Unlike earlier games in the series, 343 Industries’ Halo Infinite will feature seasonal Battle Passes for its multiplayer leveling system. These will give players something to work towards as they play, climbing through tiers of largely cosmetic unlockable content. Recently, however, 343 announced players will only earn XP towards Halo Infinite's Battle Passes through completing in-game challenges, rather than winning matches or performing well.
343 has emphasized that it wants Halo Infinite to be a player-centric experience, and it's worked to achieve this through Spartan armor personalization, multiple AI personalities to accompany players in battle, and fully customizable controls for Halo Infinite on every platform. But if players have to rely on doing daily and weekly challenges to rank up and complete their armories, they won’t be able to express themselves. They'll have to curb and alter their playstyles to fit each challenge, rather than playing as they want to.
More importantly, the system could simply put off both new and returning players. Novice players may find ranking through Battle Pass difficult if the challenges are particularly tough or require specific maps, vehicles, or weapons to complete. Several Challenge Swap tokens are available for both those who purchase Halo Infinite's Battle Passes and those just progressing along its free track, but they're also available to purchase in the in-game store, meaning players who aren't skilled enough to complete every challenge are incentivized to spend even more money to continue ranking up. On the flipside, more skilled players may encounter the opposite inconvenience: running out of challenges and having no way to level up.
Halo Infinite's Lack Of XP For Winning Matches Hurts The Game
"The Tech Preview had an issue that caused people to run out of challenges," community manager John Junyszek explained on Twitter. This was somewhat lessened during Halo Infinite's flight testing, since all players received expedited experience throughout. Junyszek continued by saying that, at launch, while it would be "extremely difficult" for players to run out of challenges, he wouldn't say "'impossible,' cause there are some grinders out there." Even if it won't come to that point for many, the notion of challenges being grindy at all isn't encouraging - particularly if these involve participating in game types people don't want to play, like the rumored Halo Infinite battle royale mode.
Junyszek also said on Twitter that some challenges will actually include playing and winning matches as completion requirements, and 343's head of design, Jerry Hook, added that the team is "always looking at ways to expand progression across the board." Still, in the meantime, forcing players keen on leveling up to complete challenges could have a pronounced, negative impact on the flow of Halo Infinite matches.
If a challenge requires getting 10 Needler kills, acquiring and using a Needler might be a player's sole priority, even if it impedes their gameplay. Asking players to participate in three CTF matches means they might gravitate to objective lobbies even if they don’t want to play objective games, and asking them to win a certain number of matches, regardless of game mode, may lead them to drop out of a match if their team is poised to lose.
Worse still, the commendation Halo Infinite received for not featuring loot boxes may have come too soon. Allowing players to spend money to swap through the deck of challenges does prevent players from being forced to adhere to certain rules or modes, but if the challenges they receive after swapping are random, it won't be too unlike the rewards of a loot box. Either way, it's an easy way to tempt players into throwing a few bucks towards the developer if they want to skip the game’s more arduous tasks.
Halo Infinite will be released for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on December 8. 2021.