343 Industries has revealed its plans for the Halo Infinite multiplayer battle pass.
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Speaking to IGN, Halo Infinite’s Head of Design Jerry Hook and Lead Progression Designer Chris Blohm discussed the plans, and how the team have made the traditional Halo multiplayer fit the free-to-play model of Halo Infinite.
Halo Infinite’s battle passes will never expire, as was revealed back in June. This was done to discourage unhealthy player habits. “We wanted to be able to say, ‘Hey, look, when you put 10 bucks in, you keep that 10 bucks’”, Hook told IGN.
Also revealed is the fact that players can only contribute XP to one battle pass at a time, and that they can switch to another battle pass whenever they want. Players will receive a legendary cosmetic roughly once per quarter of the battle pass.
The first battle pass, Hereos of Reach was also detailed. Blohm told IGN: “We know people like [Halo] Reach and we knew the story was going to have another Reach beat — in the paperback books, there’s a Reach beat [in Halo: Shadows of Reach] after Halo 5. The Infinity goes back to Reach. So we just started full speed ahead on the best of the Reach customization,”.
The first battle pass, which was first announced in June, will feature customisation options inspired by Halo: Reach.
“When we were looking at the Heroes of Reach and what [Blohm] and the team pulled together is a really great model of how we’re trying to tell a visual story with the battle pass of earning characters, basically through all the Reach characters with the battle pass,” Hook told IGN.
Other items that have been teased to be included in the battle pass are Death Effects, and other armour effects, although these haven’t been detailed yet. While the battle pass will feature plenty of customisation, dance emotes won’t be making their way to Halo Infinite, at least at launch.
The game will also feature weekly challenges and broader event rewards, meaning players can earn XP and items in a large number of ways. The team also prioritised making sure the challenges were things that the players actually wanted to accomplish.
“So at launch, we have the challenge system that fuels the battle pass and the event system. Events go live every few weeks,” Blohm said.
“You get a special playlist and you get a new reward track for [each event],” Blohm said. “That’s two weeks for an event and one week for the Fracture, but the Fracture comes back every month and it saves your progress.”
Elsewhere, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is now available to pre-load on consoles. The game will release November 11, with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas arriving on Game Pass the same day.
