The Halo Studios Situation Update.

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to This Week in Halo, the Halo video that catches you up with all things Halo related. This week, we have quite the episode from an update on the Halo studio situation, as you can no doubt tell by the title. There was even this guy named Mint Blitz, who actually interviewed an ex Bungie developer, Eddie Smith, had quite a few things to say about the Halo remake. We're going to talk about that. We also have an update on Halo 2 Rebalance, courtesy of Ruby. And my god, the things that Ruby and his team are working on, second to none. It might be the most exciting Halo project I've seen in years. There was even a small little tidbit about Doom Halo. In any case, this is this week in Halo. Let's get into the video. So, first of all, let's talk about Glenn Israel. Now, Glenn Israel was the one, he was the former art director of 17 years over at Halo Studios, and he had a couple things to say to add extra context to, first of all, his allegations, but also exactly where to direct our focus. I agreed with these sentiments to not go after the day-to-day developers. I said that over and over again. It is the management. It usually always is the management. So, it isn't the day-to-day developers doing lots of hard work to make the Halo games we love. It is the people making the big decisions. To recap very quickly, Glenn Israel is alleging that Halo Studios senior staff are basically blacklisting certain people, showing favoritism/cronyism.

[00:01:18]And in an image he shared after the first allegations went live, it said, "A picture is worth a,000 words January 2025." To protect himself, he sent an email to a high-standing employee at the studio and said, "I saw a thing on Friday that was definitely unethical, possibly illegal. I'm not going to report it because one, it was done in such a way that it would be difficult to prove, and two, retaliation would be a certainty. I am not confident in Microsoft HR's ability or interest in protecting me, and I'm not in a position to throw away 15 years with the studio, but I have voiced my concern appropriately internally. And I worry that this alone might be enough to draw inappropriate attention. It would be comforting to know that someone respected, impartial, and perhaps most importantly uninvolved knows that I know if, for example, my career suddenly takes a nose dive. And would you look at that? By October of last year, he left Halo. This is such an important piece of information, and I'm sure Glenn will use it with his allegations. He basically predicted what was going to happen just by knocking the boat. Mr. Rebs did some further research, and he did his own video. I'll link that in the description. He basically found one man who was in an art position. He hired four people from his previous work.

[00:02:27]Glenn then commented on Mr. Rob's very own video and said, "Yes, this is correct. One time is a coincidence, but hiring four people that you used to know from a previous job, that is favoritism." It will be interesting to see how this situation evolves over time. As I do news videos, I'm just covering what is happening. In the last few days, in rebuttal to this, Glenn did comment again. He said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to take a moment to check reality on a few topics I've seen here and elsewhere on social media in the last two weeks, and this is important, so I'm going to talk about it. The devs hate Halo. This just isn't true. Set aside whatever Frank Okconor said at the outset, and I hope he'll regret that to the end of his days. He was neither a hiring manager nor a developer. The studio I knew only hired fans. And while there may be some truth to the idea that they hired some fans who are willing to express critical opinions on the franchise or had ideas about how it might evolve or improve, that's true of every single fan here. No one works a 60 or 80hour week out of spite. No one risks their health or their friendships or their sanity to spit in your eye. And that is why I'm always measured when I make videos like this. I know for a fact that there are so many talented developers who love Halo who work at Halo Studios. So to paint them all with the same brush is just completely unfair. But it does mean that people in a position of power need to be held accountable if things aren't going right. Glenn went on to say too, fire the devs and give Halo to the fans. I'll reiterate, the studio I knew only hired fans. They agree with you more than they're allowed to say. I'll also reiterate that early on super fandom in the studio for the extended universe was a real problem. The narratives were too dependent on lore. the average player did not know and would not be motivated to discover in a book or comic. I noticed this myself. The big difference between, say, Halo 3 to Halo 4, Halo 4's sci-fi, if you want to call it that, is completely different to Halo 3's. Anyone who has played both games can see what I'm talking about. There is a very big difference between the two. On top of that, and this has been a recent discussion that even I've spoken about, so many of you guys joke around and say Halo is a book series. Now, I feel like that actually alienates a lot of people if they don't know all of these little nuance things that are happening within the universe and then they play the games, they're not going to fully understand exactly what is happening.

[00:04:39]You need to make it that if someone just plays the video games, they completely understand what is happening. That is so important. Third, Glenn went on to say, "The devs have a woke agenda. DEI ruined Halo. It is true that Microsoft has or had placed considerable importance on what they call diversity and inclusion and it is slash was a standard to which every employee was held. But don't get lost in the fog of culture war. I never saw an agenda promoted was never asked to raise one or voice one or silence another. Never had a quotota to fill etc. My interpretation of the policy and the guidance I gave to my reports was that DNI is as much about diversity in thought and inclusion in opinion as it is about identity. It's about recognizing and setting aside one's assumptions about a group to engage with someone fairly as an individual. In practical terms, it might just mean making sure that the introverted genius in the corner who knows their manager is making a mistake feel safe enough to speak. And again, this is very important too because if you have valuable insight, you want to feel comfortable enough to actually voice your opinion.

[00:05:39]Because if you just have yesmen in any career, not just Halo, not just game development, it's not going to equal a very good product. You need to be able to voice your opinion in a constructive and measured way and feel like you're listened to. And that really is the key goal of my channel. I give you guys a platform every single video to voice your concerns, give constructive feedback. We've done it for about 5 to 6 years. Yes, we all have our opinions about the Halo franchise that I feel like it is so important that you guys can give feedback to the developers, especially when it can help change the game for the better. The final thing Glenn said, the two long didn't read here, is that Halo is stronger when all Spartans are welcome. I think I've taken enough of your time for the day, but I want to underscore this. You are not wrong to be angry or frustrated or sad, and you're not wrong to want things to be different and better than they've been these many years. I only ask that you direct that where it belongs, and don't let yourself get distracted. Hold management accountable. Protect the developers. And I'm so glad Glenn said this because it really reiterates the point I've been hammering home for such a long time. often day-to-day developers, they're scared to speak out, especially when there's retaliation and they can lose their jobs, which then affects their health care. It's very hard for an individual developer to come out like this. And that's why when Glenn says something and he's a veteran of 17 years, it holds a lot of weight. In any case, if anything new comes out here, I will do a follow-up video. Next up today, we have the interview I did with Eddie Smith, X Bunny developer and one of the most talented Halo concept artists of all time. People have been doing videos and doing excerpts of the interview. If you would like to see it in its entirety, I'll link it in the description. Definitely check it out. To give you guys a gist of what Eddie Smith was talking about, we spoke about the Halo remake. We spoke about the Halo universe. We spoke about the current state of Halo. We even spoke about the Halo TV show and both agree that Master Chief should not have taken his helmet off. And no, we shouldn't have seen his butt cheeks. And no, he shouldn't have slept with the Covenant Spy. And no, there shouldn't have been romance. I had never interviewed anyone in my life, so this was a first for me. I definitely took a lot of your feedback and constructive comments on board. So, I'll do that for my next interview. And yes, I'm proud to announce I have another Bungie developer who's going to be doing another interview with their own insights. And I cannot wait to share that with you either. Eddie said a lot about the Halo remake specifically. To give you guys the gist of it, Eddie basically said that Halo Studios and Abstraction, the main developers on the project, aren't pushing the game as far as they could. The exact quote read, "I think the game doesn't look like it was made in 2026. It looks more like it was made in 2017. maybe 2019 because I know what Unreal Engine 5 can do. I'd want to see Halo pushed beyond its limits. This is so important because literally in the Project Foundry Vidok, and I said this in the interview itself, they said they wanted to make Halo first in its class for graphics, tech, fidelity, basically how the game is going to look. Eddie thinks it should look more photorealistic. So, you keep that very strong art style, but you make it look more like real life. Let's say the 4Runner buildings. how would they look in real life while still keeping the same visual integrity and snap red themes from the original game. Eddie Smith also said that because it is a campaign only, Halo Studios and Abstraction should be trying to push the limit as much as possible. You don't have to worry about performance as much because there is no multiplayer. If you keep it to 60 FPS for a campaign, 95% of us are going to be very very happy. This gives you some extra freedom and creative liberties because you don't have to factor in the FPS as much as if you were doing a multiplayer and a campaign. So, I agree with Eddie that they should be trying to push this game as far as they possibly can. In saying that, and this is a great segue, in terms of pushing games as far as they can go, Ruby has published the latest Halo 2 Rebalanced update. It came out about a week ago as of me making this video. And to many of you, this project, Halo 2 Rebalanced, you're more excited for than the Halo Remake itself. I did a standalone video and I spoke about how monumental Halo 2 Rebalanced is. And I went into great detail as to why this project is going to fundamentally change how each and every one of us play Halo 2, but very briefly so you get a pretty good overview. All the weapons have been updated. There's brand new encounters, brand new areas. It's been given that polish, that love, that coat of paint that Bungie wishes they could do. But obviously, we know the hell of Halo 2 development. Ruby and his team have gone through and made thoughtful changes across the board, which I think are in the spirit of what Bungie would do. And I truly believe this is going to be the definitive way to play the game from really cool things like revamping the honor guard stave. All of the enemies have been given a code of paint. This last update was specifically about the brutes and the drones. So the brutes have brand new armor. They've been given a visual upgrade. You can now shoot off the helmets of the captains. Even the drones, two new versions have been added. They have taken inspiration from Halo 3 ODST. They've even have the health of the drones and they can add lots more, make them into a proper swarm. And what I love so much about this project is that Ruby and the team have taken little bits from Halo 3, Halo Reach, even Halo Infinite. So, a lot of the animations of the Brute and things that actually got added in post games, which are very, very good changes, they've been backported into Halo 2 themselves. I can only imagine how painstaking this has been to get the project to where it is today. If you are a Halo fan, and I don't usually say this, but if you are a Halo fan and you love Halo, please check out Ruby's channel, go through the videos, go through Halo 2 Rebalanced. I'm probably going to do an hourong video when this eventually launches, and I'm going to go through every single little change because I truly believe this project is special. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, that is this week in Halo.

[00:11:02]The only other thing you need to know about Halo this week, and it's a small little update from Valkyrie. Here is a new preview of the Halo Doom mod. This is another project I am very, very excited for. And as I say every single week, the Halo community is so damn talented. As always, thank you guys for watching. Definitely check out the full interview with Eddie Smith if you are interested. We go into such great detail about the Halo franchise in general, and I'll definitely do more videos like that. In saying that, thank you guys for watching. Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you guys later.

[00:11:47]No.