Halo Infinite is set to launch later this year on Xbox consoles and PC, though it will be doing so without one of its key features: multiplayer campaign co-op.
The upcoming Halo title will feature full multiplayer when it launches this Holiday, though without one major key feature: campaign co-op. This news comes via a development update video on YouTube, where it was also announced that the Forge multiplayer map editor will not be shipping with the title as well.
Via the YouTube video:
"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 made the otuch call to delay shipping Forge past launch as well."
As such, campaign co-op should be arriving during Halo Infinite's season 2, whilst Forge will be launching beyond that. The two modes are ubiquitous with Halo, and so for a game in the series to not ship with them is certain to ruffle some feathers, though 343's Joseph Staten elaborated as to why these delays are happening.
"Our number one priority is making sure that whatever we ship, whenever we ship it, it meets the right quality bar across all platforms, and when we looked at these two experiences - campaign co-op and Forge - we made the determination they're just not ready," Staten says in the video. "And as a studio we don't want to ship things if they're not ready."
This delayed campaign co-op mode makes sense if a recent Reddit post is to be believed. A post written by "Quiet_Content" claiming to be a 343 Industries veteran developer and working on the campaign lists some of the issues facing the team, specifically stating the team is pushing to delay not just the co-op portion, but rather the campaign itself.
"The team has been pushing not just delays to Forge and Co-op, but Campaign in general. I can see Multiplayer making release date in a great state, with basically all of the main modes plus a couple grab bag goodies, including some original stuff we’re cooking up – a different variant of Infection with original resources and a severely updated Invasion mode with new maps. However, Campaign is under some MASSIVE strain."
Obviously this should be taken with a grain of salt as there is no proof that this is actually a developer, though the post goes into some detail about issues facing the team while building the campaign mode, most notably overcoming problems pertaining to its more open-world nature, a design feature the team at 343 have never really had to worry about until now.
You can check out the full video, which also goes over some of the recent findings from the technical alpha that happened last month in the embed below. Halo Infinite is slated for a Holiday 2021 release, though no exact date has been given just yet.
