Halo Infinite will not ship with campaign cooperative play or Forge, developer 343 Industries announced during a development update video.
Joseph Staten, who is the creative head of Halo Infinite and served as a writer on the franchise up through Halo Reach, said the ongoing challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic put a strain on development. This has caused the team to push several features out of Halo Infinite’s launch state, particularly split-screen co-op in its campaign and the level editing platform Forge.
“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,” Staten said. “And we also made the tough call to delay shipping Forge passed launch as well.”
That’s not to say these features won’t ever appear in the game’s future. Staten specifically called Halo Infinite a “live service,” saying new content will get introduced to the game as time goes on. He clarified that 343 Industries already has a Halo Infinite roadmap worked out and in development.
“Yes, some of the things we won’t be able to do for launch, but that’s part of being a service,” Staten said. “And the good news is we have a year-long, post-launch content and feature roadmap already worked out. You know, we’re already working on those things now. So yeah, some things won’t land in a launch timeframe, but some things will just roll out over time. That’s part of this Halo Infinite journey that we’re kicking off together with fans.”
Staten went on to say that the biggest reason for the delay to both campaign co-op and Forge was the team’s focus and commitment to quality.
“What is our number one priority? Well, our number one priority is making sure that whatever we ship, whenever we ship it, it meets the right quality bar across all platforms–Xbox devices, PC and all its different configurations,” Staten said. “And when we looked at these two experiences, campaign co-op and Forge, we made the determination they’re just not ready. And as a studio we don’t want to ship things when they’re not ready. […] So, we’re going to keep campaign co-op and Forge in the oven for a little bit longer, and then when they’re ready, we’re going to release them as part of our seasonal roadmap next year.”
To be specific, Staten said the team is looking to release campaign co-op in Season 2 of Halo Infinite, while Season 3 will see Forge’s introduction.
Campaign co-op and Forge aren’t the only two missing features at launch. Earlier this month, 343 Industries announced that assassinations also won’t make it in time for Halo Infinite’s release. And there are likely several other issues to iron out, like those bots having a hard time climbing stairs.
Despite these issues and performance reports of it struggling on older consoles, 343 Industries is still adamant that Halo Infinite will launch this holiday season for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Whenever the game does launch, multiplayer will be free and it’ll be available on Xbox Game Pass.
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