Gearbox is not developing Halo 4

We can confirm that Gearbox is not working on Halo 4 - instead, the developer's Director of Technology is now heading up the new team at Microsoft.

During Nvision, we learned that Corrinne Yu is no longer working at Gearbox and has instead moved to Microsoft to work as Principle Engine Programmer for the next Halo game.

Yu was former Studio Wide Director of Technology at Gearbox and is incredibly well respected within the industry as a member of both the Microsoft Graphics and Intel Larrabee advisory boards – she's also been referred to by many as "the next John Carmack."

She officially joined Microsoft Games Studio only last week and this is probably where the rumours of Gearbox developing Halo 4 came from. However, now that Yu has moved to Microsoft to work on Halo, it's unlikely we'll see the Brothers in Arms developer working on the next chapter of the Microsoft-owned IP, even though it was involved in the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved.

Yu accepted the role at Microsoft quite a while ago, but stuck around at Gearbox to make sure that Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway was signed off before moving on.

The team for the new Halo hasn’t been fully assembled yet, but once it's set up, Yu will start work on developing a completely new engine for the game, which is understood to be coming to both Xbox and PC.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to hear that Microsoft isn’t going to let the Halo franchise die and it’s great to hear that the baton has been passed over to someone with as much vision, enthusiasm and knowledge as Corrinne. We managed to catch up with her for an exclusive chat about all things relating to graphics and technology during the show too, so stay tuned for the fruits of what was an incredibly interesting discussion.