Next ‘Halo Infinite’ Content Update Will Be Its Last – Even Though It Was Billed As Series’ “Platform For The Future”
If players had a nickel for every time Microsoft’s Halo Studios went back on their plans for Halo Infinite, they’d have two nickels – which isn’t a lot, but it’s embarrassing that it happened twice, this time as the developer has announced that rather than serving as the franchise’s definitive ‘platform’ for the foreseeable future, the game’s next content update will be its last.
Then known as 343 Industries, said promise was made by studio head Chris Lee during a July 2020 interview given to IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey ahead of the worldwide premiere of Halo Infinite‘s first gameplay reveal.
“Halo Infinite is the start of our platform for the future,” he told his host. “We want Infinite to grow over time, versus going to those numbered titles and having all that segmentation that we had before. It’s really about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community.”
Offering clarity as to what exactly Lee was talking about, McCaffrey further explained, “This does not mean that Halo Infinite is a live service game, a la [Bungie’s] Destiny. But it does mean that new story experiences will be told underneath Infinite‘s umbrella, and it also means Infinite will be evolved technologically for quite a while.”
But far from a decade of life, Infinite is instead meeting its end after four years, its abandonment a seeming instance of Halo Studios ‘cutting their losses’ in favor of dedicating their resources to their upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved remake.
Speaking to the decision during today’s episode of the developer’s monthly Community Livestream, snior community director John Junyszek explained, “The reason we started [today’s stream] by talking about Halo: Campaign Evolved is that it’s our next game.”
“That’s kind of the future of where our studio is starting to invest more and more of its time and resources. So, this upcoming Halo Infinite update will be our last planned major content release. That’s going to be Operation Infinite, and it’s got some good stuff in it.
“But we did kind of want to let people know about that going into it. Over the past couple months, we’ve had a few really good releases for Infinite with the Mutilator, right? We’ve got the the Carbine, the Falcon, lots of good stuff. Assault Invasion returning. Yeah, Falcon is a big one. Uh but uh this one we’re really focused on now doing Campaign Evolved and now getting all the Infinite stuff that was in the pipeline out to our players. And a lot of that will be customization.”
Offering a quick addendum to his colleague’s announcement, community director Brian Jarrard noted, “While this is our last currently planned major content update, it doesn’t mean that we’re walking away from Halo Infinite by any means.”
“We will still be supporting the game. There’s still some stuff to look forward to. We look forward to still playing the game with you and with the community. We did want to be pretty clear about that.”
As noted above, this is not the first time Halo Studios has reneged on an Infinite-related promise.
Despite then-studio head Bonnis Ross’ 2017 assurance that the series would “always have split-screen support going forward”, former Head of Creative Joseph Staten informed fans in September 2022 that, after initially delaying the future at launch in order to get the game into fans’ hands as soon as possible, “the difficult decision not to ship campaign split-screen co-op.”
