A Brand New Halo Game Is Rumoured To Be Announced This Week, But Fans Are Concerned

A new Halo game is set to be announced this week according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier. The news comes off the same report revealing that Microsoft is pushing Xbox to reach higher profit margins and a separate leak revealing Halo Studio 343 may be turning the franchise into another Fortnite.

The Halo franchise has had a tough few years.

Following a subpar live adaptation, a convoluted narrative told through a variety of spin-off media, and the messy launch of its recent entry, Halo: Infinite, it’s fair for fans of the franchise to be in mostly poor spirits. Halo used to be Xbox’s flagship series, a console-defining experience that would fuel online debates to this day. Although the franchise seems to have fallen out of the cultural conversation in recent years.

Unfortunately, if these leaks are true, the franchise may still be struggling to right that ship.

A recent report from Bloomberg has revealed that Microsoft is putting pressure on Xbox leadership to drive profit margins up 30%, which is well above industry standards. Per Bloomberg writer Jason Schrier, this “accountability margin” has been in place for the past two years, which may explain some of the company’s unpopular decision-making.

In recent years, Xbox has had four major rounds of layoffs, making over 9000 developers redundant across all of its studios. The gaming company would also cancel a number of projects, including Everwild, Perfect Dark and Project Blackbird, all of which had been in development for more than seven years.

The aforementioned Halo: Infinite was intended to be Xbox’s major blockbuster multiplayer game that would position the franchise and the company to be a consistent revenue earner. While the game would launch to positive reviews, in a month’s time, the game’s reputation would significantly decline and would struggle to find new players for years on.

Which makes this surprising rumour in Bloomberg’s reporting less “hype-generating” and more “nailbiting”. As Schrier would write, “Later this week, Microsoft will announce a new Halo release in an attempt to resuscitate the franchise.”

The expected announcement is speculated to come at the upcoming Halo Championships, which starts on Friday, 1pm PT (Saturday, 4am AEDT).

This announcement also follows alleged leaks that Halo Studios 343 is working on a new multiplayer-exclusive game, with no campaign element this time around, which would be a first for the franchise.

Prolific Halo reporter Rebs Gaming would originally share this information and reveal that the source who leaked the alleged multiplayer-only Halo was the same who also leaked the upcoming Halo: Combat Evolved remaster, which has since been verified by multiple sources.

On the positive side, according to Rebs Gaming, the Fortnite comparisons start and end with the game being a live-service multiplayer game, and will not be a Battle Royale.

While the Halo franchise would fit comfortably into the current landscape of multiplayer games, having seasonal updates with frequent cosmetics, the lack of a campaign element, in addition to that 30% profit increase, does raise eyebrows.

However, until developers 343 officially announce the game, this is all mostly speculation as of now.