‘Halo Infinite’ Won’t Be Launching With Co-Op or Forge Mode

343 Industries has announced that Halo Infinite won’t be launching with campaign co-op or Forge mode in order to make sure the single-player campaign and multiplayer are finished for its holiday release.

Joseph Staten, the creative head of Halo Infinite, spoke during an official development update about the challenges faced as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In order to ensure that they meet their goal of a holiday release, the team made the decision to focus on the single-player campaign and multiplayer for launch. Campaign co-op and Forge will eventually be added to the game, but it won’t be until well after the game’s release.

“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. And we also made the tough call to delay shipping Forge past launch as well,” Staten said during the update.

According to Staten, campaign co-op and Forge mode just weren’t at the level of quality they needed to ship, so instead they’ve been added into Infinite’s seasonal post-launch roadmap. The single-player campaign and multiplayer are a part of Halo Infinite’s season 1, with each season lasting around three months. Campaign co-op will arrive in season 2 and Forge mode is planned for season 3, so it seems we won’t be seeing either of them until 2022.

Regarding the co-op campaign, Staten spoke about how its development has been especially complex when compared to its single-player counterpart. “On the co-op side, we have the opportunity to play the campaign all the time, it’s this wonderful, open, non-linear take on the Halo campaign. It’s going to offer so much more flexibility to take down Banished bases from all different angles, to progress through the game in your own way,” Staten said.

“At the same time though, that’s complicated. When you think about save systems and all the technology that needs to drive this more non-linear experience, and in the co-op experience that’s even more complicated.”

The announcement is definitely a bit disappointing to hear. Some of my fondest childhood gaming memories were of Halo 2 and 3 couch co-op with friends and older cousins. While the single-player will be polished for launch, it’s a shame that we’ll have to wait before we can run through the main campaign with friends.

While Halo Infinite doesn’t have a firm release date, 343 Industries has said that they are preparing for a holiday 2021 launch. The game will be available for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.