In its latest edition of Inside Infinite, 343 Industries several neat features coming to Halo Infinite, particularly for multiplayer. The mode is free-to-play and features support for cross-platform play and cross-progression. With the free-to-play nature opening up greater risks for cheating, anti-cheat software is a must. Thankfully, Halo Infinite’s solution won’t require kernel-level access.
As development lead Mike Romero notes, “We felt like we had to make an anti-cheat solution that doesn’t get in the way, doesn’t root your machine, doesn’t block your legitimate applications – we want the most unobtrusive thing possible that ensures a safe way for everyone to play together.” He also confirmed options for display FPS and ping in-game via an overlay or hiding one’s HUD entirely. Streamers can also have their own overlay. “There’s a lot of options and settings I don’t want to talk just yet but we have more we’re working on and many ideas for the future as well.”
Security engineer Michael VanKuipers further chimed on in the developer’s anti-cheat philosophy which, is “to make cheating more difficult in ways that don’t involve kernel drivers or background services.”
VanKuipers adds: We’ve done a lot of work securing the Slipspace engine and developing novel ways to protect and change the game to slow down cheat development. When people do cheat, we’re focused on catching them through their behavior and not from data that we’ve harvested from their machines. Combating cheaters is an ever-evolving arms race, but we’re making the tech investments needed today to continue the fight for years to come.”
Players can invite their friends to multiplayer via Discord, Steam and Xbox Live with both in-game and out-of-game invites supported. Producer Jeff Guy confirmed that one could even host a multiplayer server on their PC. “Other players on your LAN, both PC and Xbox, are able to join your local server and play Infinite multiplayer with you.” Ranked and unranked playlists for Xbox and PC players to compete together with Social playlists and custom matches having no restrictions.
Ranked matches are a different matter. 343 Industries plans to have input restrictions for competitive playlists. “That’s because we believe the input is the biggest differentiator in gameplay ability (with things like aim assist on the controller or the precision of sniping with a mouse). You can play with a controller on your PC to play ranked with your console friends, or even mouse and keyboard on your console to play ranked with your PC friends.”
The team is also working to ensure that no one is at a significant disadvantage based on their platform and choice of input device. You may still lose out to those with super-fast PCs and high refresh rates so keep that in mind. TrueSkill 2 is also being used for the ranking system to ensure fairness throughout.
Halo Infinite is planned for release this Fall on Xbox Series X/S, PC and Xbox One. Check out the latest work-in-progress screenshots from the campaign here.