Halo Infinite Battle Pass Progression Is at the Top of the List for 343
On Twitter, a higher-up at 343 Industries made some personal comments about the recent issue over Halo Infinite and its battle pass advancement, which has enraged and frustrated a significant portion of the Halo community. Though the comment was not made in an official capacity, it aligns with 343 Industries’ earlier statement on the subject and is hopefully a sign that more steps will be taken by 343 to address the concerns and criticism of their player base.
Halo Infinite is the long-awaited sequel to the Xbox exclusive Halo franchise, which was developed by Microsoft in-house. After allegedly being in development for more than 5 years, the game’s multiplayer part was released worldwide on November 15th to coincide with the Halo franchise’s 20th anniversary.
This is a break from previous installments of the series, which were released as a full-priced package with both single-player and multiplayer components. Instead, in the case of Halo Infinite, the multiplayer element of the game is completely free, relying on microtransactions and cosmetics to generate revenue on its own.
Though it appears that the development team for Halo Infinite has failed to strike a balance between cosmetics obtained through battle pass progression and cosmetics sold on the game’s storefront with this new model. Despite the fact that battle pass purchases are permanent, the community has expressed dissatisfaction with the slow unlock speed and the restrictive challenges that must be completed in order to gain experience faster.
Jerry Hook, the Head of Design at 343, appears to understand and concur with such feelings from the player community. He just sent out a brief tweet on the subject, describing his own experience with Halo Infinite as “traumatic” and similar to what the community is going through. With the guarantee that as soon as he and his colleagues return to work, player improvement will be a top priority.
This follows a response from 343 Industries’ community director, who stated last week that while the team is listening to all of the positive feedback about Halo Infinite, their priorities for that week are to give team members a “much-deserved break” after completing the necessary work to get the multiplayer portion of Halo Infinite out on a more timely basis.
Though it’s impossible to say whether or not drastic changes will be made to Halo Infinite’s current system until 343 Industries makes an official announcement on the matter and what their plans are to remedy it, it’s important to note that they are at least responding to player feedback and have made some adjustments to the battle pass prior to their hiatus. Now it’s up to the players to wait and watch what 343 does with the community’s concerns, and then decide how to respond in accordance with the official viewpoints on player opposition.
Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. While the Campaign mode is set to be released on December 8th.