The Halo series is known for its replayability, but Halo Infinite is breaking with tradition–initially, at least. At launch, the newest title in the franchise will not allow campaign missions to be replayed. If you miss something or want to replay a particularly fun part, you’ll need to use a different save file.
In a statement made to Polygon, Microsoft clarified the situation. “The postgame does give you the option to keep exploring the wider environment, but for missions like the first two, where you’re not on the ring yet, you can’t replay from the same save file. You’d be able to get any remaining FOBs, targets, [and] audio logs, but the main story missions would not repeat.” One reason this may be the case is due to the title’s semi-open world structure: while missions take place in a particular order, some require players to clear specific areas of the map in order to mark them as complete. After this, players are free to return to these areas and explore, but in doing so, they won’t be able to trigger the story mission again.
Although this is a huge shame for fans of the franchise–especially given the excellent reviews that the Halo Infinite story has received thus far–343 Industries has offered some welcome news. The ability to replay campaign missions won’t be kept from players for long, as the devs are working on adding the feature in a post-launch patch. In an interview with The Verge, associate creative director Paul Crocker gave a statement.
“We haven’t announced a date but that is being worked on. We want to have replay that works well, and when you have a more open game, it gets a lot trickier. So we made a decision to improve the quality of the single-player campaign to ensure that, as a foundation, that it’s as strong as it possibly could be so that we could then add the other features back in.”
Halo Infinite will launch tomorrow, December 8, 2021. The title will be available to play on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and will also be available on Xbox Game Pass immediately. The free-to-play multiplayer mode broke the record for Xbox Game Studios on Steam with over 270,000 concurrent players.