Halo Infinite’s new season off to a ‘bumpy’ start, by 343’s own admission

Halo Infinite’s second season of content, dubbed Lone Wolves, launched Tuesday, and developer 343 Industries admits it got off to a “bumpy” start.

While players have had positive things to say about Halo Infinite’s new maps (Catalyst and Breaker), silly new unlockable cosmetics, and new multiplayer modes King of the Hill and battle royale-esque Last Spartan Standing, buggy challenges are souring the launch of season 2. There have also been fixes to exploits that players didn’t actually want fixed. In-game weapons also started jamming, which is something you really don’t want in your multiplayer shooter.

Joseph Staten, head of creative for Halo Infinite, and John Junyszek, senior community manager at 343, both took to Twitter on Thursday to assuage fans’ anger and say they’re listening to criticism.

“Hey Spartans, this week has been bumpy,” Staten said. “That definitely wasn’t our goal. We are indeed taking your feedback to heart, especially regarding map jumps and speedrunning. We’re reviewing options and will have more news to come.”

With Tuesday’s update, 343 Industries wiped out well known glitches used by campaign speedrunners — including the perplexing removal of the ability to hijack the Pelican — and certain multiplayer movement techniques and skill jumps used by high-level Halo players. While the latter was communicated ahead of season 2, it wasn’t a welcome set of changes.

“Everything that was fun about the campaign, that I was excited to try when co-op releases later this year? Gone,” said longtime Halo player Mint Blitz in a YouTube video. You may recall the YouTuber’s video in which he launched Master Chief across Halo Infinite’s open-world map, Breath of the Wild-style, using early exploits. Mint Blitz also criticized multiplayer movement changes, saying, “Nobody asked for this. For any of the changes.”

“We’ve seen the feedback around changes that impacted various multiplayer jumps and campaign speedrun strategies,” Junyszek said on Twitter. “We’re not at the point where we can promise anything yet, but want to be transparent and say that we’re taking the feedback seriously and reviewing options internally.”

Whether 343 will work to bring those enjoyable exploits back remains to be seen. But in the meantime, the studio is at least trying to soften the blow of a bumpy launch week. Halo Infinite players will get five XP Boosters and five Challenge Swaps if they log in while the ongoing Interference event is live (that runs through May 16), and Junyszek says 343 will be “reducing the difficulty of some Event Challenges and making it so that completing them earns you 2 levels on the Event Pass.”