Saber Landed Halo Anniversary After Offering to Develop It for Free

Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive, has recently shared that the 2011 remaster of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary could have been developed for free in order to push the studio forward the global recognition.

Karch reflected on Saber’s beginnings in the interview with gamefile.news during a private plane flight. He stated that the company used to struggle in the time of early independent development. 

Despite several previous titles like Will Rock, TimeShift, and Inversion failing to generate significant royalties, Karch saw an opportunity to make his mark with Halo. “I said I’d do it for free because it’s Halo,” Karch explained. “It’s the biggest franchise in the world at the time. I said: ‘It’s like putting a Harvard diploma on your wall. Everyone in the world is going to want to work with me after they see that I’ve worked on this last Halo game, and it is going to open up doors.’”

While Karch initially proposed a cost of zero for the remaster, Microsoft requested a more formal bid. So Matthew set the price at $4 million, believing that Saber’s location in St. Petersburg, Russia, where salaries and subsequently development costs were significantly lower than in Western studios, would give it a competitive edge in terms of affordability. Karch’s company won the contract, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was released on Xbox 360 in 2011.

However, not everything went according to Karch’s plan. Despite Saber’s crucial role in the remaster, Microsoft’s contract included clauses that resulted in the studio receiving zero royalties.

The real twist came when Saber was tasked with porting the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary remaster to the Xbox One as part of The Master Chief Collection. Karch shared that a contract oversight by Microsoft would eventually change the studio’s fortunes. “Microsoft forgot to send a contract for that part of the work until just before the game was released,” Karch recalled.

When the contract arrived, Karch refused to sign unless Microsoft removed the clause that had previously nullified Saber’s royalties. To his surprise, Microsoft agreed to modify the contract, and Saber received dozens of millions USD in royalties for their contributions to The Master Chief Collection. “This oversight is what gave us the money we needed to stop relying on publishers,” Karch said. 

In 2023, Saber Interactive was sold to private investors for $247 million, although the studio’s ongoing projects, like Jurassic Park: Survival and John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, remain in development under the Embracer Group.  As of Jan. 17, 2025, Saber’s latest hit, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, reached 6 million copies sold.