Halo Infinite News

Comes free with your Happy Moa burger meal. (Not that the near-extinct creatures have much to be happy about!)



Complete all of your Weekly Challenges and the Ultimate Challenge to earn this week’s Ultimate Reward – the Have S'Moa Weapon Charm.

A new Ultimate Reward will become available every week, so be sure to keep an eye on your Challenges and take advantage of these free rewards.

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Spoils of war fit for a champion!



The Champion Armor Bundle includes the Halcyon Days armor coating for all armor cores, along with the Oddball Champion stance, UA/RENFRU shoulders, and Fastball emblem.

Pick up the set and look good on the podium today!

The first time I looked at Forge in Halo Infinite, I was like "Oh hey, cool that's... oh, holy-- you guys did what?!”

With November already on the horizon, in just a few short months the Forge Beta will be in your hands to unleash your creativity with, dare we say, infinite possibilities.

In this four-part video series, we’re going to explore the foundational elements of Forge to get you acquainted with its tools, showcase brand new features and improvements from previous games, and provide some direct developer insight into what’s coming.

Here are the topics we’ll be covering in each video of this series:

• Building – what can I make and how do I make it?
• Scripting & Bots – what is scripting, how can I use it, and how can I test my map with bots?
• Polish – what lighting, art, and audio tools can make my maps look and sound great?
• Canvases & File Sharing – where can I build my maps and how can people discover them?

But first, of course, for those of you who may just be joining us on this great journey, or may need a refresher, let us take a moment to look back on what Forge represents as a pillar for Halo...

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[h2]What is Forge?[/h2]
Once upon a time, matches on Halo 2’s Colossus would begin with a frenetic rush to collect the various plasma pistols and battle rifles strewn across its lower end, and we would have to impose honor rules.

In those days, the placement of weapons, objectives, spawns, and other details of Halo’s multiplayer spaces were largely fixed – rooted in place, until they were picked up and spent, after which an invisible countdown would bring them back to be fought over once again.

But then, Halo 3 brought with it an exciting new feature. Forge began as an object layout editor, enabling players to rework weapons, vehicles, scenery, and spawns – and you could invite your friends to hop in and test out these changes live, or spend an hour trying to drop tanks on each other.

As with all creative tools, when put in the hands of the community, impossible things happened. You built Scarabs and Pelicans out of crates and scenery items. You used teleporter nodes to keep objects floating in the air. You discovered techniques that allowed blocks to intersect with each other and the environment, creating all-new maps on empty canvases.

From that point, Forge ceased to be a simple layout editor. It became a map maker, and a community of creative cartographers arose from its foundations.

Since then, Forge has been continually upgraded in successive Halo titles with new tools and capabilities to give Forgers more agency and options in what they seek to create. More objects, bigger budgets, new terrain pieces, color editing, magnets, baked lighting, scripting... Forge is your playground, and in Halo Infinite we’re giving you more toys to play with than ever before.

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[h2]Part 1 – Building[/h2]
See Forge Fundamentals – Building to learn how to build in Halo Infinite's Forge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAwEbD5qNG8

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[h2]Part 2 – Scripting & Bots[/h2]

In our second video, we’re exploring new and improved features around scripting, node graphs, and Bot support on Forge maps.

Michael Schorr, Forge Lead Designer, and Connor Kennelly, Technical Designer, dive into the fundamentals of scripting: what is it, how can I use it, what sort of things does it enable me to do with my maps, and how has it been made more accessible from how it’s previously appeared in Halo 2: Anniversary and Halo 5? And, most importantly: how do I use scripting to make my assault rifle shoot rockets?

Of course, as you’re building things, you’re going to want to try them out as well. Michael and Connor detail how you can test your scripts in the newly added Test Mode, and how you can also get a good feel for how your map plays with the addition of Bots—as well as the “nav mesh” which directs how Bots can move around your custom maps.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

These features are just another aspect of how Forge in Halo Infinite is levelling up to empower you with more options to create maps with more agency than ever before.

Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4 coming soon!

We’ve got two changes coming to Halo Infinite’s playlist line up next Tuesday, September 20:

The Yappening BTB shenanigans will continue, and we’ll be rotating out the dedicated Land Grab playlist.

Before we jump into those specifics, we wanted to share some insights around how the current playlists are performing, as well as the team’s philosophy and priorities for ongoing playlist management, as these are questions we hear often.



[hr][/hr][h3]PLAYLIST FUNDAMENTALS[/h3]

Ever since Halo 2, matchmaking playlists have been at the heart of Halo’s online multiplayer and that remains true today in both MCC and Halo Infinite. Likewise, for as long as there have been Halo playlists, there have been rotational plans that see various modes coming and going at regular intervals. With Infinite, we haven’t seen a lot of rotations thus far, but as the team continues to amass a backlog of tried-and-true modes—along with brand new offerings—this will occur more regularly.

When it comes to playlist management, the team’s priorities are offering variety and breadth of experiences, focusing on the things that are most popular to players (while improving and evolving those that are less popular), and maintaining the best player experience possible.

In general, when new playlists are added, there’s a likelihood that overall match quality declines as the player population is spread across more options (unless, of course, a suitable influx of incremental new players is seen). As a result, some playlists become “unhealthy,” meaning they will experience longer than desired wait times, degraded online performance due to smaller populations around specific data centers, and/or larger than desired variances in player skill levels. Each of these factors can contribute negatively to the overall experience, with the worst case being some players have such a bad time that they move on entirely.

Most recently, Last Spartan Standing was removed as a dedicated playlist due to it no longer sustaining a suitable level of engagement to hit the match quality and player experience bars the team has set. For context, LSS accounted for less than 1% of all player activity (despite it also being some players’ personal favorite mode).

The team has to weigh all of these considerations any time a new playlist is added and/or the population changes. Meanwhile, rotational playlists will continue to play a part in matchmaking and should become more commonplace as the game continues to evolve.

Overall, playlist management is a dynamic process and our plans will continue to evolve based on data and player feedback.

[hr][/hr][h3]PLAYLIST RANKINGS[/h3]


Quite a few folks were surprised to hear that Last Spartan Standing was hovering around the bottom of the list given how much they personally enjoy it. Naturally, this raises the questions of what are the most popular playlists and how do my favorite playlists currently fare?

Here’s a stack ranked list of Halo Infinite’s playlists over the past month to give you an idea of what’s most popular and where players are spending their time:

1. Quick Play
   
2. Ranked Arena
   
3. Fiesta
   
4. Team Slayer
   
5. Big Team Battle
   
6. Tactical Slayer
   
7. Land Grab
   
8. Ranked Doubles
   
9. Team Doubles
   
10. Team Snipers
    
11. Rumble Pit
    
12. Bot Bootcamp

Anytime we have an active event, we see significant impact and shifts across matchmaking. Since it debuted, the Yappening playlist has been the overwhelming favorite playlist (nearly 4x as popular as the #2 playlist).

[hr][/hr][h3]THE YAPPENING KEEPS ON HAPPENING[/h3]


It’s been great to see so many people enjoying BTB antics as part of the Yappening event (which we’ve also been having a blast playing!). Our pal Flipflop the Grunt has thrown one heckuva party and, with his permission, we’re going to keep the good times rolling with a minor change in branding.

When the Yappening officially ends on Tuesday, September 20, the new “BTB Social” playlist will emerge as the new home for the shenanigans you’ve come to know and love in the event playlist.

The Yappening has been a huge success in terms of popularity and engagement, but we’ve also seen the core BTB playlist activity significantly decline in its shadow. The team will be monitoring closely to see how both playlists hold up together and what the overall player experience is to determine what future steps may be needed.

In order to maintain a positive player experience and optimal playlist health, we may need to consolidate and/or rotate things around while we also apply the insights gathered during the Yappening to further improve BTB as a whole further down the road. We’re eager to see how things go and as always, look forward to your feedback.

[hr][/hr][h3]LAND GRAB[/h3]

On Tuesday, September 20, the dedicated Land Grab playlist will be rotated out of matchmaking. While we know many players have enjoyed this new mode introduced in Season 2, at this stage it’s been steadily declining and starting to fall short of the quality bar for a positive player experience.

Land Grab will be back as part of the Entrenched event with Week 5 kicking off September 27, and the final week slated to begin on October 25. Looking further ahead, Land Grab will roll into Quick Play as part of the Winter Update coming November 8.

[hr][/hr][h3]LOOKING AHEAD[/h3]

As Halo Infinite continues to evolve and we see new modes brought online we expect to see more regular rotations to offer experiences players want while also maintaining that high quality bar we have set for ourselves. We can’t always offer everything that every individual player wants today, but we’ll continue doing our best to focus on the breadth Infinite has to offer, the modes that are most popular to players, and keep addressing areas that negatively impact your online experience.

We’ll see you online, and thank you for your continued support!

Flipflop here to let ya know that if you complete all your emotional and in-game challenges this week, you can have a cool new visor that I gots from a totally alive Spartan this one time.



He called it "Parasite Ichor," and then he was not alive any more...

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Flipflop here! Y'know, I was doin' a memory-think recently about a buddy I had once named Marlin T. Buckets.



Human prisoner back in the ol' Covenant days. A big bad Elite wanted Marlin to open a door for him, and Marlin was all braves and refused until he was forced to open it and this bright holy light shone through and we were like ooooh...

And then, there was nothin' inside! Just this weird rabbit thing with big floppy ears which hopped out and ran aways after I started doin' scans, and the Elites chased after it and completely forgot about Marlin who also ran aways in the opposite direction. I wonder how he's doin' these days...

Anyway, all I got to scan was the thing's ears. Stick 'em on your cool Demon armor and remember my friend, Marlin T. Buckets!
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Oooh and I hear you humans like this yellow banananaramama fruit.



Go for joyrides and stash a lot of fruit in your shooty cars decorated like Banana Bombshells!