Halo as a franchise has been in a rough spot lately. Halo Infinite is in a very bad place with very infrequent updates and Content. It has had 6 month long seasons with almost no content. The campaign while fun is nothing extraordinary. All this while there has been a horrible Halo TVs series which shits on almost everything the franchise stands for. So to say it lightly Halo has been in a bad spot. But the worst fears of fans was confirmed in the recent September 2022 Update.
Along with a ton of delays for the future of the game. One of the worst thing revealed was that Couch Co-Op/ Split Screen was cancelled. Even after prolonged promises of split screen over the period of years, it has been cancelled. This has been a staple of the franchise since day 1 but they have been absent since Halo 5. It has been promised for Halo Infinite but now it has been cancelled. This along with the rest of the anaemic roadmap has the fanbase in a rightful frenzy.
The Halo September Roadmap
Firstly, Season 3 has been postponed to March 7th making Season 2 a ten month season. That is insane in terms of any game. There is going to be a winter update in the middle as a stop gap half season. The Winter Update bring a the following things:
- Forge Beta: This is the most exciting addition as from what we have seen it from the leaks it looks really damn good. But Forge with no custom games browser seems kind of pointless and hard to share games.
- Campaign Co-Op (Network Based): A necessary addition which should have been in Day one but at least it here by then.
- Mission Replay: Similar to co-op must have been in the game day one.
- Free Battle Pass: 30 Tier Battle Pass to test the new Match XP Beta. It is insane that there yet to be after match XP in the game and here all we are getting is a Beta.
- New Maps: Got to wait and see. They seems to be no variation in the maps all being just UNSC bases.
- New Game Mode: Covert one flag Seems interesting but nothing great. (Where the hell are the classic gamemodes such as griftball or Infection)
- Events and QoL Improvements: Just another shallow improvements we have had before.
So after this there is Season 3 which seems just as anemic:
- New Maps: Still need to see how they play but still more UNSC bases.
- New Weapon: Finally the DMR esque(M392 Bandit) weapon.
- New Equipment: the Shroud Screen just looks like Bubble so let’s see how it works in the sandbox.
- New Battle Pass: If the XP grinding still sucks then its pointless
- New game modes: VIP and Escalation are finally back after more than an year.
- Custom game Browser and In game reporting: Finally, these need to be there with Forge but ya it will here in March
- New Events, QoL Improvements and more: Just the same stuff.
So what now?
All this how bad the situation really is. When compared to other live services this is kinda pathetic. the Youtuber SkillUp summed it up perfectly in the following tweet:
So ya the future look grim with the plummeting player number and cancellation. Lets she how it all rally pans out. Because even with the road map there a huge asterix, because it is clearly stated that all this is still Subject to change. So let’s see how 343i and Microsoft reacts to this really bad situation.
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