With the recent launch of Halo Wars 2, Dan Ayoub, a developer at 343 Industries working on the Halo franchise for almost a decade , has decided the time was right to move on to new ventures.

343 announced Ayoub's departure in a farewell message on the Halo Waypoint blog. He had been the studio's head of strategy game development.

Halo Wars 2 launched for Windows PC and Xbox One on Feb, 21. Its predecessor launched in February 2009, around the time Ayoub came aboard. He had worked on Microsoft's signature gaming property since Halo: Reach, which launched in 2010.

Ayoub will remain with Microsoft, joining the company's Mixed Reality division.

Additionally, 343 Industries has indicted to fans that Halo 6 news is not in the works for E3 2017 next month.

In a comment on Halo's subreddit, Brian Jarrard, the Halo community manager, said the franchise will "have a little something at E3 but it's not related to the next major entry in the franchise."

Halo 5: Guardians launched in October 2015; fans didn't seem to appreciate splitting time between Master Chief and all-new protagonist Spartan Locke. In an interview last month, franchise director Frank O'Connor said the next Halo, which has not been formally announced, will return to a focus on Master Chief and not feature any new playable characters.

Microsoft's E3 keynote is Sunday, June 11 at 5 p.m.