Halo Infiniteisn’t getting any more seasons, with343 Industriesmassively overhauling its release schedule two years after launch. Instead, Halo Infinite will be supported by Operations, which will last from four to six weeks.
This means that there will be no Season 6, following on from Season 5’s release last October. 343 says that this sudden change of pace is in aid of freeing up devs to work on “brand new projects”, suggesting that the studio is moving on from Halo Infinite’s multiplayer.
As reported byPC Gamer, these comments came in a livestream on the future of the Halo series. As we now know, Infinite’s future will be very different from what many fans were expecting. Yet judging from the reactions from players, the move might not necessarily be unpopular with the community.
“We’re making a shift in how we’re approaching Infinite going forward,” says community director, Brian Jarrard. “The gist of it is that we’re kind of no longer referring to seasons, we’re shifting away from seasons.”
He continues, explaining what this means in the immediate future. “Semantically, for what it’s worth, our January 30th update will henceforth be known as CU29 […] Future updates are going to be punctuated by [the] ongoing Operations model.”
343 Industries had previously indicated that Infinite would be"the start of the next ten years for Halo.“It remains to be seen if that changes with this new announcement.
On the whole, many fans seem to feel optimistic about the future of the series after this livestream, even as it becomes clear that we won’t get the large Halo Infinite updates of the past. In fact, just three months ago, our own Eric Switzer had written about how Infinite was finally finding its footing with the release of Season 5, something that might change now that the updates are getting smaller.
At the very least, CU29 - or Community Update 29 - will be with us on January 30. Also, with Operations being much smaller, they should be with us more regularly, avoiding the issue that Seasons had run into post-launch.
Unfortunately, it’s not surprising that Halo Infinite’s ongoing support has been scaled back.343 Industries suffered huge layoffs at the start of 2023, much like other companies in the gaming industry. Couple that withthe rumour that 343 has been developing another Halo game since 2022, and that doesn’t leave many spare hands to keep working on Infinite updates. That is all speculation, however, and we’ll have to see if 343 itself sheds some light on why this decision has been made further down the line.
