Halo Studios
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Date founded: |
2007 (as 343 Industries) |
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Headquarters: |
Redmond, Washington, USA |
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Halo Studios, formerly known as 343 Industries,[1] is a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios located in Redmond, Washington. It is tasked with overseeing the Halo franchise and creating new properties for the series.
History[edit]
Origin[edit]
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]
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Establishment[edit]
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 and based in Kirkland, Washington.[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[edit]
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. In 2016, the studio was relocated to Redmond, Washington, enabling the 343 Industries team to collaborate more closely with other Microsoft divisions and leverage the resources of Microsoft's main campus.[7] The former Bungie and 343 Industries office building at 434 Kirkland Way was later demolished in August of 2019.[8]
Reclaimer Saga[edit]
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.