Bad news for Halo fans today, as the upcoming Halo Infinite will have limited co-op functionality at launch. Two of the game’s key components, campaign and the sandbox mode Forge, will be single-player only upon launch. It’s news that’s sure to disappoint Halo fans used to ravaging the sci-fi world with their friends in tow. Instead, it’ll restrict co-op play solely to multiplayer when the game launches.
No Co-Op Campaign or Forge Mode in Halo Infinite
Yes, you won’t be able to team up with friends to tackle the Halo Infinite campaign upon launch. This was confirmed by the game’s Creative Director, Joseph Staten, in a recent video interview. He says that the delay boils down to hitting the holiday 2021 release date, and that the co-op modes needed to go in order to make their window.
Staten says that neither feature was quite ready for launch. While 343 were busy fine-tuning the game following the recent open demo, “we made the really tough decision to delay shipping campaign co-op for launch…. [and] to delay shipping Forge past launch as well.”
It’s sure to upset fans of the franchise, who have grown accustomed to Halo’s co-op modes. The most recent release, Halo 5: Guardians, had a co-op campaign at launch. It added co-op Forge mode in an update two months after launch. This means there’s definitely hope for Halo fans that even though these features won’t be there when Infinite launches, it’ll arrive soon.
343 Industries have yet to give an updated timescale on when to expect co-op campaign and Forge modes. However, you can guarantee it won’t be until 2022, as the base game likely won’t launch until the very end of 2021. It’s bad news for fans of the Halo franchise, but it’ll make it even more exciting when those modes finally release.