At the end of last year I said that Halo Infinite was my most anticipated game of 2022, despite the fact that it came out in November 2021. It was missing some essential features at launch, like campaign co-op and Forge, and the lack of standard game modes, map variety, and customization made it feel more like a beta than a triple-A, live-service game. Over the last ten months, it doesn’t feel like that much has changed, and we’re still waiting for those core features that were delayed beyond the start of Season 2. In a rather dire dev update published today, new head of live service Sean Baron laid out the studio’s goals, namely, to achieve something he calls seasonality, make playing more rewarding, improve customization, create a fair and competitive environment, and to ensure a stable, high-quality experience. Baron hopes to make “significant progress” on all of those goals by the end of 2023.
The outline and roadmap for the future of Infinite sounds great. Eventually, there will be 13-week seasons, events and seasonal challenges will be improved, players will feel more rewarded for playing, there will be a richer selection of cosmetics, the cheaters will be dealt with, and the bugs will be fixed. The only problem is that the game has been out for a year, and it’s going to be another year before the team is able to make significant progress on all of their goals. Baron and other developers in the update video, community director Brian “ske7ch” Jarrard and head of creative Joseph Staten, talked a lot about accelerating development and getting content updates to players faster, while also revealing that Season 3 has been delayed until next March and couch co-op has been completely canceled.
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