Unannounced Halo Battle Royale Reportedly Shelved

An unannounced Halo Battle Royale was reportedly cancelled, according to XboxEra co-founder Shpeshal_Nick.

Speaking on the XboxEra Podcast, and as reported by Eurogamer, Shpeshal_Nick said the Halo battle royale was no-longer in development. IGN has asked Microsoft for comment.

Word of the Halo battle royale has popped up every now and then ever since Halo Infinite came out in 2021. Codenamed Tatanka, the battle royale mode was reportedly in development at support studio Certain Affinity, although neither Microsoft nor Halo developer 343 has ever commented publicly on it.

In a September 2022 interview with VentureBeat, Certain Affinity president and COO Paul Sams teased a large Halo project that fit the battle royale bill.

“The biggest thing we’re doing that’s public right now, for more than two years now we’ve been working on Halo Infinite doing something that – they’re very prescriptive about what we can say,” Sams said.

“But we’re doing something unannounced, and we’re doing lead development on that unannounced thing, from conception and design. It’s something big and new for the franchise. But I can’t say any more about it. That’s our single largest project of our three projects currently. We have close to 100 developers working on that.”

In April of the same year, Certain Affinity tweeted to say it was “deepening our relationship with 343 and have been entrusted with further evolving Halo Infinite in some new and exciting ways.”

We’ve been part of the @Halo franchise for more than 15 years and we’re honored to say we are deepening our relationship with 343 and have been entrusted with further evolving Halo Infinite in some new and exciting ways. Join us on our journey. https://t.co/fApGobYZS3 pic.twitter.com/XSuS7EtLcq

— Certain Affinity (@CertainAffinity) April 12, 2022

But we’ve not seen or heard of a Halo battle royale since. A year ago, in January 2023, Bloomberg reported that Tatanka might have evolved from a battle royale “in different directions”.

All this comes at an uncertain time for the Halo franchise following the disappointing performance of Halo Infinite. Bloomberg reported Halo developer 343 had pivoted to Epic’s Unreal Engine for future games in the series. It has yet to reveal the future of the series. Meanwhile, Season 2 of the divisive Halo TV show kicks off on February 8 on Paramount+.

As for Certain Affinity, it’s working on an original first-person shooter project of its own, codenamed Project Loro.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.