Halo Infinite launched at the end of 2021 and as with most games, has seen some ups and downs. Fans have been anxiously awaiting an update from 343 Industries on when they can expect core features like campaign co-op and Forge along with updates to the multiplayer suite.
Yesterday evening, Head of Creative Development Joseph Staten finally provided some long-awaited details. You can read the entire update from Joseph via Halo Waypoint, and we’ve summarized it for you below as well.
- The team has a “hotlist” that includes anti-cheat measures, bug fixing, and delivering core content (co-op and Forge).
- Season 2 of multiplayer is titled Lone Wolves and will launch on May 3rd as planned.
That’s Spartan Sigrid Eklund on the left, and Spartan Hieu Dinh on the right. You’ll learn more about them (and spend more time with Spartan Commander Laurette Agryna) as you dive into Season 2’s story—a mix of cinematics, story-themed Events, Battle Pass items and more that embody the Lone Wolves theme.
- A new big team battle map has been shared named “Breaker.”
- A new arena map has been shared named “Catalyst.”
- Next week a new multiplayer event named “Tactical Ops” will go live.
- Campaign co-op and Forge will not launch at the start of season 2. However the team still plans to launch them during season 2. A small group of content creators have access to an early Forge build now.
We’re making great progress on Campaign network co-op. And to be clear, this work has been occurring in parallel to Season 2 work, as has our work on Forge.
But the reality is that it’s going to take more time to land a high-quality, full-featured 4-player network co-op experience in the massive, wide-open world of Halo Infinite. We’re also committed to a great 2-player split-screen co-op experience on all Xbox consoles, from the original Xbox One through Xbox Series X—and the non-linear, wide-open sections of the Campaign present some big challenges for split-screen that have taken us more time to solve.
All this means that we will not be able to ship Campaign network co-op on May 3rd, at the start of Season 2. But we are still aiming to deliver Campaign network co-op later in Season 2, and we will share a release date for that and for split-screen co-op as soon as we can.
We are also making great progress on Forge. Indeed, we are already flighting Forge to a small group of community creators and working closely with them to ensure that all of you have a terrific experience creating, sharing, browsing, and playing Forge content. In the near term, we will continue to privately flight Forge as we develop it while also planning for public flight(s) later this year. We still have the goal of shipping Forge with Season 3.
Our Take
We’ve really enjoyed our time with Halo Infinite and believe it is the best multiplayer on the market generally speaking. But without a doubt, 343 Industries is going to have to move into a better cadence with content delivery. Fans continue to be disappointed at the speed of which new items are presented and the small selection of multiplayer maps is beginning to wear thin. Hopefully 343i will ramp up as time goes on.
[…] and lack of new content. As 343 Industries prepares for the launch of season two on May 3rd, they are addressing player feedback. Today, they shared the latest which you can find […]