Halo’s Future With Activision Isn’t Guaranteed to Please Longtime Fans of the Series
As Xbox continues their restructure, the Halo series is set to go through some big changes, starting first with 200+ layoffs at Halo Studios. Alongside several other internal studio shifts and at least one closure, Xbox has made the decision to transfer the Halo series’ continued developed away from the creators who started working on the franchise after Bungie stopped doing so after Halo: Reach. Now, the next Halo game is to be made by Call of Duty developer Activision, a fact that’s caused longtime fans to voice plenty of concerns.
Activision and Activision-Blizzard are not exactly the most well respected gaming companies out there, known mostly for many different controversies around live service microtransactions within their games. However, there’s no denying that the studio has plenty of resources at their disposal to make a high-quality Halo game, if the multiple yearly AAA releases weren’t an indication. That being said, even with remaining members of Halo Studios working with Activision to define Halo‘s future, both studios’ bad habits could alienate veteran fans of the franchise.
Halo Studios Layoffs At Xbox Have Caused The Next Game In The Series To Be Made By Activision
In a blog post titled “Continuing Our Reset,” Xbox shared more details regarding how their studios were changing, following the announcement of thousands of layoffs to catalyze that process earlier in 2026. The September 22, 2026 follow-up reported that 268 employees would be laid off from Halo Studios, creators of the recent Halo: Campaign Evolved remake of the series’ first landmark title. This game introduced three new prequel missions and expanded content, but was criticized heavily for its departures from the original and lack of online multiplayer.
Despite also releasing on PlayStation for the first time, Campaign Evolved performed only adequately, while getting mixed reviews. This likely led to the cuts at Halo Studios, although players are attributing the lack of quality in the remake to a rushed release that was made in anticipation of the job cuts. In the same post, Xbox claims that it is three quarters of the way through the overall “reset,” and that the remaining developers at Halo Studios would be formed into a small team to help Activision with Halo.
As stated before, Activision was also named as the creators of the next Halo game in the Xbox message. It seems like the Halo Studios representatives left at Xbox will solely be in charge of community efforts for the Halo series, and possess the ability to support its next projects in-market rather than in a developmental capacity. Meanwhile, the Activision team is supposedly separate from the Call of Duty teams at the studio, and will be acting as an all-new group within the company to focus on Halo and Halo alone.
Call Of Duty’s Continual Problems May Now Carry Over To Whatever Halo Game Is Published
The biggest problems tied to Activision’s acquisition of Halo is how the studio has repeatedly come under fire for how it treats its established IPs already. The Call of Duty games have been in a long decline for years, with lackluster campaigns, terrible monetization practices, and underwhelming multiplayer. Battle passes and other microtransactions have littered the last few Call of Duty titles, with aggressive tactics being used to encourage players to spend money as quickly and frequently as possible. Currently, players are fatigued at the yearly releases for the series that haven’t produced something above average in a long time.
Plenty of other issues besides monetization plague the Call of Duty games too, such as performance issues and update bloat players have dealt with across multiple titles. Games are ridiculously large too, with impossible file sizes that make it hard to have any other game other than Call of Duty on your system. This sort of technical sloppiness combines with server instability for online modes, which are already a source of headaches due to how rigid Call of Duty matchmaking can be. Security issues also make recent Call of Duty games susceptible to hacking, exposing private information to malicious sources.
Accusations of AI generated art on certain maps adds controversy to the series too, in addition to the poor reviews games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 & 7 have gotten. Those games were released in rushed, incomplete states, much like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 before them. While that game got fixes, it seems like Activision is more than comfortable releasing a broken, buggy game and changing it slowly over time instead of putting out a complete version of it on launch. Increased live service elements like those seen in Call of Duty: Warzone have also bogged down the variety the series used to have.
Activision’s Controversial History Has A Bigger Chance Of Building Greater Criticism From Series Veterans
Considering all the backlash toward Halo: Campaign Evolved already from fans against a studio that claimed to understand the series, Activision has a lot of work to do to earn players’ trust. One of the biggest worries players have is that Activision will apply the same systems and philosophies from Call of Duty to Halo, both in gameplay and marketing. Worries of aggressive monetization aside, veterans of Halo are concerned that AAA FPS tropes will be integrated into the next Halo, not only doubling down on concepts like sprinting, but also expanding them to better match what Call of Duty normally does.
Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians proved that series fans don’t want Halo to be too close to Call of Duty, whether it’s through multiplayer loadout systems to wall running, sliding, UI/UX changes, or fast-paced hyper movement options usually seen in Activision’s franchise. Implementing Call of Duty‘s smaller single-player content and rigid matchmaking would no doubt be the opposite direction fans want to see the series go after changed management. On top of that, veteran fans will likely stop playing Halo entirely if it relies on microtransactions as much as Call of Duty does.
Overall, the news regarding Halo is quite disappointing for players who’ve been around the series for long. While some players are happy to see new creatives taking on Halo, Activision might have been the worst choice possible, as they could move the series further down the wrong path.