343 Industries revealed the much-requested 2022 roadmap for Halo Infinite over the weekend, and it's fair to say the reception from many players over the past few days has been one of "disappointment", for various reasons.
The main criticism stems around the fact that Season 2 will last from May 3rd to November 7th, and yet will only seemingly feature three new game modes and two new maps during that time. Here are some reactions we've seen:
As you can see from the image above, 343 Industries is also planning to introduce online co-op for Halo Infinite's campaign in Season 2 (around late August), while the Forge Open Beta should be with us in September.
There's undoubtedly some disgruntlement in the community right now, but there's also some good stuff to look forward to throughout the rest of 2022 - we're just going to need to be patient before the game reaches its true potential.
343 is also continuing to prioritise a healthy work/life balance for its employees known as "priority zero":
"We know we need to deliver more content and more features more quickly. Staying true to priority zero means that sometimes we need to slow down in order to stay healthy and move faster later. But we’re also aggressively looking at ways to accelerate."
What are your thoughts on Halo Infinite's 2022 roadmap? Let us know down in the comments.
Comments 32
Q: What do fans want then?
It can't be easy to maintain the purity of Halo's combat whilst trying to keep it interesting as a live service sort of title.
Wish Microsoft would wake up and see how truly terrible 343 is. They crap on the fans, the game, the quality, how they've treated passionate fans in forums, etc. Everything! Pretty much name it. They've done it bad.
Glad I gave this a miss
@RadioHedgeFund If I'm not mistaken Halo 3 got 7 new maps in the first year, and that wasn't live service. Infinite was developed for about 6-7 years and is a live service and we're only getting 2 maps. Plus no co-op, forge, etc.
@SolarSailor Halo 3 had 7 new maps in the first 7 months, and by April 2008, you could download 4 of them for free.
@RadioHedgeFund Well, if you ask me.
This is why I say they should downscale the development instead of trying to turn everything in to a GAAS. It Fs with the development.
Sometimes, simpler is better.
I only play Halo for the campaigns but even i can see that that roadmap is insulting. I feel bad for all the players that love Halo multiplayer.
Id have a little sympathy for 343 if they didn't actively ***** on fans but they've flushed any goodwill they had down the toilet.
My main issue is just two new maps until November. Everything else I'm fine with. The ideal situation would be maybe two new maps and then also bring in three classic maps or something along those lines. I'd love to see how Lockout for example plays with the grappling hook and the repulser and whatnot!
Still I'm excited to get back in and the narrative events could be cool.
It’s very, very… ok. I’m not returning to it for the update, but it’s par in comparison with other live service games these days… outside Warzone which is about to do the most enjoyably baffling event I’ve ever seen.
The thing to remember is that at least the campaign was and remains solid. 343 peaked with mp in Halo 4, sure (if we don’t count MCC, but individual games), but they do deserve credit for finally having a solid campaign. Infinite as a mp title is still above average for the genre. I’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt too, in that 343 fired the mp lead about two months ago, so I expect they’re in a rebuild phase internally to hopefully deliver stronger results in season 3. Would not be surprised if the game has a second life.
I must be old because I just play deathmatch forever and don't care about cosmetics or anything 🤷
Seems great to me. Halo isn't my go to game but I jump on when I feel like a sci fi fps multiplayer. Had a blast last night with a friend.
One of the big reasons for disappointment is the fact that this is a delay in the guise of a road map. Every core Halo feature has been pushed back, again.
On top of this the game is still plagued by reliably high ping, desync that has been a major problem since near launch. And other issues still in the form menu options just plain not working, player camera being stuck to the spawn camera for the entire game, and intermittent, broken UI.
Even their events have been broken. With things such as challenges not tracking or just completely being mislabeled. And example of the latter being "Play 5 Matches" when you actually have to win them instead.
Their Tactical event was so broken they just just unlocked every cosmetic for anyone that played during the second week because you couldn't progress at all.
Meanwhile the only thing they've been giving any real attention to is the real cash shop to sell cosmetics.
It is honestly embarrassing. At this point Microsoft needs to reconsider 343's leadership because Wolfkill and Ross aren't it.
I'm enjoying Halo Infinite... I think I might be one of the few people who isn't regularly moaning about it!
However, the hero shooter version sounds interesting...
How would people feel about a parallel Halo series that had a hero/Overwatch based setup (and similar cartoony aesthetic)?
Think hybrid of Overwatch and Splitgate.
Something that was developed separately (by a different MS in house dev team) and had its own narrative, but was set on the Halo universe despite having it's own look and feel.
Maybe a lighter tone to it than the slightly more serious main franchise.
I stress again... this would be separate from, and in addition to, the main Halo games... not a replacement for them.
I'd definitely play it!
Nobody cares about coop, they need to focus on the multiplayer, that's what keeps a game alive and 2 maps 6 months after release and another 6 months until the next ones is just plain and simple bad, they need to put another studio to support 343 and just make maps and content for Infinite
I mean, I'm not too bothered but more would be nice. Once it ramps up, we'll forget about it.
I play Halo for the campaign so as far as I'm concerned, I couldn't care less about the MP roadmap. There was a time when the content you bought at launch was the entire content for the life of the game - making do with whatever maps, modes etc it launched with.
If the game-play is 'solid' on the supplied content, then what's the issue? The Multi-player is a 'free to play' game after all and its not like you are being short changed.
Whether older Halo games had more 'maps, modes, etc' is also irrelevant. Those games were a 'paid for' experience and any 'extra' maps, modes etc were also sold as DLC.
That being said, in the current gaming world, there is almost always something 'new' out that is competing for your time and with Game Pass offering 'new' content to explore every week without requiring any additional financial investment, the 'lack' of content and a 'long' season is certainly not going to help keep people playing.
As with most games, there is a 'peak' of players around the release of content which will drop off over time. The longer the gap or quicker people burn through that, the more people will drop away. Once they drop away, its the 'quality' of the content that will bring them back - but wait too long, and even that won't matter because they'll have moved on to something else...
It was the same with CoD too - you'd get a spike of players around the DLC releases but the first DLC would sell more than the 2nd, which sold more than 3rd etc.
It does seem that 343 are incredibly 'SLOW' at whatever it is they do. It doesn't take that long to make a map and its not like they don't have decades of Maps to take inspiration from. It almost looks like they have a 'skeleton' crew working on it whilst the rest (hopefully) are actually making a proper 'next' gen game not limited by XB1 hardware...
@Zucaritas Plenty of people care about coop, Halo is the coop shooter for me and my friends. Might not be your bag but trust me, people care.
I came to H:I quite late so I'm not going to be able to finish my battle pass - is that me ***** out of luck unless I buy the last however many levels?
@BigBigToe well one of the few good things about the Halo Infinite battle passes is that does not expire. You can keep completing it after season 1 ends.
This hasn't been shown in game yet but I expect the season 2 update will come with UI changes to switch your active battle pass so you can chose the one you're working towards.
@Rural-Bandit I pair Halo Infinite with Apex Legends myself. I'm over 250 hours personally.
I hope season 2 will be a step in the right direction. Sounds like some of the tech debt is gone but we're still not out of the woods yet.
Had a lot of fun and looking forward to more come the start of May. Especially with the new action sack variants and Team Doubles. Apex is going to have to do something special for me to not play Halo 100% of my gaming time.
Xbox is heading in the direction of Valve, a company that USED to make good games but now is just a platform for other games.
They can aquire companies all day, but by next generation (or 3 to 5 years) they'll have no heart left. No soul, just another online game store kinda thing.
@BigBigToe The battle pass doesn't expire
@Fishticon Valve still make games, just they're not released that often, but when they do, they're really good.
@RadioHedgeFund a complete game at launch
@BAMozzy they said infinite is a supposed to last 10 years so I doubt they'll be releasing a new halo for atleast a decade
It feels bad in comparison to other f2p and paid games. Siege was releasing 8 operators per year, with new maps, events etc.
Paladins released 12 or more champions per year when it was starting. Battle royale games seasons don't last 6 months and they change things, add new weapons etc. each week.
If you can't keep up with the content, my suggestion would be to release a game with so much content at launch that no new content doesn't matter as much. Like games back on 360/ps3, when they released complete.
@Would_you_kindly I would suggest to let the Halo Ip die. With 30 plus studios, better IPs can come. Sony doesn't use Crash or Twisted Metal anymore so you don't always have to have the same games since you started.
Not everything can be Pokemon, Mario or Zelda.
@Would_you_kindly So was Destiny, but then Destiny 2 came out. Halo's MP is a free to play game and may well have a 10yr Road Map.
Halo Infinite MP may well last 10 yrs - its 'free to play', obviously can be scaled down to XB1 hardware as its not reliant on AI, streaming, complex physics etc and maps are not exactly 'big' in scale, - all things that are more important in Single Player. No way is Halo Infinites campaign the 'only' Single player content 343 will make for the next 10yrs.
Whether they are working on Halo Infinite 2 or a 'brand new' entry in the Halo campaign, after all, that HI campaign is effectively just paid for DLC for the Free to Play MP, I hope its targeting next gen hardware. HI's campaign could be seen as a prequel to the 'next' generation of Halo single player games and the 'only' single player content planned for Halo Infinite. The 'next' Halo Campaign could be a separate release, no MP modes as Halo Infinite is still going...
I love it. More of the same and I’ll keep coming back.
@GuyinPA75 “Wish Microsoft would wake up and see how truly terrible 343 is.”
I actually think Halo Infinite has the best gameplay of any Halo, so I actually disagree here. It could be much worse. I think the campaign is already very good. The mp will probably be great, in time. Halo 5 mp is solid, so I don’t see any reason why Infinite won’t get there, eventually. It’s just taking longer than everybody wants.
All 343 Industries executives should be fired. They are not doing a decent job while being given the right to have one of the most famous games at their disposal.
There are some great parts of Halo now, but I have to wonder if this is the extent of it, given the huge budget given to them.
@RevGaming "Sony doesn't use Crash or Twisted Metal anymore so you don't always have to have the same games since you started."
"Crash" as in Crash Bandicoot? Yeah, there's a very good reason that Sony don't do anymore Crash games. Activision own the franchise. And it did just get a trilogy remake and a 4th game, and a kart game.
Rumours are that Sony are rebooting Twitsed Metal for the PS5. And it has had a re-release on PS4.
Neither of these have really died, and as I've been saying, Halo doesn't need to die either. It's just the expectation that these titles remain a AAA mega blockbuster every time they launch, that needs to die, from both the customer and publisher.
@Hypnotoad107 I get what your saying. But the game was straight up rushed out the door for quick buck. Just imagine if they released it when they wanted to before the backlash. No one at 343 was like, hey wait a minute this isn't even close being ready for prime time. And on top that, the way the treated their fans on forums was disgusting.
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