Outside of a flashy reveal trailer from this year’s E3 presentation, we don’t know a lot about Halo Infinite. The name implies a more open-world design, as does the completely new Slipstream engine powering the game. We do know that it will release on Windows 10 and Xbox One simultaneously, as all Microsoft first-party releases are Xbox Play Anywhere. We also know now that a few fan-favorite features like splitscreen and heavy customization are planned to be included thanks to a recent 343 Industries Mixer stream.
One feature that many fans missed in Halo 5: Guardians was four-player splitscreen support. The Halo franchise made its name on LAN parties and Guardians‘ removal of that support cut deep for the hardcore supporters of the franchise. The change was so divisive that 343 head honcho Bonnie Ross committed to all future Halo first-person shooter titles having splitscreen going forward. While this obviously included Halo Infinite, we hadn’t gotten exact confirmation before the stream.
The 343 social stream is about to begin! Join @tefferlee @bergerroyale @Unyshek and @ske7ch on https://t.co/4xbjIJZgug for Holiday Fiesta fun. pic.twitter.com/dYPz6KZ8Hb
— Halo (@Halo) December 19, 2018
As far as armor customization goes, 343 is looking to return to the days of Halo: Reach. 343’s Halo games have always treated suits as a static set of armor that goes over a rubberized undersuit. It’s different from the way Bungie treated it, where Spartans had different choices for helmets, gauntlets, and chest pieces. If 343 is truly going back to Reach, it means that players will get a lot more options when it comes to customizing their armor. It’s a much-appreciated change and a far cry from the days of preset color palettes around Halo 5‘s launch.
The rest of the stream commented on a few smaller things, summarized in this post on the official Halo subreddit. With a PC release on the horizon, 343 Industries did iterate that the platform would be treated as a “first-class citizen.” Considering the spotty history of both Halo and Xbox titles on computers, we’ll have to wait and see on that.
