Frank O’Connor says Activision has three possible routes for Halo, but warns the new team should protect the series’ sandbox and hire laid off Bungie and Halo Studios talent.
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O’Connor’s advice lands as Halo changes hands
Frank O’Connor, a former Halo franchise creative director who worked on the series for nearly 20 years, has urged Activision to protect Halo’s sandbox identity and hire laid off developers from Bungie, Halo Studios, and elsewhere as the franchise moves under the Call of Duty publisher’s control.
That is the sharpest part of his LinkedIn response, reported by VGC and IGN, because it turns the Halo Activision future from a corporate reshuffle into a staffing and design question. Activision is getting a franchise whose competitive feel has always lived in the space between weapons, movement, grenades, vehicles, map geometry, and team timing. O’Connor’s message is that Halo’s next custodians cannot simply inherit the logo and assume the game will follow.
According to VGC, Halo was placed under Activision’s control as part of wider Xbox studio changes announced earlier this month. VGC reported that Activision will oversee the franchise with “a new, purpose-built Halo team” separate from ongoing Call of Duty development plans, while Halo Studios will be reduced to a small team supporting existing Halo games. GameSpot similarly reported that the Activision Halo developers will be part of a new team separate from the studios that handle annual Call of Duty releases, and that Halo Studios will continue in reduced form rather than driving the next main future project.
The tension is obvious. Activision has the operational muscle of Call of Duty, but Halo’s problem has rarely been solved by volume alone. The series needs a readable combat loop, a coherent multiplayer population plan, and a campaign identity that can carry Master Chief without turning the whole thing into another franchise’s cadence wearing green armor.
The three routes O’Connor sees for Activision’s Halo
O’Connor described three possible paths for Activision’s Halo, while stressing that “none of these are easy, guaranteed or necessarily viable,” according to IGN and VGC. His first route is the conservative competitive play: build a “classic” Halo movement, sandbox, and shooter experience for the core audience, then scale it carefully enough to attract a broader player base.
That path would treat Halo’s existing feel as the foundation. In shooter terms, it means the team would need to lock down strafe weight, time-to-kill, weapon roles, grenade pressure, vehicle balance, sightline control, spawn logic, and objective pacing before chasing a bigger content machine. O’Connor specifically noted that Halo multiplayer is better with more people playing, which is a simple population reality for any arena shooter. A healthy matchmaker makes ranked, social, custom games, and experimental playlists all easier to sustain.
His second route is a reinvention. O’Connor floated the idea of something “new” and “modern” that reworks the game or universe in a surprising way, potentially as a new take on first-person shooting or even an action RPG, according to IGN’s transcription of the LinkedIn reply. That would be the highest-variance path. It could use Halo’s fiction, enemy roster, weapons, and scale to reach players who have drifted away, but it would also risk losing the crisp identity that makes a Needler, Battle Rifle, Warthog run, or shield-pop duel feel like Halo rather than generic sci-fi combat.
The third route is the one fans will watch most suspiciously: move the Halo IP and sandbox into Activision’s comfort zone. O’Connor described this as using player models, progression systems, business models, big annual or semi-annual spectacle, and constant content. That is the Call of Duty-shaped option, even if Activision says the Halo team is separate from Call of Duty’s ongoing plans. The benefit would be discipline and production throughput. The danger is that Halo becomes a content schedule first and a sandbox second.
Staffing may decide the game before the first trailer
O’Connor’s clearest practical recommendation was to hire experienced Halo and Bungie talent. VGC quoted him urging Activision to “Hire Bungie, Halo Studios and other laid off folk who are bursting with talent and ideas that got nerfed or shut down over the years.” That line matters because the Halo franchise future now depends on institutional knowledge that has been scattered by years of studio change, layoffs, rebranding, and leadership movement.
IGN reported that O’Connor was responding to a LinkedIn post by Genevieve Harrison, a former Xbox social media manager of executive communications, who argued that “Talent is not a SharePoint folder you drag from /Call of Duty into /Halo.” Harrison’s point, as quoted by IGN, was that Activision knows how to run a giant franchise, but that operational discipline does not automatically transfer Halo expertise.
The available reporting supports the concern. VGC notes that Sony Interactive Entertainment confirmed “significant” cuts at Bungie earlier this year, affecting “most” of the Destiny developer’s teams. Halo Studios, formerly 343 Industries, has also been through turbulence. IGN reported that the studio rebranded from 343 Industries to Halo Studios, underwent leadership changes, and pivoted future Halo development to Unreal Engine in 2024.
For players, this is not inside-baseball drama. In a shooter, the people who understand why a map plays too fast, why a utility weapon dominates a playlist, why aim assist feels sticky on one input and loose on another, or why a vehicle lane breaks Big Team Battle are often the difference between a clean launch and months of reactive tuning. Laid off Bungie Halo developers and former Halo Studios staff would not guarantee success, but O’Connor is arguing that Activision should not leave that experience on the table.
Halo’s sandbox is the red line in O’Connor’s post
O’Connor’s strongest design warning was blunt: “do NOT abandon sandbox,” as quoted by VGC and IGN. For Halo, that word carries specific weight. The sandbox is the combined behavior of weapons, grenades, equipment, melee, vehicles, physics, enemy AI, map design, and player movement. It is the reason a match can swing from a clean four-shot duel to a last-second plasma stick to a Warthog flip that somehow opens a flag route.
That warning creates the central conflict in the Halo Activision future. Activision’s biggest shooter success has been built on frequent releases, massive live operations, aggressive content pipelines, and progression hooks that keep players checking in. O’Connor’s third path acknowledges that those systems are proven inside Activision’s comfort zone. The problem is that Halo’s best multiplayer has historically depended on controlled chaos rather than constant novelty.
A classic Halo route would likely prioritize gunfeel and map cadence before monetization and seasonal throughput. A reinvention route would need to prove that a different genre shape still preserves Halo’s weapons, enemies, and spatial combat logic. An Activision comfort-zone route would need strict guardrails so progression, business model, and content cadence do not dictate weapon balance or mode design.
There is room for Activision’s strengths here. A larger operational machine could help Halo avoid long content droughts and clearer playlist planning could make the community feel less stranded between updates. But O’Connor’s post reads like a warning from someone who knows the franchise’s center of gravity: content volume cannot compensate for a sandbox that loses its timing, counterplay, and readable skill expression.
The old guard is watching the reset closely
O’Connor is not the only former Halo figure reacting to the move. GameSpot reported that Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto wrote online that he was “shocked but not entirely surprised” by the news of Halo Studios’ closure and the franchise moving to an Activision team. GameSpot’s own report adds an important clarification: Halo Studios is still expected to exist in reduced capacity, focused on already released Halo games and the wider community. That creates a wording conflict between Lehto’s reaction and the operational picture described in reporting, but both point to the same broader reality: the studio that used to define Halo’s future is no longer positioned as the main driver of it.
GameSpot also reported that 2026 marks Halo’s 25th anniversary and that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has said making Halo popular again is a priority. Lehto, according to GameSpot, has questioned how expensive that revival would be and has publicly floated a darker, more grounded reboot idea in which “PvP would be the brains” and “PvE the heart and soul.” That is a different emphasis from O’Connor’s three-path framework, but it overlaps in one key area: both former Halo leads are treating a simple continuation as insufficient.
The franchise is now surrounded by competing instincts. One camp wants a return to clean arena fundamentals. Another sees a reboot as necessary because the fiction and expectations have become difficult to carry forward. Activision’s business history points toward scale, cadence, progression, and live-service muscle. The risk is that Halo tries to satisfy every lane at once and launches without a clear competitive identity.
Timing, platforms, and the questions Activision has not answered
The concrete public details remain limited. Based on the cited reporting, Activision will control Halo going forward, a new purpose-built team is planned, that team is separate from ongoing Call of Duty development, and Halo Studios will support existing games in a reduced role. There is no confirmed title, release window, price, platform list, multiplayer model, campaign format, or monetization plan in the provided source material.
That leaves players with practical reasons to wait before reading too much into any single path. If Activision announces a classic arena-led Halo, the first questions should be about player population, ranked support, input balance, map count, Forge or custom-game support, and how quickly the team can add modes without destabilizing the meta. If it announces a reinvention, the questions shift to perspective, campaign structure, co-op, enemy design, and whether the sandbox still behaves like Halo. If the next project looks closer to Activision’s annualized or semi-annual content model, players should watch progression, storefront design, playlist rotation, and whether core weapons remain earned through map control instead of loadout economics.
O’Connor also warned Activision not to tie Halo to hardware or services launch cycles and not to force it onto an aging platform shape it cannot fit. That is a development caution as much as a business one. Halo has enough pressure without becoming a calendar trophy for another Xbox initiative.
For now, the safest read is narrow but important. A Halo former creative director sees multiple viable futures, but he is telling Activision that the franchise’s next era starts with people and sandbox discipline. Until Microsoft or Activision shows the team, the tech plan, the release target, and the actual combat loop, the Halo franchise future is still a set of possible routes rather than a revealed destination.