The recent mass layoffs within the tech industry have upended the lives of many, and its repercussions are quickly coming to light, specifically within some prominent game developer studios. 343 Industries, the developers for Halo Infinite, was one of the many Xbox developers hit hard by the recent layoffs at Microsoft. While unconfirmed, rumors have circulated that the amount of workforce lost has the potential to completely change 343’s role in the future of the Halo franchise.

A well-known French leaker Bathrobe Spartan took to Twitter yesterday amongst the fallout of the Microsoft layoff confirmations with a thread about the layoffs within 343. Resetera user P40L0 translated and summarized the post within a forum post soon after. Spartan claimed that the 343 layoffs were due to poor management within the studio. However, considering the amount of ex-343 employees coming out with their own poor experiences with developer’s leadership, it becomes harder to deny. The leaker claimed that 343 Industries lost ⅓ of its entire workforce, not only because of the layoffs but also due to employee transfers and the non-renewals of external contractors. However, they claimed that all planned content for Halo Infinite this year would not be disrupted by the shrinking workforce.

Halo insider says 343 has lost around 1/3 of its workforce

Going forward the studio will halt “active development” on future narrative campaigns and will transform into the “franchise coordinators”

A lot to unpack here 🤔 #Xbox

See more: https://t.co/I0pnVjPktO pic.twitter.com/kDCjOpIXWL

— Hunter 🎮 (@NextGenPlayer) January 19, 2023

However, Spartan claims that layoffs hit the visual and narrative content teams the hardest. The leaker claimed that this has led to a fork in 343’s future: whether to continue with Halo’s narrative universe or focus on the studio’s financial stability. Spartan claims that the studio chose to focus on the financial side of things due to Halo Infinite missing its financial and overall goals. According to Spartan, Microsoft plans to regress 343 into franchise coordinators for the Halo franchise, meaning that 343 will be reduced to a supportive role, coordinating external studios to create further Halo projects, be it sequels to Halo Infinite or other spin-offs.

If these leaks prove to be true, then that means fans will not be seeing the continuation of Halo’s main narrative for some time.