With Halo Infinite, 343 Industries is trying to make its multiplayer facet more compelling so that it lasts for the long haul, while also offering what could be considered a business model that puts the consumer first through its flexible battle pass system and its emphasis on player feedback.
MRT was able to interview Halo Infinite chief designer Jerry Hook and lead progression designer Chris Blohm, to talk about how Halo Infinite’s approach to the free to play it’s different from other games on the market and how they hope to keep players of all kinds back to historic FPS.
Plans with the Halo Infinite Battle Pass
343 Industries knows that we play other games; as Blohm says, it would be “ridiculous to think otherwise“. With this and understanding that some battle passes can foster unhealthy habits in players, they decided that Halo Infinite battle passes should never expire. This was announced as early as June, but Blohm said they do it because “they don’t want people to sell out at the end of the season” So what “feel healthy and come back because it makes you excited“And not because they have to rush and try to finish the content they paid for.
“We wanted to be able to say, ‘Hey look, when you put in $ 10, you keep that $ 10‘”Hook said. Halo Infinite won’t have loot boxes either, so once you spend your money on something you know exactly what you can get.
Hook and Blohm also commented on these key details on how battle passes work:
- You can only have one battle pass active at a time, which means that your chosen battle pass is the one that gains experience as you play.
- You can change the active battle pass whenever you want.
- The battle pass of the upcoming tests is not representative of what we will see in the final battle pass.
- Approximately every quarter of the Battle Pass progress will have a Legendary cosmetic. Legendary cosmetics will be related to the character’s canon or to a new type of customization item with attributes or special effects.
- Event rewards are independent of the Battle Pass.
Season 1: Heroes of Reach Battle Pass
Okay, but what’s really in the Season 1 Battle Pass? The first season of Halo Infinite is called “Heroes of Reach”. This was previously announced by 343 in a June update to Inside Infinite, and while we didn’t get full details on every item in the battle pass, Hook and Blohm told us more about the rewards we can expect to see from the first battle pass..
As you would expect with a Heroes of Reach season title, The first armor core will feature customization options from Halo: Reach. Think of armor cores as the foundation of armor that all corresponding armor of that type fits into. For example, all Halo Infinite multiplayer players will have the new Mk Armor Core. VII. This means that all customization options (shoulders, helmets, visors, knee pads, etc.) made for the Mk. VII can be traded in your Spartan as long as that specific core is equipped. The Battle Pass is an opportunity to unlock the Mk. Classic V and its customization options.
“When we look at Heroes of Reach and what [Blohm] and the team they put together is a really great model of how we’re trying to tell a visual story with the battle pass to win characters, basically through all the characters in Reach with the battle pass, “Hook said.” For us, the system that was built with the kernel [de la armadura] in the center, and then all the accessories players can choose to add. Do you want Emile’s knives? Do you want Jorge’s grenades? You can mix and match whatever you want to create your own, or if you want to say, “No, I want to be exactly like Jun,” you can. And for the first time, you can look exactly like Kat with the prosthetic arm“.
To ensure proper representation of prosthetics in Halo Infinite, Blohm said they worked closely with intern veterans and with the nonprofit called Limbitless. “We want people to build Spartans who aspire to be or who like to be, or who look cool or represent them“, dice Blohm.
As for other rewards we can look forward to in the battle pass, Blohm said we will see Death Effects (another call for Halo Reach customization) and other new armor effects. There will also be armor kits. Although many of the Noble Team cosmetics can be obtained throughout the Battle Pass, you will need to unlock a specific kit to look almost identical to that of a Noble Team member. We may be playing with the Spartan-IVs while the Noble Team was mainly made up of the Spartan-IIIs, but Blohm said that This is the closest we’ve come to resembling Halo: Reach characters in Halo multiplayer.
However, there are certain things that will surely not be in the battle pass. Like, for example, uncharacteristic emotes.
“We had a hard time making dance moves for the Spartans. We believe that more traditional players would reject the Master Chief dancing. However, the AI [personal] it can go crazy. AI can do whatever it wants. In this way, the militaristic feeling can be preserved without having to break what is considered canon. Unless, of course, Joseph [Staten] a whole new story is made up about the Master Chief dancing, but until that happens, [tenemos la IA Personal]Hook laughs.
Weekly Challenges and Event Rewards
The new customization options cannot only be obtained through the battle pass or purchased from the store. By playing the campaign, players will also get new cosmetic items and will also be able to get a weekly reward (called Capstone) if they complete all the weekly challenges.
The challenge system was available during the last Halo Infinite test and has since undergone some changes based on player feedback. Hook says it was important to make sure the challenges were easy and that they were something the players really wanted to achieve.. The development team monitors statistics on daily and weekly challenges that players do not complete or choose to repeat. They are then removed to make room for the challenges of a trendy weapon or tactic. Their goal, according to Hook, is to make players feel like they are able to consistently earn XP for their battle passes or work towards their weekly reward without forcing themselves to play unfavorably.
“So at launch, we have the challenge system that powers the battle pass and the event system. Events kick off every few weeks“, comments Blohm.
Hook and Blohm are keeping most of the event details under wraps for now, but they did share that each event will have its own free event pass. This is one of the few time reward systems in multiplayer and will not include a payline.
“You have a special playlist and you get a new reward track for [cada evento]”said Blohm.”It’s two weeks for an event and one week for the Fracture, but the Fracture returns every month and saves your progress. That’s another case where we had a long talk. We said, ‘How much do we expect people to play? It is not like this? And we are going to balance it. So if they are at their parents’ house for a week and they don’t have their Xbox, they can get everything on the rewards track.“.
Hook comments that they will monitor the progression through events and eventually through more testing to see what players respond to in terms of rewards or progress and grow from there.
How to get that fantastic samurai armor
Blohm acknowledged that while more traditional Spartan armor and customizations look great, some of us crave more exclusive Spartan fashion options. This is where the Fracture event comes in. This recurring event is how we’re going to get unique cosmetics that don’t make much sense with Halo canon., like the Yoroi samurai armor that has been announced. Hook said they looked at what the Master Chief Collection is doing with their multiplayer cosmetics (MCC multiplayer just got Viking and Gladiator armor) and how their community is responding to inform its development at The Fracture event.
“Multiplayer Spartans are not the Master Chief. From time to time they have bright colors. Occasionally, you know, on Reach, they have a helmet on fire. We want to be very careful about treating some of these things and that is one of the reasons we brought the Fracture the way we brought it. What we say with The Fracture is very clearly, ‘Hey, this is not canon. This is not a Spartan who fights the outcasts“, dice Blohm.
Of course, there have been other unique cosmetics throughout Halo’s multiplayer history, like the Hayabusa armor. Everything has to continue to make sense within the Halo universe and they intend to lean on the Halo Fractures story to help. Hook says they look forward to hearing from the community about the things they would like to see, although maintaining consistency of cosmetics with Halo legends is crucial..
Community feedback is a constant point of focus for this team and ultimately they are looking to us to see what we want, whether it’s changes to events or more support for a feature like personal AI. However, Hook and Blohm made it clear that want to make sure every part of multiplayer is rewarding rather than exhausting, so we can keep coming back to Halo Infinite multiplayer whenever we want.
“The battle pass system is really just a small part of the overall ecosystem of a season. ” comenta Hook. “When we take a look at our events or event structures, it’s not just another place where things are sold. It’s about taking that structure from a battle pass and overlaying it with each of the event structures that we have. too”. What Chris often says, and I think is critical to success, is that we want players to feel rewarded every time they participate in an activity. The Battle Pass is on top of all that, that is, as long as you play, you will feel rewarded by the Battle Pass. That is our goal“.
Halo Infinite will go on sale on December 5, but MRT will keep you informed of the new Halo Infinite announcements exclusively throughout the month of November.
