343 Industries rewarded players who reached the max rank in Halo 5: Guardians with a special batch of skins for Halo Infinite. Fast forward a few months later, and skins that are nearly identical to the rank 152 reward skins are now being given away for free, upsetting some longtime fans.
The new, free skins are rewards for watching the North American regional finals of the Halo Championship Series. Players who watch three hours of qualifying streams on Twitch will be rewarded with an Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, and Sidekick skin. There’s also a free victory pose up for grabs.
Free skins are great, but it’s easy to see why Halo 5’s most dedicated players would be upset. According to Halo content creator Mint Blitz (who made a video on the topic), earning rank 152 in Halo 5 takes thousands of hours. The fact that the free HCS skins take three hours of watching a stream to claim and look incredibly similar to the Halo 5 rank 152 rewards feels disrespectful to Halo 5’s most dedicated players.
There are a few differences between the skins, subtle as they are. Whereas Halo 5’s Watchdog skins are red and white, the HCS skins add a small splash of blue to the underside of each weapon. The shade of red is also slightly different between the skins. Aside from that, it’s difficult to tell the HCS and rank 152 skins apart.
343 Industries has yet to comment on fan complaints. Most recently the developer took players on a deep dive into some of Halo Infinite’s ongoing technical issues, including solutions the developer is working on in regards to hit registration and server desynchronization.
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