Halo Infinite not only had a rocky road to release, after all it was originally planned as an Xbox Series X|S launch title, but it's post-launch support has been lacking to say the least. Today we've got word from Halo studio 343 Industries that the promised split-screen co-op mode is being scrapped, alongside the live service Season 3 content update being pushed back to 2023.

For the immediate future for Halo Infinite and its free-to-play multiplayer, there are a few bright spots - November 8 will see the debut of Halo Forge beta and the long-awaited network co-op. Co-op is still coming, but limited to online. No doubt couch co-op would have been nice to see, especially as it's the sort of feature we rarely see anymore, but as per the following Halo Infinite developer update - those resources are now being focused elsewhere.



When Season 3 does launch in March 2023 it will introduce new maps and modes and weapons, though it's expected that the long wait will impact the popularity of the game as we head into the holiday months. Ultimately it's a little strange that Halo Infinite, with the backing of Microsoft and a huge studio in 343 Industries, has been unable to keep up with fellow FPS titles with seasonal models.

Here's the updated roadmap for Halo Infinite, where the placeholder "subject to change" text probably means there are a few more delays on the cards.

Here's a look at our updated roadmap for the upcoming Winter Update and Season 3: https://t.co/9UdmPicUl0 pic.twitter.com/V8X6i1DlmT

— Halo (@Halo) September 1, 2022

Halo Infinite launched with a single-player campaign last year, and since that time 343 Industries has been updating the game and the free-to-play multiplayer side with seasonal content. And now it seems that Halo Infinite Campaign Co-op is almost ready to drop with a Network Co-op Beta live right now - running until August 1.

The good news is that co-op in Halo Infinite is getting the proper treatment. "The goal going in was to 'allow everyone to play their campaigns together'", says John Mulkey, Lead World Designer. "This meant that all progress made in the game, regardless of it being through Solo or Co-Op play, would be retained. I could be playing Solo campaign, jump into a Co-Op session for a few hours, then launch back into Solo play and all the mission progress, acquired collectibles, equipment found, achievements earned, and upgrades made in either session would be intact. Gone are the days of playing someone else's game while earning no progress."

Access is to the Beta is available to all, via the Xbox Insider Hub where you can join the “Halo Infinite – Insider” to download the build. As a test progress is separate and wont carry over to the core game, though it's a chance to check out the campaign online with friends.

Those looking forward to playing through Halo Infinite's campaign in co-op, well, 343 Industries has put a rough date as to when it'll be available online - sometime late August. Yeah, the wait continues. And with Halo Infinite's multiplayer Season 2 kicking off in May, and lasting 6 months, this means Forge is coming sometime in September.

Where it'll drop in Open Beta form. Forge being the toolset that allows players to create and customise their own unique maps and modes, it's one of those features fans have been waiting on. These dates and windows arrived as part of a new Halo Infinite roadmap outlining Season 2 and hinting at what's in store for Season 3 when that begins in November. Interestingly 343 is teasing new narrative events for both seasons.

After the one-two launch of Halo Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer and cinematic campaign late last year things have dropped off quite substantially in Halo land - in that content drops, updates, and improvements/changes have been slow to arrive. At launch the Battle Pass system was not received well, and although it has been overhauled it'll be interesting to see if Season 2 has enough to sustain six months of interest. With only two new maps, we're guessing probably not. No doubt 343 is hard at work on new stuff for Halo Infinite, and is very much aware of the current sentiment around the seeming Halo dry spell.

"With Season 2 locked and loaded for May 3rd, we want to share a roadmap of what we’re planning to deliver during Season 2 and for the rest of the year," writes Joseph Staten, Head of Creative, Halo Infinite. "More than anything else, we want this roadmap to be accurate and reliable. Some items and dates are certain, and these are clearly listed. Others are marked as “targets” or “goals” and they will become more certain over time. The roadmap’s timeframe will also expand as we announce longer-term initiatives. In other words, this roadmap is an evolving document, and we’ll let you know when we make changes to it."

With Last Spartan Standing 12-player free-for-all on Big Team Battle maps. There's a battle royale element where the maps will shrink over time but Spartans will have 5 respawns where if they get downed they can come back with an upgraded weapon. Halo Infinite Season 2 'Lone Wolves' kicks off on May 3.

King of the Hill is of course is a return of the fan-favourite, classic FPS mode. With the twist being that the hill will relocate and spawn at various points whenever teams earn a capture. This paves the way for Land Grab, a capture point mode also coming.



Season 2 also sees the arrival of “Catalyst” Arena map and “Breaker” Big Team Battle maps, which can be seen in the video walkthroughs below.



For more info on the new maps, modes, and what's in store head over to Halo Waypoint.

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries is set to begin rolling out major changes to the free-to-play game's in-game store and microtransaction hub next week. As per Jerry Hook, head of design at 343 Industries, the team will be "focused on reducing pricing across the board".

There has been quite a bit of feedback and concern raised over the pricing of cosmetic items and how they're structured within Halo Infinite, so it's great to see the developer taking steps to address the issue. Jerry Hook took to Twitter to state, "Starting Tuesday, the Shop experience will vary week-to-week. We are focused on reducing pricing across the board, providing stronger values in our bundles, starting to put individual items outside of bundles, and more."

Starting Tuesday, the Shop experience will vary week-to-week. We are focused on reducing pricing across the board, providing stronger values in our bundles, starting to put individual items outside of bundles, and more.

— jerry hook (@hookscourt) January 15, 2022

"Predatory monetisation" was a sticking point in our Halo Infinite Multiplayer Review.

No word on how this will affect current purchases but 343 is looking to evolve and shape all aspects of Halo Infinite with input from the community. And speaking of the community, a bit of very cool and random Halo Inifnite news cropped up over the weekend with acclaimed film director John Carpenter (The Thing, Halloween, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China) calling Infinite the "best of the Halo series".

HALO INFINITE is a fun shooter. Immense beautiful production design. Best of the Halo series.

— John Carpenter (@TheHorrorMaster) January 16, 2022

John Carpenter plays videogames? Yeah, very cool.

Originally slated as a launch title for the Xbox Series X, the day that once was, that was then changed, has finally come to pass. Ahem. Halo Infinite’s cinematic single-player campaign is launching this week on PC and Xbox consoles and as a part of Xbox Game Pass! And with that we’ve been getting our Master Chief on for a while now, grappling and needling and banishing the Banished to whence they came for many hours to bring you our full spoiler-free review.

A snippet.

As per our recent hands-on with the campaign we noted that as a spiritual reboot of sorts, it delivers on that promise -- that classic Halo feel “but through a modern lens that invokes the original as opposed to outright copying it”. Moving the franchise forward whilst keeping it in line with where Xbox is today. A multi-platform ecosystem that lets you jump around bits of hardware to game in much the same way Master Chief’s new grappling-hook opens up exploration and combat mobility on Zeta Halo.

On that note we’ll avoid any more rambling preamble; Halo Infinite’s campaign is great. It’s action-packed and memorable, with the scale of both the environments and non-corrodoor-based encounters being polished to the point you can almost taste the hard work that went into nailing its flow. If such a thing were even possible.

Long story short, playing Halo Infinite feels right. Responsive, smooth, fluid, and with weapons that are as numerous as they are useful. From the melty Sentinel Beam to the always-fun Needler to the high-powered UNSC rifles and detachable mini-guns.

Our Full Halo Infinite Campaign Review

Halo Infinite’s delay to 2021 was widely publicised, what was originally slated as an Xbox Series X and S launch title was given more time in the order to do all of that oven stuff. In our big interview with 343 Industries we go over how that extra time was spent, what it means for Halo to go “open-world” and some of the very cool stuff gone into enemy design and AI.

A snippet.

Steve Dyck: “Tactics wise, the player's ability to just kind of attack bases and engage the way they want, whether they grapple over a wall or bring a vehicle, we had to make sure on the AI side they're able to account for these types of things. We added a lot of behaviours around that stuff, we rebuilt the cover system from the ground up, enemy's now have the ability to grab weapons off of racks. So if you're sniping from a distance, enemies can go and grab a longer range weapon. If you're flying around in a vehicle they can go and grab a shock weapon and try to EMP you out of the sky.”

“We also had to account for just these big spaces that could quickly become overwhelming and not fun for the player if we had every enemy immediately target Master Chief. You'd be dead in a hurry and you wouldn't feel like a super soldier anymore. Under the hood there's a lot of things going on around enemies choosing new firing points, things like bursts delays and cool-downs on weapons. Making enemies visually reload and stuff like that. Making sure there’s more breaks so they’re not just firing at you all the time.”

Our Full Halo Infinite Interview

Halo Infinite's multiplayer just dropped today, three weeks early. Very cool. And with the Campaign coming on December 8 we've got a detailed breakdown of what you'll need hardware-wise to explore and Big Team Battle on Zeta Halo. In terms of recommended GPUs, developer 343 Industries puts the AMD Radeon 5700 XT and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 as the rendering weapons of choice.

To play on Ultra (4K) you'll need a bit of a beast, not only in terms of GPU (a Radeon RX 6800 XT or GeForce RTX 3080) but also CPU with top of the range Intel and AMD CPUs listed.

Specifically for the Multiplayer that's dropped today you'll need 26.42 GB of HDD space, with an additional 7.68GB for High Res Textures -- that is, for those that play in 1440p or 4K.

Halo Infinite PC Hardware Requirements

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Low (Minimum)

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OS: Windows 10 RS5 x64 (October 2018 Update)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel i5-4440
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 570 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
VRAM: 4+ GB
RAM: 8+ GB
Storage: 50+ GB

Medium

---

OS: Windows 10 19H2 x64 (November 2019 Update)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel i5-9500
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (8GB) or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (8GB)
VRAM: 6+ GB
RAM: 8+ GB
Storage: 50+ GB

High (Recommended)

---

OS: Windows 10 19H2 x64 (November 2019 Update)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel i5-9700K
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
VRAM: 8+ GB
RAM: 16+ GB
Storage: 50+ GB

Ultra

---

OS: Windows 10 19H2 x64 (November 2019 Update)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 6 5900X or Intel i5-11900K
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
VRAM: 10+ GB
RAM: 16+ GB
Storage: 50+ GB

Based on the fairly high specs we assume the base Xbox version will be similar to the Low specs.

The rumours were true! To help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Xbox the surprise launch of Halo Infinite Multiplayer has dropped three weeks early on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Xbox Game Pass. It's also available to play via Xbox Cloud Gaming and arrives kicking off Season 1.

The free-to-play component of Halo Infinite offers up its robust multiplayer in Beta form ahead of the full launch on December 8. All Season 1 content including maps, modes (Arena, Big Team Battle), the Academy, and the Battle Pass is here with the first event “Fracture: Tenrai” kicking off on November 23.



"On behalf of the entire Halo Infinite team, and in celebration of Halo’s 20th anniversary, I am very happy to announce that your Spartan journey begins… today!" writes Joseph Staten, Head of Creative, Halo Infinite. "Sincerest thanks to the entire Halo community for your support, passion, and feedback. This day belongs to all of you. Whether you’ve been part of the community from the beginning or are joining with us today, welcome!"

In terms of Season 1, 343 Industries notes that it's extending the first season until May 2022 adding "additional events, customization items and other content". Starting today with those that log-in during the first week getting a set of 20th anniversary themed cosmetics.

For full details on what's included head on over to Halo Waypoint. To download Halo Infinite Multiplayer -- head here.

With the rumour being that the free-to-play component of Halo Infinite, that being its multiplayer, is set to launch this week as part of the Xbox Anniversary Celebration. A special stream scheduled for Tuesday, November 16 at 5:00 AM AEDT celebrating 20 years of all things Xbox.

Various people known for Xbox leaks are saying as such on Twitter, in addition to data mining on various store-fronts listing November 15 as the launch time for Halo Infinite. With one source being the reliable Tom Henderson who only moments ago reaffirmed plans for the surprise launch.

I'm excited for #HaloInfinite tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/tZoVcsjyal

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) November 14, 2021

We don't have long to find out if the rumours are true. Currently Halo Infinite is on track for a December 8 release for both the campaign and multiplayer -- with tomorrow's potential launch splitting the release, giving the cmapaign its own separate launch. Halo Infinite is coming to PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, with both components arriving on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Halo Infinite is out in December for Xbox consoles and PC, and after the campaign being missing in action for sometime today comes a brand new look at gameplay. In addition to sporting a smooth and impressive visual overhaul compared to the game's debut last year -- we also get to see how the Halo sandbox transitions to an open world where Master Chief has a sweet grapple and access to a number of toys.

As much as you can call a Banshee or Warthog a toy. Check it out in sweet 4K.

The Banished have defeated UNSC forces and taken control of the mysterious Zeta Halo, threatening the survival of humankind. When all hope is lost and humanity’s fate hangs in the balance, the Master Chief returns to confront the most ruthless foe he’s ever faced. Here’s a fresh look at the Halo Infinite campaign that introduces players to true Spartan freedom in the biggest, most wide open and adventure-filled Halo experience yet, launching on December 8 2021.

There's some definite story goodness here, with the setting of Zeta Halo presenting an open world to explore, something that is being touted as the biggest campaign to date. You can call in vehicles and explore on foot or through the air, with enemy encampments to take out and some fun looking boss encounters too. Best of all though the verticality and transition from up high to on the ground looks great -- no doubt a big focus here has been on capturing and refining that Halo feel. Having an open world with points of interest and missions is a definite departure, so it's a shame that campaign co-op has been delayed to next year.

343 Industries is gearing up to launch Halo Infinite this December on Xbox consoles and PC, with the latter set to get a suite of awesome features. As per a deep dive into the PC version ultrawide support is coming for both in-game and cinematics in addition to dozens of graphics, UI, and controller tweaks. Plus, partnering with AMD there's going to be a AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Halo Infinite Limited Edition graphics card.

Which you can see below. The top of the line RDNA 2 GPU is built for uncomprimised 4K gaming, and will pair nicely with the PC launch of Halo Infinite. With the look inspired by Master Chief's Mjolnir armour.


Being top of the line it's probably going to cost... a lot. Other hardware goodies are also on the way from Razer with a suite of peripherals featuring Razer Chroma RGB support.


And when it comes to ray-tracing, it's coming post-launch.

Looking ahead,we’ve identified opportunities for additional configuration options, performance tweaks, and memory improvements across both PC as well as console and we’re working together on more optimization solutions that should benefit all platforms. Most excitingly though, we’re looking forward to working closely with AMD to bring raytracing to Halo Infinite. Raytracing is one our top development priorities post-launch and look forward to sharing more soon.

Here's the in-depth look at the PC version.



Halo Infinite is out December 8 where it will also be playable via Xbox Game Pass.

Odds are if you signed up for this weekend's Halo Infinite multiplayer technical preview you got an email not that long ago letting you know the deal -- with the Spartan action commencing this weekend September 23-26 and next weekend from September 30 - October 3. With downloading and prepping to take place in the coming days, the latest Inside Infinite by 343 Industries has given us a glimpse at that to expect. Big Team Battle.

And this time the player count has been upped to 12 versus 12.

"We are all really big fans of legacy BTB so we were careful not to mess with what isn’t broken," said Senior Multiplayer Designer Fernando Reyes Medina. "We wanted a BTB experience that feels classic and modern at the same time. An opportunity I saw to improve Classic BTB was to make sure that the mode rules and balance consider the increased player count and the amazing new maps that level designers made for Halo Infinite. This allowed us to create an exciting pace throughout a BTB match, which, combined with the awesome new toys in our sandbox, makes the perfect stage so players can play out memorable moments with their friends."

"We took a similar philosophy in how we approached BTB as we did with Arena, but turned it up to 11," adds Senior Multiplayer Designer Patrick Wren. "There is the core experience of spawning at your base, jumping into vehicles, and going out into the world, but we looked at how we could spice it up. Tanks for example, especially the Scorpion, are extremely powerful vehicles that would tend to dominate matches in previous Halo games. We looked at how we could make them an amazing moment in a match that really punctuates their power."

BTB has been a fan favourite for a long time so it's great to see it come back bigger than ever before. As per Lead Multiplayer Designer Andrew Witts the three design pillars for Big Team Battle are:

Embrace the Spartan Battle Fantasy – We want players to really feel like they are within a Spartan unit pushing through the battlefield and capturing objectives as a team. That’s why we’ve invested in things like Pelican Drops, Commander mode VO, Weapon Pods falling from the sky to resupply the field and a few more dynamic elements – we wanted it to feel like an active battle inside the Halo universe. Additionally, we wanted maps to feel like they were a part of an iconic battle within the Halo universe.

Empower Player Types to Thrive – There are many different types of players in the Halo ecosystem. Some players are pilots, others are slayers or objective hunters, but we wanted all of them to work together in this BTB experience. Fernando has a fantastic phrase that sums up this pillar well: Make sure everyone can feel like a hero in any match.

Unleash the Halo Infinite Sandbox – This pillar kind of speaks for itself. We felt like the “big” in BTB was not just the number of players in the match or the size of the maps but the number of options at players’ disposal. All the toys are available in this space for maximum fun.

Head Here For More Info.

Halo Infinite will release on December 8 this holiday season for all of the Xbox consoles and PC, with the release date confirmed during the Opening Night Live Gamescom presentation overnight. The date was revealed as part of a new and stylish 'Halo Infinite Multiplayer - Season One Cinematic Intro', highlighting that multiplayer might be the focus for the game's launch.

In that we haven't seen the campaign in action since its debut last year, and word from developer 343 Industries is that the game will launch without a co-op campaign. That said. single-player is coming.

Commander Agryna knows firsthand the difference a Spartan can make—a difference never more important than now. Humanity's forces are scattered. Desperate resistance efforts have continued to fall short on multiple fronts, from Cortana's relentless martial law to the expanding power and ambition of Atriox and the Banished. But there is hope: a new generation of Spartans, training in secret to become unstoppable. In this cinematic introduction to Season 1 of Halo Infinite Multiplayer, get a glimpse into the Academy Commander's own heroic journey and what it truly means to be a Spartan.

Halo Infinite is coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox One and Windows 10 (PC). And with Halo celebrating its 20th anniversary, Microsoft is releasing a new Halo Infinite Limited Xbox Series X console (seen below) and Halo Infinite Limited Edition Xbox Elite Wireless Controller.

With the co-op campaign action and the Forge (which is the map-creation-tool) to arrive post-launch in 2022. The news arrived as part of a recent Halo Infinite development update video highlighting the post-Alpha test feedback and the state of the game. Originally slated as an Xbox Series X launch title, Infinite is still on track for a Holiday 2021 release -- though without these two modes.



The reason for delay is kind of self-evident, in that it's due to the shift to a work-from-home development environment. Something that has affected just about every AAA style project currently in the works. "Unfortunately, as we focused the team for shutdown and really focused on a quality experience for launch, we made the really tough decision to delay shipping campaign co-op for launch," says Halo Infinite's Head of Creative Joseph Staten. "And, we also made the tough call to delay shipping Forge past launch, as well."

With Halo Infinite being a Live game, with seasonal updates and long-term content support and such it's expected that the co-op campaign will arrive alongside the second season roughly three months after launch. As of now we still don't have a definitive launch date, though with the other big shooters for 2021 dated -- Battlefield 2042 is October 22, and Call of Duty : Vanguard is November 5 -- we should be getting a date during this week's big Xbox Gamescom 2021 Stream.

The team at 343 Industries is currently doing its thing and working towards Halo Infinite’s big Holiday 2021 launch -- which is set to feature both a cinematic single-player Master Chief-led campaign and an extensive free-to-play multiplayer component. One that will be hitting Xbox consoles and PC on day one, with a design that is described as a return to classic Arena and Team-based action. But also, multiplayer that is a modern Spartan-step forward for the franchise.

Halo Infinite isn’t simply the next release in the iconic Xbox franchise, it’s a platform that will evolve over multiple years. And this is the first step in that journey.


Watch the full Halo Infinite Multiplayer reveal above

As part of a new multiplayer deep dive that broadcast overnight we got our first look at what to expect when it comes to Halo Infinite Multiplayer. There’s a lot to get through, so let’s get to it.

Head Here For Halo Infinite Multiplayer - Everything You Need to Know

Originally slated to be a launch title for the new Xbox Series X console, Halo Infinite's release was postponed after the mixed response to the game's Campaign demo back in July. The main points of criticism was that visually, it didn't quite look like the next-gen Halo people were expecting. In a new detailed post we get word on what's changing and confirmation on when we can expect to play it.

With Halo Infinite now on track for a 'Fall 2021' release, which would put it in that Q4 sweet spot of around November 2021. In a new and very detailed blog post, the team at 343 Industries dive into the state of the game, what led to the original campaign demo, and what visual changes are coming.

For the July demo, Ani Shastry the Development Manager for the Graphics team on Halo Infinite, notes that what we saw in July was a "work-in-progress slice of the technology, and a reasonable set of key features from global illumination and dynamic time of day, to GPU-driven rendering and variable rate shading were all in active development". Meaning that a lot of the advanced visual features of the Xbox Series X were yet to be implemented as the team focused on a smooth 60fps showing.

"Visual fidelity is a very important goal for Halo Infinite," Ani adds. "The graphics and art teams have been continually aspiring, and working closely with each other, to create the best-looking Halo game ever."


The team has taken on feedback, and even explain that the infamous shot of Craig the Brute was the result of incomplete facial animation and static lighting. Since July the team has been improving "global illumination, ambient occlusion, shadows, volumetric lighting, sky, and atmosphere" in addition to better streaming to minimise things like pop-in.

It sounds like there's a massive visual overhaul underway, with Concept Artist and Art Director for 343 Industries Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier noting that even the art side and overall look of the game is improving.

In addition to the graphics tech changes, we have made a lot of improvements on the Art/Content side across all disciplines such as Environment, Lighting, Weapons, FX and more. There is too much to cover here but I’ll just talk through some of the more impactful changes in my mind….

Firstly, there’s been a lot of work done re-tuning our dynamic lighting values to add more punch and contrast to the image. These included adjustments to our sun intensity, fog/atmosphere, and the addition of color grading which did not make it into the July gameplay demo.

We’ve improved some of our materials to get more specular response, more wear-and-tear on weapons/vehicles, more fidelity in our characters, and more macro breakup on large surfaces like rocks, terrain, and the hex walls. We’re now also getting more of our textural detail coming through to the final frame thanks to a sharpening process that our graphics team have added. This helps offset some of the natural blurring of temporal anti-aliasing and it certainly helps our assets shine.

No doubt we'll get to see these changes in the coming months, and we'll be keen to see the differences between the now infamous July demo and the final build of Halo Infinite.

Which is a weird headline, because even though Joseph Staten -- who's worked on all Halo releases as a part of Bungie, in addition to working on the original Destiny and for Microsoft on the upcoming release of Tell Me Why, is talented -- Halo Infinite was supposed to be out in November. Even with its delay to 2021 we would have assumed that the campaign was locked and that all that remained was polish and next-gen optimisation.

As per a new Halo Waypoint update, "Joseph Staten will be returning home to Halo for a bit. After helping launch Tell Me Why this week, he'll be coming on board as project lead for campaign as we push towards our 2021 release. The team has been working hard realizing our vision for campaign and we’re happy to have Joseph’s help to get it to the finish line."

Which can be read as good news and bad news; good because again Joseph's talented, and bad because the current state of the game requires a new project lead. The update also notes that Pierre Hintze, the Head of Publishing (MCC), is also joining Halo Infinite as the project lead for the Free-To-Play multiplayer side of the game. So yeah, things are sounding like they're not progressing as smooth as we'd like in Halo land -- with changes to both the campaign and multiplayer leads.

The update also does it best to squash some of the more outlandish claims being made, like Halo being dropped for the Xbox One or that it will be pushed back even further to 2022. Not that either sounds far-fetched (especially after seeing the reaction to the initial gameplay debut) but 343 notes "From rumors of dropping support for the Xbox One to releasing the game in 2022, there seem to be new headlines popping up every day. As we get closer to sharing more and more news, please only trust statements that are made by official Halo channels, members of our studio leadership, or members of the Community Team."

Although it's also coming to PC and Xbox One, many have viewed 343 Industries first-party release Halo Infinite as a game tied to the launch of the next-gen Xbox Series X console. It was only a few weeks ago Microsoft showcased an extended demo for Halo Infinite as part of the latest Xbox Showcase highlighting Series X titles in development. Long story short, Halo Infinite's release has been delayed to 2021.

With the statement from 343 reading, "We have made the difficult decision to shift our release to 2021 to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision."

Halo Infinite Development Update pic.twitter.com/TFZvXhRN9f

— Halo (@Halo) August 11, 2020

From 343 studio head Chris Lee he also notes that the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 has been one of the factors that led to the delay, "The decision to shift our release is the result of multiple factors that have contributed to development challenges, including the ongoing COVID-related impacts affecting us all this year."

"I want to acknowledge the hard work from our team at 343 Industries, who have remained committed to making a great game and finding solutions to development challenges," Chris adds, possibly hinting at the demo's mixed reception in terms of visuals and the news that it was running on PC hardware as opposed to an actual Xbox Series X console. "It is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday", he bluntly points out -- confirming that development on Infinite isn't close to being finished.

No doubt we've seen our fair share of delays this year. And it's making us all feel a little bit like Lando on Cloud City hearing about the new plans relating to Solo, the Wookiee and the Princess.

What does Halo's delay mean for the Xbox Series X? Well, hardware it seems is on track for a November release -- as per this new post on the Xbox Wire.

"There will be thousands of games to play, spanning four generations, when Xbox Series X launches globally this November and over 100 optimized for Xbox Series X titles, built to take full advantage of our most powerful console, are planned for this year."

A nice little reminder that the Series X carries over multiple generations of releases, but still -- no big launch title feels a little weird.