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343 Industries released the latest roadmap for Halo Infinite today and the news is not exactly great. The roadmap showcases multiple delays, a small amount of new content, and even the outright cancellation of an anticipated feature. The ever shrinking fanbase for Halo Infinite's multiplayer have not taken too kindly to any of this.
Right now in Halo Infinite, the second season has been underway since May of this year. The season was supposed to end in November. This was already an issue with players who were led to believe that each season would only run for three months. Now, with the latest roadmap, Halo Infinite's second season won't end until March 2023. Season 1 ran for about six months and now Season 2 will run for about 10 months, both a far cry from the three month seasons that were expected.
343 Industries does aim to make things up to fans, at least in part. On November 8, the day when Season 3 was supposed to launch, 343 Industries will instead release their "Winter Update." This update seems to span from November 8 through March 7, 2023 so you may not get all of this at once.
The Winter Update will include two maps: Detachment and Argyle. It will also add in campaign online co-op, the ability to replay missions, the Forge beta, and a free 30-tier Battle Pass. Other things coming over this span of time include a beta revamp of the match XP system, the "Covert One Flag" game mode, the return of the Winter Contingency event, a new Join Fire event, and vague "quality of life improvements."
The start of Season 3 on March 7 will include new, unspecified maps for both Arena and Big Team Battle, the M392 Bandit weapon, the Shroud Screen equipment, and another premium 100-tier Battle Pass. The season will also add in a custom game browser, in-game player reporting, updates to the Forge beta, new game modes called VIP and Escalation, a new Fracture event, and once again it will include "quality of life improvements."
If you have been paying attention to the aforementioned things that will be included (or you read the headline), you may have noticed that one thing wasn't mentioned: Local co-op. That's because local co-op for Halo Infinite has been cancelled.
Today, during a livestream, 343 Industries creative director Joe Staten said that local co-op has been permanently shelved in order to keep resources working on the game's live-service commitments instead.
[center]"In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates, we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op."[/quote]
After Halo 5: Guardians launched in 2015 without any local co-op, it was promised that every Halo game after would include the feature. This was publicly stated by 343 Industries president Bonnie Ross in 2017.
Some members of the Halo Infinite community have called this new roadmap everything from "disappointing" to "brutal." Others are still optimistic that Halo Infinite will eventually be a great game but admit that the wait for that to possibly happen is "tiring."
