343 Industries has officially delayed season 3 of Halo Infinite, including its online campaign co-op and The Forge beta. However, the Xbox studio also announced that local co-op has been cancelled after months of promising that it will arrive in the game as a future update.
According to 343 Industries, campaign co-op, The Forge beta and season 3 have all been pushed back. Campaign co-op was originally targeting a late August launch, though the developer went quiet once the date arrived. It has now confirmed that online campaign co-op will now arrive in November instead.
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Additionally, the Forge beta has also been delayed from its planned September launch to November. Season 3 content, titled Echoes Within, has been delayed to March 2023.
However, fans aren’t happy with the news that local split-screen co-op has been scrapped for Halo Infinite. 343 stated that it’s reallocating resources “in order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates.” The feature has been a staple of the Halo series with almost every entry, making this cancellation particularly sad.
343 released a 30-minute video where Joseph Staten, Sean Baron and Brian Jarrard detailed the upcoming road map which ends in June 2023. Have a look at the full road map below:
The third season, Echoes Within, will include all-new weapons, a 100-tier battle pass and plenty of new equipment. As for the Forge beta, a custom browser, new game modes and updates will be added from 7 March 2023 and running until 27 June 2023.
The reception surrounding 343’s delays and cancellation of couch co-op hasn’t been positive online. Taking into account that Halo Infinite originally launched with a plethora of missing content that 343 promised would be added later is particularly disheartening and frustrating for fans, especially almost a year after the game’s launch.
Halo Infinite is currently available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Source: 343 Industries