Halo Infinite‘s development process and progress (or lack thereof) has been a strong topic among the gaming community for… well, ever since it was announced. A lot of skepticism began to mount around the style of gameplay but even more so around the visuals which have since gone under a complete redesign. With many push-backs and delays, patience among fans slowly began to chip away. And while we are cool with waiting until the game is fully cooked before removing it from the oven, so to speak, the latest bit of news may break a few people.
Earlier today, Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries shared details in its Development Update for this month (which you can watch for yourself below) giving gamers a little insight into its current development progress. Halo Infinite creative head, Joseph Staten had to bring the bad news that he and the others at 343 came to the decision to delay co-op and Forge in order to make good on their plans to release Halo Infinite this year. Here is the full quote:
“Unfortunately, as we focused the team for shutdown and really focused on a quality experience for launch, we made the really tough decision to delay shipping campaign co-op for launch.
And we also made the tough call to delay shipping Forge past launch as well.”
According to Staten, the co-op campaign will be available in what 343 is calling “Season 2” while the Forge map editor will come six or so months after the game’s initial launch in “Season 3”. To be clear, each season will span three months and some change meaning co-op will come three months or so after the game launches, respectively. Staten also added the following quote:
“As a studio, we don’t want to ship things if they’re not ready, so people can play them, have fun, have a nice stable, performant experience.
So we’re gonna keep campaign co-op and Forge in the oven for a little bit longer and then when they’re ready we’re gonna release them as a part of our seasonal roadmap, next year.”
For now, fans will have to wait to experience the campaign with friends but some probably won’t mind going at it solo for the first time. While this is a disappointment to some and meaningless to others, we are all disappointed in waiting for the game to feel complete but personally, I am cool with 343 taking as much time as they need to get things right, even if we have to wait past this holiday season when the game launches.
To see the full August Development Update, check out the video below from the official Halo YouTube channel.
