Halo Infinite: 343 Industries shares tech preview feedback, assuages campaign concerns

Halo Infinite Multiplayer
Halo Infinite Multiplayer (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

What you need to know

  • The August 2021 edition of Inside Infinite focuses on the team's findings from the first Halo Infinite technical preview.
  • The team at 343 Industries is enthusiastic about the positive response, while sharing how certain issues will be fixed for launch.
  • Head of Creative Joseph Staten also offers more information on why campaign footage wasn't shown at Gamescom 2021.
  • Halo Infinite is currently slated to launch on Dec. 8, 2021.

Halo Infinite has a release date and the team at 343 Industries is sharing its findings from the first technical preview in the August 2021 edition of Inside Infinite. To start, while 343 Industries is enthused at the positive response to the technical preview, there were issues that cropped up. Challenges did not refresh, or were not balanced properly for all-Bot matches. These issues have been fixed.

Other noted problems include players not being able to join matches, Spartans just collapsing at the start of a match and the seeming never-ending calls of "Over yonder!" during gameplay, issues that the team is now working to iron out while also planning for the next technical preview, which will include Big Team Battle. If you haven't signed up to possibly be selected through the Halo Insider program, now is a great time to do so.

Finally, 343 Industries Head of Creative Joseph Staten shared more on why campaign footage was not shown accompanying the announcement of the release date and special edition console and controller during Gamescom 2021. Staten notes that he and the others "definitely hear" the complaints over a lack of campaign gameplay and says that it's not being shown at this moment due to the studio's focus on making sure it's as polished as possible.

Staten further compares this phase of development to landing an aircraft, saying that more gameplay footage and trailers will be shown when it won't interfere with getting through this phase. Staten also shares anecdotes from his own excitement playing through the campaign, being ambushed by cloaked Elites hiding in seemingly abandoned bases or aiding a Marine outpost with a Sniper Rifle.

Halo Infinite is scheduled to launch on Dec. 8 later this year for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One and PC. Like all Xbox first-party titles, it'll launch into Xbox Game Pass.

Samuel Tolbert

Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter @SamuelTolbert.

4 Comments
  • In what was does this "assuage campaign concerns?" It seems like the response to concerns is just "don't be concerned," while admitting they're about 3 months from launch and don't feel the campaign is polished enough to show small clips of it to promote the game's release. That just makes it sound like nothing's properly finished and they're rushing to get it to a passable state for launch...which aligns with the co-op/Forge delays and is exactly why people are concerned. IDK how this doesn't release in a state that's really buggy. Maybe it isn't as bad as Cyberpunk, but I feel like we're going to experience weeks of patches to fix broken checkpoints, lost save files, and other bugs that severely diminish the enjoyment people will get from this.
  • They should just release the multiplayer aspect in December and let everyone mess around with that. Then release the story later on with full coop sorted. I'd rather see the story side of things perfected along with coop. Multiplayer can and will be a longevity thing anyway.
  • I agree. My friends and I already decided not to play the campaign till March coop release. I would imagine others who play coop campaign would do do the same. Maybe wc should do a poll
  • it's just open world quests, no distinct campaign story at this point?