Halo Infinite broke the mold by offering free-to-play online multiplayer. While players were largely thankful for this unique switch-up, problems have persisted since this portion of the game launched on November 15, 2021, three weeks before the campaign hit shelves. 343 Industries has been working hard to correct some of the more egregious issues that players are experiencing and an incredibly lengthy new community update blog post is explaining what can be expected going forward.
The development team first addresses the elephant in the room–desync and the overall online experience. Sandbox team lead engineer Richard Watson explains that the team has increased the priority of low pings to Halo Infinite‘s servers in the matchmaking progress. “This step should help you match with local players, and therefore have a better connection, more often. As you get more of these local matches, instances of playing on further data centers will also decline,” the post explains.
The devs also believe that recent tweaks will have a very noticeable effect on matchmaking in less-populated regions, including Australia and Asia.
The newest update should also prevent players from ‘geo-filtering’ online matches, improving online stability. The term refers to the process of manipulating router settings or system files to trick Infinite‘s matchmaking system to “give them matches hosted on servers located near them.” According to the team, “when players do this, it creates a small benefit to them at the cost of making the match worse for everyone else.” Basically, it causes unstable matches for other people in the lobby.
Halo Infinite is available to play on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. In just over one month, the game has amassed 20 million players, making it the biggest launch in franchise history and the biggest Halo game in terms of players. Earlier this month, Head of Creative Joseph Staten announced that the Halo Infinite‘s seasonal roadmap, Co-Op, and Forge would be delayed. No updated release date has been announced.