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Halo Infinite’s first season has been an awkward mess
Halo Infinite’s unusually long first season is coming to a close. On May 3rd, Season 2 will introduce two new maps, three new modes, a new Battle Pass, and a shorter 3-month run time, hopefully giving Infinite a much-needed shot in the arm.
Suffice to say, the atmosphere in the Halo community wasn’t great on the eve of Season 2. Infinity may be a solid shooter, but its first season has suffered from setbacks after setbacks. Even me, the site’s resident Halo fan, quit the game entirely after just a month.
So how did we get here and what can Season 2 do to win over lost fans?
Slim Picking
Halo Infinite should have reached a very high level. The response after the game’s two technical multiplayer tests has been overwhelming – this is Halo, revamped to be the most powerful iteration the 343 has delivered to date, with playful equipment, balanced weapons, a compact map and finally an end to the over-engineered The aesthetics of greebles tyranny.
But it wasn’t long after the game’s release that fans began to ask: Is this it? Despite a full year after its once planned 2020 release, Infinite’s multiplayer feels remarkably thin. Major modes like King of the Hill, Assault, Carnival, and even Free Killers are missing from the launch lineup, and Infinite comes with the smallest map pool of any Halo to date.
Throughout the season, 343 will slowly roll through modes like Fiesta and FFA as limited-time events (though eventually making them permanent). But that option still feels weak, especially considering that the big-team fight has been broken outright for much of the season. A limited playlist also means you have little control over the map or mode you’re playing – and while we’ll discuss what that means for progression, making an already small pool of maps feel even smaller is exhausting, if only because it’s very Fewer matches (if any) decided to let me play maps like Behemoth or Launch Site.
It’s easy to say that the addition of Forge could make up for this sparsity by allowing players and developers to make countless new modifications to existing maps and modes. But the Forge still won’t arrive until Season 3 arrives this August — and its absence is far from the only indicator that Halo Infinite needs more time in the oven.
battle is over
we all remember How bad is the first season battle pass, right? A few uninspired, occasionally unfinished pieces of armor are distributed at a piecemeal pace. The 343 will eventually speed up unlocking, but it doesn’t change the reality that between locking into the armor core and the colors tied to the preset coatings, customization isn’t fun at all. Six months after its release, I still feel like I’m battling the same few clones.
Of course, the Battle Pass isn’t the only source of customization. While the in-game store has its own issues (prices and raising costs by buying everything in bundles), the in-game event promises plenty of themed options that can be unlocked just by playing the game.
Fractures: Things got off to a bad start with Tenrai, an event that repeats six times throughout the season, and at first, won’t let you unlock more than 7 levels at a time. In the first iteration, Tenrai shared that this season’s battle pass issues are being filled with challenge swaps and XP boosts, with the actual cosmetic being thin on the ground.
Thankfully, later iterations will make actual makeup more frequent and more accessible.Later events, such as Winter Contingency, Tactical Operations, and Cyber Showdowns, added more cosmetic items to unlock (even if some of them were poor attachment). By the end of the season, it’s starting to feel more comfortable in Infinite’s rhythm, even if things start to get pretty stale after six months.
That was the biggest challenge of season 2, wasn’t it? Give an already stagnant game a new look again. Because for all the improvements, my latest attempt to jump back to infinity left me exhausted within three rounds. Even though some of my opponents have fancier hats, it’s still the same infinite.
Season 2 adds two new maps that look great, and three new modes, including Curiosity Battle Royale Adjacent The last Spartans stand. In just three months, I’m hoping Season 2 will pick up a better pace with in-game events, and may have learned to be more generous with the pass.
But I’m not convinced that Season 2 will keep me around once the novelty of the new map and new mode wears off. Custom games still don’t offer the stupid crap that the Master Chief Collection does, nor the massive player-made Forge maps of that collection.
Perhaps in a few seasons’ time, Infinite will prove to be an excellent next step for Halo. After all, it took a decade for the Master Chief Collection to hit its stride after the release of the notoriously clunky console. Because even though Season 1 felt like an endless series of missteps, there was still something special about Halo Infinite. Season 2 may not be a full course correction, but it will at least give the game its first steps.