Halo’s long-rumoured multiplayer project, commonly known as Project Ekur, has reportedly been cancelled, bringing an end to one of the strangest ongoing mysteries surrounding the future of the franchise.

The report comes from Rebs Gaming, who has spent the past few years investigating the project and its connection to Tatanka, the long-rumoured Halo battle royale project that was reportedly being worked on by Certain Affinity. According to Rebs, multiple Halo Studios employees have now told him that Project Ekur is no longer in development.

As always with Halo rumours, it is worth stressing the obvious: Microsoft and Halo Studios never officially announced Project Ekur, which means there is technically no official cancellation either. This is a cancellation report for a game that was never publicly revealed, because apparently Halo development lore now requires its own forensic department.

Still, there has been enough smoke around this thing for years that it is worth going through what Project Ekur was supposedly meant to be, and how it apparently evolved from one thing into another before being shelved.

The story really begins with Tatanka. Back in January 2022, Windows Central reported that Certain Affinity was working on a new Halo Infinite mode codenamed Tatanka, described at the time as something designed to appeal to players who might not usually jump into traditional Halo Arena or Big Team Battle. Certain Affinity later confirmed in April 2022 that it was “deepening” its relationship with 343 Industries and had been entrusted with evolving Halo Infinite in “new and exciting ways,” although it did not publicly name Tatanka.

Over time, Tatanka was understood to Halo’s battle royale project, or at least something battle royale-adjacent. Reports and leaks suggested drop pods, large-scale maps, squads and a more accessible multiplayer structure. But like many things attached to Halo Infinite’s post-launch era, the project’s direction appears to have changed repeatedly.

By early 2024, reports claimed Tatanka had been cancelled. Game Developer described it as an “open secret” Halo battle royale project from Certain Affinity and 343 Industries that was now reportedly dead, while other reporting suggested the idea had not simply vanished but may have evolved into something else. That something else appears to have been Project Ekur.

According to Rebs’ more recent reporting, Ekur began after the cancellation of the Tatanka battle royale concept, when Halo Studios started looking seriously at how to move the franchise to Unreal Engine. That official move was eventually announced in October 2024, when 343 Industries rebranded as Halo Studios and confirmed that future Halo projects would use Unreal Engine 5, with multiple new games in development.

That is where Ekur becomes especially interesting. Based on Rebs’ source, Certain Affinity was given the go-ahead to prototype Ekur as a way of answering two very important technical questions: could Halo assets from Slipspace and Blam be imported into Unreal Engine 5, and could Unreal be made to actually feel like Halo?

Rebs claims both goals had been achieved by June 2023, with Halo Infinite’s play space and Tatanka’s map imported into Ekur for Live Fire gameplay tests featuring AI. His source also believed September 2023 was the deadline for a full prototype and a decision on whether Ekur would be greenlit as a full project.

That makes Ekur sound less like a simple “new Halo mode” and more like a bridge between old Halo and new Halo. If the report is accurate, the project was partly a technical experiment designed to test whether Halo could survive the jump away from its own technology and into Unreal Engine 5 without losing the feel of Halo itself.

Gameplay-wise, Ekur also appears to have changed shape. In an earlier report, Rebs described it as an extraction shooter project being developed by Certain Affinity. However, in a follow-up video, he clarified that this description was outdated. According to his newer source, Ekur had explored extraction-shooter ideas, but eventually moved closer to what sounds like a “Super Big Team Battle” concept.

The alleged pitch involved players, teammates and a squad of friendly AI exploring a large map, gathering resources and battling other teams. Rebs’ source compared the project’s conceptual foundation more to Halo 5’s Warzone mode than a traditional extraction shooter, though some extraction elements were apparently still present.

That detail matters because it changes the entire flavour of the project. “Halo extraction shooter” sounds like Microsoft chasing whatever genre is currently fashionable. “Large-scale Halo multiplayer with AI squads, resources, Spartans, Elites and Warzone DNA” sounds far more like something rooted in Halo’s own history.

One of the more eye-catching details from Rebs’ report is that Certain Affinity was allegedly pitching playable Spartans and Elites, complete with face, body and armour customization. The armour system was reportedly similar to Halo 4’s customization. If true, that alone would have made Ekur notable, since playable Elites have been one of those features Halo fans have been asking to see properly return for years.

There was also some confusion over who was actually developing Ekur. Rebs initially said Certain Affinity was developing it, but later suggested the studio may have only prototyped the project for Halo Studios. Another source cited by Rebs, Technical Halo, claimed that Certain Affinity was not developing the next Halo multiplayer game, while a dataminer known as Grunt API had reportedly discovered a test server connected to Ekur. Rebs said that server was referred to as a Thunderhead server and was evidence that Ekur still existed at the time.

In other words, the project’s trail seems to go something like this: Tatanka began as a Certain Affinity-led Halo Infinite multiplayer experiment, apparently with battle royale elements. That version was cancelled or abandoned. Ekur then emerged as a new Unreal Engine prototype, potentially using pieces of Tatanka as a foundation. It explored extraction-shooter ideas before reportedly drifting toward something closer to Halo 5 Warzone or a much larger Big Team Battle-style experience. Certain Affinity may have prototyped it, while Halo Studios may later have taken over or folded it into its own internal plans.

And now, according to Rebs, it is dead.

In his latest video, Rebs says multiple Halo Studios employees told him Project Ekur is no longer in development. He says he does not know exactly when it was cancelled or the exact reason why, but he claims some developers from the Ekur team were moved onto Halo: Campaign Evolved last summer because that project was allegedly facing major development problems. Rebs is careful not to say this directly caused Ekur’s cancellation, only that it may explain part of what happened.

That is an important distinction. The safe read is not “Campaign Evolved killed Ekur.” The safer read is that Ekur may have lost staff while Halo Studios focused resources elsewhere, and was cancelled sometime after.

If accurate, it leaves Halo’s multiplayer future in a strange place. Halo Studios has confirmed that multiple Unreal Engine 5 Halo projects are in development, but it has not properly explained what the next major Halo multiplayer experience will be. Rebs speculates that because Halo Studios has said fans can expect an update on the return of the Halo Championship Series, some kind of classic multiplayer experience must still be planned. But even he admits that is only a guess.

For now, Project Ekur sounds like another fascinating Halo project players may never actually get to see. What reportedly started as a way to test Halo inside Unreal Engine 5 became a large-scale multiplayer experiment with AI squads, resource gathering, playable Elites and Halo 5 Warzone influence, only to apparently be cancelled before it was ever officially revealed.

Recentely, it has been reported that a big reason for Xbox’s upcoming culling of its studios is to refocus resources into its biggest teams and franchises, with Halo being one of them.