ developer hit hard by Microsoft layoffs says franchise ‘will stay’

Halo Infi­nite devel­op­er 343 Indus­tries released a brief mes­sage on Twit­ter about the future of the fran­chise on Saturday.

343 said in a state­ment by stu­dio head Pierre Hintze, “Halo and Mas­ter Chief are here to stay.”

“343 Indus­tries will con­tin­ue to devel­op Halo now and in the future, includ­ing epic sto­ry­telling, mul­ti­play­er, and mak­ing Halo even better.”

The state­ment comes after Microsoft con­firmed it would lay off 10,000 employ­ees by the end of March.

Accord­ing to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, 343 Indus­tries was “hit hard” by the restruc­tur­ing, with Halo vet­er­an and cre­ative direc­tor Joe join­ing the stu­dio in 2020, who helped bring Infi­nite to Microsoft­’s pub­lish­ing arm. Stat­en is gone.

Staten’s move fol­lows sev­er­al oth­er high-pro­file depar­tures, includ­ing Slip­space Engine lead devel­op­er David Berg­er and 343 co-founder Bon­nie Ross.

Schreier could­n’t quan­ti­fy the cuts at 343 com­pa­nies, but said the Infi­nite cam­paign team was hit par­tic­u­lar­ly hard.

The lay­offs were pre­ced­ed by a “long” hir­ing freeze at the stu­dio, which has lost a num­ber of its con­tract work­ers in recent weeks and months. A for­mer 343 staffer blames the lay­offs on “incom­pe­tent lead­er­ship at the top.”

Microsoft launched Halo Infi­nite in 2021 to gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive reviews, but has strug­gled to main­tain a con­sis­tent play­er base since.

For exam­ple, on Steam, Infinite’s aver­age dai­ly play­er count is around 4,000, down from his 100,000 at launch.

More than a year after launch, Microsoft still has­n’t announced new con­tent for the Infi­nite cam­paign. Halo fans have rea­son to wor­ry about the future of the franchise.