Microsoft and 343 Industries announced today that campaign co-op and Forge mode won’t be available in Halo Infinite at launch. Instead, they’ll be added to the game next year. They also promised more and bigger flights to test out modes like Big Team Battle. And no, we still don’t have a release date.
According to Halo Infinite’s head of creative Joseph Staten, the lack of campaign co-op and Forge mode was a hard decision to make. But neither were ready for launch as the team began the winding down to the polishing stage of development.
“Unfortunately, as we focused the team for shutdown and really focused on a quality experience for launch, we made a really tough decision to delay shipping campaign co-op for launch. And, we also made the tough call to delay shipping Forge past launch, as well,” Staten said.
Staten explained that campaign co-op is expected to come to Infinite in season two, about three months after launch. Forge will follow in season three, about six months post-release. While many at 343, Staten included, are aware of how disappointing this choice might be for fans, the alternative probably would have gotten a worse reaction.
Staten explained in a development update video released Friday that the team had serious discussions about delaying the game, again, but decided to focus on finishing just the solo campaign and the first season of free-to-play multiplayer for now and rely on the live service system to update the game later.
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Members of 343, according to the video, are still digging through the feedback and data collected during the Infinite Technical Preview last month. The team also shared new information about Halo Infinite’s launch plans and its post-launch roadmap, which will include three-month-long seasons.
Splitscreen multiplayer was confirmed, which will be available day one on all Xbox consoles though not on PC. The team is looking into adding it sometime in the future.
If you didn’t get a chance to play the last Technical Preview, 343 said all the previously released content from the last beta, plus 4v4 PVP modes, and Big Team Battle, will be added to the next Infinite multiplayer flight. The studio also said more players will be included in the next rounds of testing. Once Infinite is released, the studio will continue running tests before adding big features or modes.
Once again, 343 said it was completely and “100 percent committed” to launching Halo Infinite later this year across all confirmed platforms. Still, nobody had an actual release date to share beyond the Holiday 2021 timeframe that’s been floated around. The studio hopes to have a public release date “soon.” For now, keep waiting and just know that, according to 343, Craig the Brute is no longer clean-shaven and is looking good with a bunch of hair. That’s nice.