Xbox |OT|

[shikamaru317]

So, for the past several days I have been playing Halo Infinite again for the first time in about a year. I missed all of season 2 and am now rushing to try and finish the 30 tier free winter battlepass before it expires at the end of the week. My thoughts on the state of the multiplayer, more than one year after launch:

• The balance has definitely improved since release. Quite a few weapons that were meh to ass on release are better now, such as the Disruptor, Ravager, Plasma Pistol, Pulse Carbine, and Commando. However, there is still balancing work to be done imo, a few of those still feel a bit weak overall. Meanwhile I'm not a fan of the BR and Mangler nerfs they did since I last played, while the Assault Rifle meanwhile still feels overpowered at mid range, by far the longest range assault rifle of any Halo game, it often makes using the Sidekick feel pointless because the Assault rifle will often beat it at most ranges. 
• The 2 new handcrafted maps are both cool. The forged maps also feel alot better than the forged maps we got in multiplayer playlists in the past Halo games, due to Forge itself improving by leaps and bounds in terms of overall graphics capability compared to past Forge iterations. Map variety overall still feels pretty weak, but that will soon be improving with the 3 new handcrafted maps and new Forged maps in season 3.
• Playlists are in a much better spot now than they were when I last played. Snipers and SWAT are now permanent modes I believe, Social BTB is alot of fun. Fiesta is also a permanent mode now, and between Fiesta and Social BTB you can deal with power weapon challenges more easily than you could at launch. Sadly, still no infection or griffball playlists though.
• The monetization sadly hasn't improved much at all in a year's time. Bundles still cost like $15 even after the price cuts they made for the store awhile back. The store still cycles through a painfully small assortment of items daily, it's ridiculous how many other games have much larger stores, some allowing you to buy all past microtransaction items at any time, while 343 gives you like 5 items per day. They have added so many cool items over the last year, but I can't buy any of them until they eventually cycle back into the store who knows when, and even then I might miss them unless I'm checking the store daily.
• Progression improvements are kind of weak too. While they did add some performance based XP awards, it feels very limited compared to other shooters I have played that had performance based XP systems in place, like a half baked mishmash of the system we had before and a proper performance based XP system. We also still can't earn any microtransaction currency at all from either general play or weekly/daily challenges, something most other F2P games have. We are still missing a proper career profile too, as well as a lifetime progress rewards system that is in addition to the seasonal battlepasses.
• Past battlepasses can't be played for the free items, season 2 is completely locked to me unless I buy the premium version of the battlepass. That is a real shame and seems to go against what 343 promised before release about battlepasses remaining available in case you missed them.
• The bug where challenge progress sometimes doesn't show until you reboot the game is still present a year later. 

Overall they have made decent progress, but nowhere near as much progress as I would have liked to have seen after a whole year. 

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 01 March 2023