![]() Challenges are the key to progressing through the battle pass and they also happen to be overly difficult more often than not. This isn’t a bug it’s a feature, one aimed to make players care about one thing and one thing only: completing challenges. In this system, though, performance and wins mean nothing. That experience would in turn unlock cosmetics (for free), so there was an inherent reason to want to do well in each match. Basically, if a player did well, then they could earn more experience. In prior Halo games, experience gain was based upon two factors: winning and personal performance. The entirety of the game was reworked to feed into the store, the progression and game selection systems being the most egregious examples. Prices in the store are outrageous and the battle pass is laughably barren, but that’s only the beginning. As fans well know by now too, they didn’t just dip their toes into it either no, they took the full deep dive. There’s so much to gain in making the multiplayer “free-to-play.” Since it’s more or less accepted now that free-to-play (F2P) games have microtransactions, battle passes and stores, Microsoft can (and did) implement them in their “F2P” multiplayer. It costs just as much as every previous Halo, but now Microsoft can get their sixty dollars and nickel-and-dime their players via not-so-microtransactions. First, the Halo Infinite campaign is still sixty dollars for non-Game Pass subscribers. This was done for Microsoft’s benefit and no one else’s the evidence is clearly shown in how they’re handling the game as a whole. ![]() Many want to see this as Microsoft doing a solid for their fanbase, but that would be a mistake. One can indeed just download it and hop on. On the surface level, Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is free-to-play. The same goes for Halo Infinite’s monetization model. Just like CD Project Red last year, the short-term profit was likely just too much for them to resist this year. But no, Microsoft was not about to let another Christmas season pass without a Halo game to push sales for the new Xboxes and Game Pass. The worst of the bugs could also have theoretically been patched. That way, even though the monetization and playlist issues would still likely be present, key features like Forge, campaign co-op and mission replayability could have at least been present for launch. With so many missing features and visible bugs plaguing the online component, the best thing to do would have been to delay Halo Infinite for at least another few months. Money is the prime motivator behind a great many of Halo Infinite’s current woes. Why? For the same reason Cyberpunk 2077 launched in such an awful state last year: money. Add in rampant de-sync issues, a confusing user experience complete with buggy menus, and the real threat of cheaters coming from the PC space and we’ve got a game that’s deeply flawed, missing staple features and which should not have shipped this year. There’s no Forge, no firefight, no co-op campaign, no ability to replay campaign missions and limited custom games just to name a few things. That is an abysmal selection, made even more so by the complete inability of players to choose the gametype they want to play (an unprecedented situation for the series). Within these are only six gametypes: Slayer, Oddball, Strongholds, Total Control, CTF and Stockpile. The multiplayer features only three main playlists with an occasional fifth: Quickplay, Bot Bootcamp, Big Team Battle and Ranked Arena. To start, Halo Infinite is perhaps the most barebones release of the entire series. Microsoft and 343 Industries may have made this game, but it’s gamers that enabled it to be made this way.įirst, take a look at the state of the game and developer/publisher decisions that caused it. As it stands, Halo Infinite is either a functional mess or a straight-up unfinished product, and we’re all to blame for it. ![]() There’s also the very real anger regarding the borderline ludicrous level of monetization and constant arguments over who’s to blame for it all. There are pages upon pages of complaints about the utter lack of staple features, and there are just as many pages praising its excellent fundamental gameplay. Since the release of Halo Infinite’s online multiplayer on November 15, conversations and arguments have raged across the internet. ![]()
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