Developer 343 Industries, the people behind Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians hosted a Mixer stream recently and unveiled some details regarding their upcoming title, Halo: Infinite which has let Halo fans breathe a sigh of relief knowing that 343i are paying more respect to Halo’s roots.
For starters, it has been confirmed that Halo: Infinite WILL feature 4-player splitscreen, a feature that was notably lacking in their previous title Halo 5: Guardians. This was a hot topic of debate as fans were divided with the decision to leave out the key feature. Some fans were for it as it allowed the game to run at (an admittedly stable) 60 frames per second. Other people lamented the fact that the game lacked splitscreen of any kind, some even going as far as to boycott the game as a result.
To add to this, 343i have also stated that the highly anticipated Halo title will also have character customisation like in Halo: Reach, a nice change for those disappointed by Halo 5’s restrictive character customisation (myself included). To further help this Halo: Infinite will include the black undersuits, a change from both Halo 4 and Halo 5 with the undersuits in those games matching the primary colour of the armour.
Now PC players rejoice! 343i have said that the Slipspace engine (the new engine built for Halo: Infinite) has been developed with PC in mind, factoring in different hardware combinations and such, and that PC players will be treated as “first-class citizens”, but flighting programs for PC may come at a later date due to the technical challenges of developing for the platform. AntiCheat has already been confirmed for PC. (Still no MCC on PC though, come on!)
It also seems like they are beginning to shift development off of Halo 5, with 343i claiming that they were running out of things to add to Halo 5, which means that there may be more resources opening up to the development of Halo: Infinite and its future. If you are curious about the flight programs, it was stated that the flighting programs will start small but continue to grow over time and will be happening right up until release.
In saying all of this, there is still no word on a release window let alone a release date. It seems like 343i are still figuring out the kinks with the Slipspace engine to ensure that it’s in its best possible form for the game itself. As much as it would be cool to see the game release in 2019, it would come as no surprise to see it given a release window of 2020.
Jordan lives and breathes Dark Souls, even though his favourite game is Bloodborne. He takes pride in bashing his face on walls and praising the sun. Hailing from the land of tacos, he is the token minority for WellPlayed.
