Halo Co-Creator Says The Series Died Because It Was Outsourced

Published Aug 20, 2026, 10:31 AM EDT If you want to see how poorly Xbox has fumbled this console generation, look no further than the state of the Halo series. What should be a reliable source of income for the company has turned into a years-long disaster, as Halo Infinite faced delays and struggled when it did finally launch. Halo: Campaign Evolved hasn't gone down much better, so the next major release will have to do a lot of heavy lifting. Now, Halo's co-creator Marcus Lehto is weighing in, sharing how he would fix the series if he were still working on it. He argues that Halo needs to go back to basics, but also take a "darker" shift that has a "more grounded military feel". He also strongly speaks out against outsourcing the series, arguing that this is what killed it in the first place. "If I were to make another Halo these days, I bet many of you would not like it," Lehto opens. "It would be a lot darker with a more grounded military feel. PvP would be the brains, PvE the heart and soul. It would not be 'everyone's' Halo." He continues, diving into his vision for Halo. "I would probably bench much of the current lore - respect it, but build a new future narrative for both the old and new audiences which makes much more sense." As it happens, many fans actually really liked that idea. To temper their expectations, he makes it clear that he has no say in the direction of Halo. "While talk of Halo's future is certainly very exciting, I'm aware that it's fanciful and that I doubt Asha [Sharma, Xbox CEO] really gives a s**t," he says. "Also, Halo MUST be built by a local team together, not outsourced around the globe to a group that has ZERO investment in making something great." Of course, this doesn't mean that Sharma and the rest of Xbox's leadership don't care about Halo, only that Lehto isn't in the room where these decisions are made, so his opinion will not be taken into account. Lastly, Lehto doubles down on his argument against outsourcing, saying that this "killed" Halo. With that said, it doesn't seem that Xbox is moving away from this anytime soon, as it was recently reported by Rebs Gaming that Halo is reliant on outsourcing now more than ever, with Campaign Evolved outsourced to 15 different studios. Right now, the future of Halo remains uncertain. Its legacy is far too significant to shelve the series, and we already know that the new Xbox is looking to double down on its biggest IP, so Halo will undoubtedly get a big new release for the next generation. We will just have to wait and see if that goes down better than Infinite. Starting with 2001's Bungie-created Halo: Combat Evolved, the sci-fi series has become a lynchpin of Microsoft's Xbox offering. It spans the first-person shooter, RTS, and twin-stick shooter genres, as well as branching out into novels, comics, movies, animation, and even a big-budget live-action television series.