Rumours: Halo Studios Leadership in Question As Studio Cancels Project "Ekur"

Insiders are reporting that Halo Studios have cancelled an in-development "large-scale" multiplayer game that was being developed by Certain Affinity, a support studio with long ties to the Halo franchise.

Rebs Gaming, a YouTube games reporter with a special interest in the Halo franchise and its development reported over a week ago that the game was cancelled, and this has since been confirmed by journalist Jez Cordon from Windows Central.

Ekur was reportedly green lit in September of 2023, before it was only recently cancelled, with the only indication according to Rebs is that it was due to development problems with the upcoming remake of the original Halo in Halo: Campaign Evolved.

Eurogamer reports that the game spun off from another battle-royale Halo prototype, named Project Tatanka. While that project didn't take off, both it and its follow-up Ekur were being built on Unreal Engine, the same engine powering the upcoming remake. It was unclear when or if this prototype was handed over to Halo Studios.

While the project started with extraction shooter ambitions, the prototype reportedly evolved into would have been a "super big-team-battle" multiplayer project, with Eurogamer stating that the studio was citing Halo 5: Guardians' Warzone mode as inspiration.

Toxic Leadership in the Spotlight

In other Halo Studios news, both Windows Central's Jez Cordon and Rebs Gaming is reporting of allegations of toxic leadership at the studio, with studio lead Pierre Hintze reportedly being called out.

One of Rebs sources alleges that Hintze reportedly "verbally blasted" them, and that reports to HR and Microsoft's legal department went ignored.

Jez Cordon also reports that they have seen internal documents related to the allegations, and that at least one of the complaints were not upheld by Microsoft.

There are also reports of cronyism within the studios, with Rebs reporting that the studio's art director Chris Matthews had been hiring friends.

Former Halo Studios art director Glenn Israel has also previously publicly stated the upcoming remake was "catastrophic[ally]" mismanaged, among other damning allegations against his former employer, in a long, multi-part LinkedIn post.

Neither Hintze, Matthews, nor Halo Studios or Xbox have publicly commented on the allegations.

Whatever's happening at Halo Studios, and with the reports of the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved remake having gone through at least a crisis or two during development, all eyes are on Microsoft to see how they respond and lead the franchise going forward.