A new Halo game without co-op just feels wrong, but we’ve all come to accept our fate. When Halo Infinite launches on December 8, players will have to wait–and according to reports, we’ll have to wait longer than we thought. 343 Industries creative lead Joseph Staten has confirmed that the extension of Infinite‘s first season means that co-op will be delayed along with Forge. Players can expect to see co-op added in Season 2 which will be launched in May 2022 at the earliest. Forge is scheduled to launch in Season 3, expected to drop around August or September 2022. Firm release dates haven’t been announced for either, however, and this is just speculation based on the average season length.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Staten gave more insight into what players should expect. “Our goal still remains what I said before, which is to ship campaign co-op with Season 2 and Forge with Season 3. But those remain goals. Those remain targets. And we can’t commit to any hard dates right now, because as we’re seeing with this multiplayer beta, other things might move up in the priority stack for us.”
Currently, 343 Industries is making adjustments to Halo Infinite‘s Battle Pass system after widespread player complaints regarding its progression system. Staten also commented that more alterations could be made to the system as the months progress. “If it turns out that our progression system just isn’t working the way that we intended, if we need to move some of these bigger rocks sooner, then we as a team will make those decisions and will clearly communicate to our fans why we’re doing certain things.”
Halo Infinite will officially launch on December 8, 2021. The game will be available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and will also be playable on Xbox Game Pass on launch day. Earlier this week, the game dropped its free-to-play multiplayer mode three weeks ahead of schedule during the Xbox 20th anniversary stream. It saw a staggering 270,000 concurrent players on Steam, breaking a record for Xbox Game Studios on the platform.
