Halo Infinite was announced in 2018, but it’s been in development far longer than that as Halo 6. It’s finally coming out soon—before the end of 2024, for both Xbox and PC.
After a poorly received showing in 2024 that spawned memes about a particular Brute, Microsoft delayed Halo Infinite a year to give it more development time. Developer 343 Industries even brought on veteran Halo writer Joseph Staten, who worked at Bungie for years, to help guide Halo Infinite to completion.
343 has since started posting monthly articles going behind the scenes on Halo Infinite’s development. Staten started his tenure at 343 by writing that Infinite’s release will be “just the beginning of the adventure” and saying to expect regular updates “sharing more about what we’re doing and, most importantly, why we’re doing it.” The developers have talked about the meaning behind Infinite being a “spiritual reboot” of the series, and how that comes through in its design.
Here’s what 343 has shown of Halo Infinite in the last few months, and what’s coming up before launch this holiday season.
What is the Halo Infinite release date?
The Halo Infinite release date is December 8, 2024, which was announced at Gamescom.
It was originally planned as a launch title for the Xbox Series X, with a launch window during the 2024 holidays. 343 Industries announced a delay to 2024 “to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.”
While Infinite is launching this December, it’ll be doing so without two popular features: campaign co-op and the multiplayer Forge mapmaker.
Watch the Halo Infinite multiplayer trailer
Though fans were a bit disappointed about not getting to see Halo Infinite’s campaign at Gamescom 2024, we did get an intro cinematic for Infinite’s multiplayer. The trailer shows a young Commander Agryna deciding to become a Spartan after being saved by them when her city was invaded.
The latest news on Halo Infinite
- Infinite will not have campaign co-op or Forge at launch
- The first public technical test with Halo Insiders has concluded
- Some developers are fully focused on the PC version, prioritizing Ultra settings, FOV, triple keybinds, and ultrawide support (32:9!)
- There will be a toggle-able overlay for details like ping and framerate
- There’s some kind of Discord integration for invites
- Ranked playlists will be sorted by input type, rather than system
Infinite has delayed some big features past launch
After the first Halo Infinite technical test wrapped up at the end of July, 343 Industries got together for a video developer update. After talking about bugs and findings from the test, the developers dropped some pretty big news.
Halo Infinite won’t have campaign co-op or Forge mode at launch. That means that when Halo Infinite releases this Holiday season we’ll be playing through the latest Master Chief story totally solo. Bummer. Campaign co-op is expected to arrive in Infinite’s second season, meaning three or more months after launch.
Forge mode being pushed back is a disappointment too, given that it’s also such a beloved part of Halo. The map editing and custom games creator has always inspired a lot of creativity. 343 says that it plans Forge to be ready in Infinite’s third season, meaning six or more months after launch.
Us PC players also won’t have splitscreen play at launch either. Another bummer!
Here’s 8 minutes of Halo Infinite gameplay from 2024
We got our first look at Halo Infinite in action in a gameplay reveal during Microsoft’s Xbox Games showcase for July 2024. There’s quite a bit to catch here, from the Banished brute faction, to the new grappling hook, to the more open-world looking objective map for Infinite. 343 have said this section takes place about four hours into Infinite’s campaign.
What PC-specific features will Halo Infinite have?
In the Inside Infinite post from May 2024, 343 dug into some of the PC features we can expect from Halo Infinite.
One feature, as shown up above, is pairing adjustable field of view with ultra wide display settings. 343 adds that ultra wide displays will be supported everywhere in the game, “in-game, narrative moments, menus, the works.”
The studio also shows off quite a few graphical settings for texture and geometry quality, minimum and maximum framerates, and more. Triple keybinds are available as well.
Speaking of inputs, 343 says that Infinite will separate players by input device in ranked play rather than platform.
What new weapons are in Halo Infinite?
The latest revealed weapon is the Skewer, a Banished power weapon seemingly borrowed from Gears of War.
Courtesy of IGN, here is a list of new weapons you’ll be able to find and fire in Halo Infinite:
Ravager: A Banished three-round burst energy weapon that runs on plasma fuel.
Mangler: A Banished pistol with giant kinetic projectiles that fires more slowly than the UNSC pistol but deals more damage.
CQS48 Bulldog: New UNSC riot shotgun that replaces the classic shotgun.
VK78 Commando: This UNSC rifle can go full auto and is good for mid-long range.
Pulse Carbine: A familiar but not quite identical version of the classic Covenant carbine weapon.
Halo infinite has a more open world
As seen in the gameplay reveal, Halo Infinite will have a more open world than past Halo games. The section we got a look at was several hours into the game, at which point it sounds like Master Chief can tackle various objectives, though 343 says there’s still definitely a linear story to follow.
“What you saw in the demo that we showed, you have this map. There’s this huge open section of the ring. As you get to that point in the game, this is several hours into the campaign, then you have the ability to traverse that whole area and explore where you want to go on the ring,” studio head Chris Lee told IGN.
“That’s what we mean by open and explore the different places that you can go to. There’s definitely a sense of freedom that you haven’t had before [in Halo]. You will get to choose your path there. But we do also want to tell that story, so while you’re doing that we want to keep the story moving forward versus like a nonlinear story or something like that.”
“You’ll be pulled to some of these locations as well, which you could say is story-based. It’s also what the franchise is about. We really are trying to make sure there are things for Chief to do that reinforce the heroism and the hope he brings to humanity and those are pretty strong draws around the world,” added associate creative director Paul Crocker.
343 is also bringing the Ring to life a bit more with a day/night cycle and wildlife running around the open areas.
In January’s Inside Infinite, 343’s lead vehicle designer explained how the dream of a bigger and more open Halo has impacted Halo’s vehicles too.
“To meet the fantasy of a more expansive Halo, we really needed to unlock our environment artists and level designers to make much more complex terrain. Early on I made the promise to these teams that if they made awesome looking environments, we’d make the vehicles able to traverse them. We have dev builds of all the older Halos (going back to CE), and this terrain is order of magnitude(s) more difficult. While this caused a significant re-tuning of the core vehicles that have been in every Halo, when you see the gorgeous environments of Infinite, I think it’s worth it.”
Halo Infinite multiplayer will be free-to-play
Halo is for everyone. We can confirm #HaloInfinite multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X. More details will be shared later! pic.twitter.com/9bIrppFiONJuly 31, 2024
This will be a big deal for Infinite’s multiplayer longevity. With more and more of the most popular multiplayer games going free-to-play (or cheap to get started), making Halo Infinite’s multiplayer free from the get-go is a very savvy move from Microsoft. Of course, any member of the increasingly great Game Pass service will get the full game anyway.
Considering that Halo’s campaigns are still a huge draw among fans, it’s smart to frame its multiplayer as an advertisement for the full game.
Halo Infinite is the platform for the next 10 years of Halo
“We want Infinite to grow over time, versus going to those numbered titles and having all that segmentation that we had before,” former Halo Infinite studio head Chris Lee said in an interview with IGN. “It’s really about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community.”
Lee called Infinite a “platform for the future,” but we aren’t quite sure yet what that means. Apparently 343’s intention isn’t to create a live service game, though how it plans to substitute new standalone releases with Halo Infinite isn’t clear yet. One way or another, they say that there won’t be a sequel to Halo Infinite, meaning no Halo 7.
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