The recent Halo Infinite development update from developer 343 Industries (see below) dropped a couple of delay bombs which has raised a lot of discussion among everyone excited for the game but personally I don’t think it’s that big a deal in the long run. Anyway, what was announced was that campaign co-op would be delayed 3 months after the game launches (for “season two”) while the Forge map tool would be another 3 months behind that (“season three”).

While they’re definitely features that have been pillars of what makes up a Halo game over the years they aren’t the primary drivers for my experience with the franchise. When it comes to Halo especially I tend to focus a lot of my time on completing the campaign solo first before thinking about co-op. I like to go through the story uninterrupted and take in the story as it can be a lot more difficult to do that with a team where people talk over cutscenes or worse yet, skip the ones you haven’t watched before. And while the lack of Forge means custom game modes from the community will have to wait I really hope the developers use that time to deliver additional content… especially more maps.

I expect to be spending a long time playing Halo Infinite and its expanding roster of modes so the wait for co-op and Forge only means (to me) that there’ll be new stuff to check out over time and I won’t complain about that. The trailer for the first multiplayer season (see below) also gave off enough of a positive Halo vibe that I think I’m ready to go when the game arrives on the annouced date of December 8. With the multiplayer half being free to play and the campaign remaining a purchased product, also on Game Pass, it’ll be interesting to see what the uptake is on both. I’m thinking a smart move would be for the campaign to take some cues from Call of Duty Modern Warfare and unlock unique content in multiplayer which will give fans or completionists incentive to play everything.

Last thing: I also need to see if I have a chance at scoring that Master Chief themed Elite Controller… that thing looks sooooooooo good! 🙂