Revealed by Microsoft during its E3 2018 media briefing, Halo 6 is actually called Halo Infinite. The game was announced with a cryptic two-minute trailer that doesn’t really tell us what the game is. In fact, all we really know based on the first trailer is that the story could feature a Halo ring. Master Chief turns up at the end of the video with what looks like a new helmet.
We’re hoping for more details soon. Of course, it’s only been three years since Halo 5 was released and the game still supports a respectably large community of players on the multiplayer side. That being the case, 343 may very well choose to wait until E3 2019 to fully unveil the game.
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Here’s everything else we know about Halo Infinite:
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Halo Infinite Release Date
Halo Infinite will release in Holiday 2020. It will arrive for Xbox Scarlett, Xbox One, and PC.
Halo Infinite Trailer
E3 2019 brought us a new trailer that catches us up with what the Master Chief has been doing since the last game. The short of it is, he’s seen better days:
And here’s the first trailer from E3 2018:
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Halo Infinite Gameplay
During her speech at D.I.C.E., 343 Industries’ general manager Bonnie Ross stated that the studio realizes it was a mistake to not develop split-screen functionality for Halo 5.
“When we didn’t put split screen in Halo 5, it was incredibly painful for the community and for us,” said Ross. “I think it erodes trust with the community, as the community is a part of our world building.”
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer had previously stated that the reason 343 dropped split-screen is that studies showed most gamers preferred to play cooperatively over Xbox Live. Given the size of the discrepancy, it was decided that it was no longer worth the development resources to continue to create similar modes. However, following the release of Halo 5, it soon became clear that those who still utilized the mode felt a sense of attachment to it that simple usage metrics could not quite account for.
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Recognizing how passionate fans are about split-screen Halo gaming, Ross stated that “For any FPS, we will always have split screen support going forward.” In other words, it sounds like 343 won’t be releasing another Halo game that doesn’t include some kind of split-screen multiplayer option.
Halo Infinite Story
Kiki Wolfkill, head of 343 Industries, and O’Connor recently gave an interview to GameTM magazine in which the two acknowledged the disappointment some fans felt when they realized that Master Chief wasn’t the focus of Halo 5.
“We very much realized that people wanted Master Chief’s story of Halo 5,” said O’Connor. “We definitely marketed in a way that we hoped was going to bring surprise, but for some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief.”
O’Conner goes on to say that he wasn’t so much surprised by the reaction of fans who wanted to see more of Master Chief, but that he perhaps didn’t quite fully appreciate just how much stock fans put into wanting to play as Master Chief at the outset of a new Halo adventure. He acknowledges that Chief is “slightly more important now than he has ever been, certainly to our franchise.”
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Understandably, O’Connor and Wolfkill are remaining coy as it pertains to any plans they may have in place to address this issue in Halo Infinite, but they did note that they plan on dialing back on introducing more characters to this universe in favor of “making the world a little bit more realistic and compelling.”
There are few ways to interpret this information. It sounds highly unlikely that Halo Infinite will echo Halo 5‘s format by primarily focusing on a new character who must live in the shadow of Master Chief. However, it may be a bit of a stretch to say that the next Halo game will focus solely on Master Chief. That’s certainly a path that 343 can go down, but there’s also the likely possibility that the developer will choose to focus on existing characters – including Chief – instead of expanding the universe’s mythology even more.
Halo Infinite Beta
During a recent live stream, developer 343 Industries confirmed there will be a kind of beta period for Halo Infinite that will allow players to try the game at different times.
“The flighting program isn’t like a beta, where it’s a moment in time on Halo 5 like we had for a couple weeks,” said studio FPS head, Chris Lee. “We want to have a relationship, and we want to build that over time. We can have people coming giving us feedback and playing the experiences, and we can update it as we go.”
Lee didn’t say when sign-ups for this flighting program will begin, but noted that they will have more information on that subject “soon.” Furthermore, it was suggested that more and more people will be able to access the program as time goes on.
While this doesn’t give us more information about the game itself, it does kind of suggest that this might be closer to a game as a service type experience. That has been previously suggested, but we’re still waiting to hear how, exactly, this game will work.
Halo Infinite Multiplayer
While it’s too early to say for sure what Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer is going to be like, longtime Halo director Frank O’Connor is pleased with the work-in-progress thus far, saying over Twitter, “I’m extremely happy about how Infinite MP plays right now, but it will keep changing & things I like now will change and things I don’t get will improve – but I like every flavor of Halo so far, so in that regard I’m a filthy casual. What I can do tho is listen to this community.”
During a live stream last year, developer 343 revealed that Halo Infinite will not feature a battle royale mode.
“I’ll tell you right now, the only BR we’re interested in is Battle Rifle,” said Jeff Easterling, a writer for 343. “The original BR. So, calm yourself.”
That kills one popular theory about what Halo Infinite might be about. The fact that the developers definitively declared that Infinite will not feature a battle royale mode removes any possibility that it will.
Further Reading: 6 Questions Halo Infinite Should Answer About Master Chief and the Halo Universe
Additional details regarding Halo Infinite suggests that the game will not be a next-gen title. This information comes courtesy of a seemingly minor update to the Halo Infinite website that confirms the game will support full 4K resolution on Xbox One X and compatible Windows machines. While that is nice to hear in and of itself, the real takeaway from that announcement is that Halo Infinite is intended to be a current-gen experience. That should ease some of the concerns of gamers who thought that the next Halo game might make its first appearance on a next-gen Xbox system.
Halo Infinite Microtransactions
New information suggests that Halo Infinite will feature microtransactions. A recent job listing for the game calls for an Online Experience Design Director that will be able to focus on ”social and engagement features that encourage players to return again and again with their friends.” Doing so will require them to help develop “progression in- and out-of-game; microtransactions and integration of our business plan throughout the game.”
This seems to confirm previous suspicions that the “Infinite” part of Halo Infinite‘s title is at least somewhat a reference to the idea that this game is designed to be played for a long time. This won’t be the first time that a Halo game featured microtransactions, but the current belief is that Halo Infinite might be more of a “game as a service” than previous entries. Indeed, a different job ad refers to Infinite as a ”live service” game.
John Saavedra is Games Editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors.