Not launching without campaign co-op or Forge was a big deal for Halo Infinite. Both are modes that fans of the series value a great deal, and though the shooter’s launch definitely didn’t suffer because of their absence at launch, the disappointment at the same was still felt far and wide. Originally, the plan had been to launch campaign co-op with Season 2 and Forge with Season 3, but when the game’s first season was essentially doubled in length, both of those got delayed by three months apiece. Now, it seems like the way is going to be even longer.
343 Industries recently provided new details on Season 2: Lone Wolves, the upcoming season of new content for Halo Infinite’s multiplayer component, set to kick off on May 3, and at the same time, also gave updates on how development is coming along for campaign co-op and Forge. Both, it turns out, are going to arrive a little later than expected- though 343 Industries is still planning to add the former during Season 2, and the latter during Season 3.
“We’re making great progress on Campaign network co-op,” 343 wrote in an update on Halo Waypoint. “And to be clear, this work has been occurring in parallel to Season 2 work, as has our work on Forge.
“But the reality is that it’s going to take more time to land a high-quality, full-featured 4-player network co-op experience in the massive, wide-open world of Halo Infinite. We’re also committed to a great 2-player split-screen co-op experience on all Xbox consoles, from the original Xbox One through Xbox Series X—and the non-linear, wide-open sections of the Campaign present some big challenges for split-screen that have taken us more time to solve.
“All this means that we will not be able to ship Campaign network co-op on May 3rd, at the start of Season 2. But we are still aiming to deliver Campaign network co-op later in Season 2, and we will share a release date for that and for split-screen co-op as soon as we can.”
“We are also making great progress on Forge,” the developer continued. “Indeed, we are already flighting Forge to a small group of community creators and working closely with them to ensure that all of you have a terrific experience creating, sharing, browsing, and playing Forge content. In the near term, we will continue to privately flight Forge as we develop it while also planning for public flight(s) later this year. We still have the goal of shipping Forge with Season 3.”
Recent leaks have suggested that Halo Infinite’s Forge mode will allow players to change maps’ biomes, weather, and more. Read more on that through here. Other reports have also claimed that support studio Certain Affinity is working on a separate multiplayer mode for the game that will tie into Forge in some capacity.
Halo Infinite is available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
