Friday, February 12, 2021
Halo Wars 2 is dead.
What you need to know
- Halo Wars 2 is a real-time strategy set in Microsoft's sci-fi shooter series.
- Microsoft previously blamed work on Halo Master Chief Collection for the lack of Halo Wars 2 updates.
- Today, Microsoft reiterated that it has no plans to return to Halo Wars 2.
Halo is a billion-dollar video game franchise for Microsoft, which has seen a ton of success recently with releases on Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC. Microsoft is gearing up to launch Halo Infinite later this year, after a prolific delay last summer. But there's another Halo game in the roster that has fallen by the wayside a bit in recent years.
Halo Wars 2 launched in 2017 to a decent amount of praise, for a fun story with great villains, and a large spread of online modes. The game also got a well-received DLC with a Horde-style mode, complete with additional campaign beats. Beyond that, the game hasn't enjoyed the best support from Microsoft over the years, despite having a passionate fanbase.
In 2019, fans even started a petition for further updates to the game, and Microsoft responded by saying its focus was entirely on the Master Chief Collection. Microsoft also then said that they may revisit it in the future. In an update on the Halo Waypoint website, Halo dev 343i reiterated that it has no plans for sequels or updates for the Halo Wars universe at this time.
We always strive to be open, honest, and transparent with our community and we know many of you have been waiting, asking, and hoping for news about the future of Halo Wars 2. We want to acknowledge that we've heard you and make sure you know that this feedback and these topics do indeed get brought to the right folks across the studio for further evaluation. In the past, we've noted the Publishing Team was fully focused on MCC and we had no current plans to return to Halo Wars 2. Now, with all the titles on PC, we've seen these questions popping up again although the 343 Publishing Team is still working on more MCC seasonal content along with a variety of features and further improvements. It's not always easy to be open and transparent – particularly when we expect it's not an answer the community wants to hear – but we want to give it to you straight: 343 Industries has no current plans for further Halo Wars 2 work including content updates, balance patches, bringing the title to other platforms, or a new game in the series. We will, however, continue to monitor the game and ensure everything is working as expected.
Yes, we did use the word "currently" because it's the truth – as of today, there is no plan for the development team to re-engage with Halo Wars 2 and we aren't working on a new game in the series at this time. But, we're specifically never going to say never because, well, who knows what the future may bring.
The news will come as a blow to those who have remained passionate about the game, hoping for updates, balance tweaks, and bug fixes. Alas, it looks like we're not getting them now or in the future.
Microsoft is still clearly interested in the real-time strategy genre, with Age of Empires IV on the horizon, and resurging popularity in the franchise in general. Could Microsoft's Age of Empires dev World's Edge pick up Halo Wars in the future? For now, we can only dream.
Thanks to Unikraken for the tip.
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