Halo Studios Cancels Project Ekur Amid Leadership Abuse Claims

Halo Studios has canceled Project Ekur, an unannounced multiplayer shooter nearly three years in the making, Windows Central confirmed on July 13, 2026. Site editor Jez Corden verified an initial report from Rebs Gaming, a community reporter and YouTuber who has tracked the project for years.

The cancellation lands days after separate reports accused studio head Pierre Hintze of mistreating staff, and barely a week after Xbox announced 3,200 job cuts across its wider gaming division. Halo Studios itself dodged that first wave of layoffs. Its own internal problems still cost it a game.

Windows Central Verifies the Cancellation

Corden’s confirmation came in a short post on Windows Central, the Microsoft-focused news outlet, following weeks of speculation touched off by Rebs Gaming’s reporting.

“Halo Studios was working on a multiplayer title known as Project Ekur, which has been canceled. I’ve verified that as 100% true,” Corden wrote.

Corden did not say why Halo Studios killed the project, and he shared no further gameplay details. Neither Microsoft nor Halo Studios has issued an official statement on the cancellation, and Project Ekur was never announced in the first place.

Allegations of Abuse Cloud Halo Studios’ Leadership

Rebs Gaming’s reporting on Ekur has run alongside a separate set of claims about how Halo Studios is run. According to Notebookcheck, a technology news outlet, sources describe Halo Studios head Pierre Hintze berating developers and ignoring concerns about work-life balance and advancement, which pushed some staff to report him to human resources.

Hintze’s conduct nearly derailed Halo: Campaign Evolved, per those sources, and contributed to the decision to scrap Ekur. One of Hintze’s former friends, who had led major production work on a previous Halo title, was reportedly demoted and later dismissed after taking medical leave.

Rebs Gaming took the allegations directly to Xbox’s top executive.

This goes beyond bad behavior. Their leader completely mismanaged Halo Campaign Evolved, which is a reason why they canceled a multiplayer project. Leadership changes must happen to save XBOX’s most important franchise.

Rebs Gaming posted that message to Asha Sharma, who became Xbox CEO in February 2026, on X, adding that the underlying complaints had already reached Microsoft’s human resources and legal teams months earlier.

From a Scrapped Battle Royale to Ekur’s Warzone Pitch

Project Ekur did not start as a multiplayer pitch out of nowhere. It grew out of the wreckage of Project Tatanka, a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite that Certain Affinity, a longtime Halo development partner, had been prototyping before it was shelved.

Once Halo Studios committed to rebuilding the franchise on Unreal Engine 5, it tasked Certain Affinity with a new job: prove the engine swap could work at all. Reporting from Wccftech, a gaming and hardware news outlet, describes two goals for the prototype, determining whether Halo Infinite’s existing assets could be imported into Unreal Engine 5, and testing whether the new engine could still feel like Halo.

Both goals were reportedly met by June 2023, when Halo Infinite’s play space and Tatanka’s map were pulled into Ekur for live gameplay tests using AI-controlled combatants.

What the Game Was Supposed to Be

The concept shifted more than once as development continued. Sources cited across multiple outlets describe a project that moved from an early battle royale idea toward something closer to a modern take on an older Halo mode.

• Large-scale team battles modeled on Halo 5: Guardians’ Warzone mode, mixing squads of players with AI-controlled allies and enemies.
• Objective-based maps built around resource gathering, with extraction-style elements carried over from Ekur’s earlier concepts.
• Playable Spartans and Elites, both with face, body, and armor customization similar to Halo 4’s system.
• An Unreal Engine 5 test bed, built to prove the franchise’s older assets could survive the jump from the Slipspace engine.

Confusion persisted over who was actually building the game. Rebs Gaming initially credited Certain Affinity as Ekur’s developer, then later suggested the studio had only prototyped it before Halo Studios brought the work in-house.

Why Did Halo Studios Escape the Layoffs?

Halo Studios was not named among the teams hit by Xbox’s first 1,600 job cuts, unlike sister studios such as Bethesda Game Studios. Insiders say the studio’s own leadership problems produced a casualty anyway, in the form of Project Ekur, without a single payroll cut reaching the team.

“We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history,” Sharma wrote in a July 6, 2026 memo announcing a reset cutting 3,200 jobs and spinning off four studios in a single day. Xbox eliminated 1,600 roles immediately, with the rest to follow across the fiscal year. Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions returned to independent ownership, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs were sold to new owners, and a fifth studio, Arkane Studios, remained in a legally required labor review in France.

GamesBeat, a gaming industry outlet, estimates the three studios already confirmed in closure proceedings, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Compulsion Games, put roughly 325 jobs at immediate risk, a figure that does not include studios still awaiting a final closure decision like Arkane.

Halo Studios kept its staff. It still lost a game to the same dysfunction that has defined Xbox’s last two years.

Campaign Evolved Ships July 28 With No Multiplayer Mode

Ekur’s staff did not vanish. Several outlets reported that much of the team moved onto Campaign Evolved during the back half of last year, after development troubles on the remake pulled resources away from the multiplayer side. Rebs Gaming’s sources say active work on Ekur had already stopped by the summer of 2025, months before this week’s confirmation.

None of this changes what happens on July 28, 2026, when Halo: Campaign Evolved launches on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC, ending nearly 25 years of Halo staying exclusive to Xbox hardware. Premium and Collector’s Edition buyers get five days of early access starting July 23, and the game arrives day one in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

The remake rebuilds all ten original Halo: Combat Evolved missions in Unreal Engine 5, adds three new prequel missions built around Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson, and folds in nine weapons that did not exist in the 2001 original, including the Energy Sword and Battle Rifle. It ships with 42 skulls to modify runs, the largest collection in franchise history, and supports four-player online co-op alongside console split-screen. There is no competitive multiplayer, no ranked play, and no matchmaking of any kind.

A New Multiplayer Halo Could Still Surface This Year

Halo Studios has not confirmed any successor to Ekur, but multiple outlets reported this week that a new multiplayer project remains on track for a reveal later in 2026, potentially at Halo Fan Fest, the same event once rumored as Ekur’s own debut stage.

Demand for the franchise has not gone away in the meantime. The Collector’s Edition sold out weeks before launch, and Campaign Evolved has already gone gold ahead of release.

Separately, reports have floated the possibility that Halo’s rights could move to Activision as part of Microsoft’s broader restructuring. Microsoft has not confirmed or denied that. No new multiplayer Halo project has been named, dated, or officially announced.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Halo Studios Shutting Down?

No. Halo Studios was not among the teams hit by Xbox’s first wave of 1,600 layoffs on July 6, 2026, and Sharma’s restructuring memo named Halo as one of a handful of flagship franchises, alongside Gears of War, Forza, Fallout, Call of Duty, and The Elder Scrolls, that Xbox intends to fund more aggressively going forward.

What Happened to Project Tatanka?

Project Tatanka was Halo Infinite’s rumored battle royale mode, tied to Certain Affinity as far back as 2022. Reports on its exact fate differ, but Halo Studios moved its assets into Ekur’s testing once the battle royale concept lost momentum, using Tatanka’s map for Ekur’s 2023 live-fire trials.

Will Halo Get a New Multiplayer Game?

Possibly, though nothing is confirmed. Halo Studios community director Brian Jarrard dismissed the multiplayer rumors back in April 2026, joking that the next Halo project sounded more like a pottery-themed party game, a nod to Double Fine’s Kiln, without directly denying that a project existed. Multiple outlets now report a new multiplayer Halo could still be revealed later this year.

Does Halo: Campaign Evolved Have Split-Screen or Cross-Platform Co-Op?

Yes, but with a limit. The remake supports two-player split-screen on consoles only, plus four-player online co-op that crosses Xbox, PlayStation 5, and PC for the first time in series history. PC players cannot join the split-screen mode, only the networked version.

Did Certain Affinity Actually Build Project Ekur?

That is still disputed. One insider told Rebs Gaming that Certain Affinity only prototyped Ekur before Halo Studios brought development in-house, while another source claimed Certain Affinity was never the studio behind the next Halo multiplayer game at all. A dataminer known as Grunt.API separately found a test server, referred to internally as a Thunderhead server, tied to the project, offering independent evidence Ekur existed regardless of who built it.