Halo fans have discovered that multiplayer matches in Halo Infinite will not grant them XP that they can use to progress on their battle passes. Instead, players will progress via challenges, which they’ll get via matches. Fans aren’t very enthusiastic about this change, though of course 343 is asking that fans wait and see how they feel after playing the game.
This was revealed when 343’s community manager John Junyszek responded to a question from a player on Twitter: “…playing and winning matches will be challenges, which will help players progress through the Battle Pass. Even though this means no per-match XP at launch, you’re still always progressing through challenges and therefore the BP.” This was borne out by an Inside Infinite blog post where 343 said, “Using challenges, our goal is that you will always be earning progress in your Battle Pass through playing and winning matches. This will allow you to always jump into a game of Halo and make progress on your goals.”
Naturally, players were asking what would happen if they ran out of daily challenges, to which Junyszek responded: “The Tech Preview had an issue that caused people to run out of challenges. Our current plans for launch, while not “infinite,” mean it’s extremely difficult to run out daily challenges. I won’t say “impossible,” cause there are some grinders out there, but I’d be impressed.”
In the same Inside Infinite blog post, Jerry Hook, Head of Design, reiterated some of the problems they’d had with challenges during the Technical Preview: “Our challenge system had some issues in the preview that hit a few players and prevented forward progress on their Battle Pass. Our first issue was that we failed to cull the challenge decks of challenges that could not be completed with Bot-only matches. This caused players to get blocked behind these challenges and is not our intent for launch.”