By many accounts, Halo Infinite is an overall fantastic, if notably flawed, game. Gamers and critics alike hailed the game’s campaign as a return to greatness, especially after the disappointment that was Halo 5: Guardians. However, despite some overall improvements, Halo Infinite shipped incomplete, and its developers promised that those missing features would eventually be patched in. Well, you know what they say: Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
When 343 Industries announced Halo Infinite’s Season 2, the company provided a roadmap that included estimated dates for legacy/missing features such as the Forge and campaign co-op. Recently, 343 updated its timeline with new release dates for most of those features, but a few things got lost in the process. According to the latest Halo Infinite update video, the Forge and online campaign co-op will launch side-by-side on November 8. Unfortunately, all work on the game’s previously promised split-screen co-op campaign feature has been canceled.
In order to speed up the development and quality of Halo Infinite’s live service updates (and hopefully avoid crunch), 343’s staff had to undergo a bit of reshuffling and cut back on some of Halo Infinite‘s features. The most noteworthy of those now-missing features would certainly have to be that much-anticipated split-screen co-op mode. As 343’s Head of Creative Joseph Staten put it, the company reallocated the resources that previously went into that legacy feature into other avenues in order to make players feel more rewarded and welcomed, while also ensuring that Halo Infinite multiplayer sessions are fair and stable.
For those who were not just looking forward to the return of Halo‘s split-screen co-op but simply don’t care about the game’s live-service multiplayer mode, this decision is a devastating blow. Some fans may have even just learned that the biggest reason they may have bought the game in the first place is now no longer going to be in the game at all. Halo Infinite‘s development has been a mess so far, and decisions like this kind of capture the spirit of that disastrous development process. The promised return of split-screen co-op once felt like a simple feature designed to let longtime fans know the studio had their backs. Now, it’s another example of a game that has often stumbled and is still trying to find its balance.