Halo Infinite’s multiplayer beta has been available for a couple of weeks now. If you’ve played since the very start, you’ll know what I mean when I say that it had a serious progression issue at launch. You earned almost nothing for hours of work, and that’s not a good system. Many other games award something, even cosmetics, for every couple of matches you play right up until the highest levels. In Halo Infinite though, it just felt like a chore to do anything. Following some serious outcry from fans, developer 343 Industries issued an update that made progression feel like slightly less of a grind. To be honest though, it’s still a big problem in the game.
Playing for hours in any multiplayer game should feel like a rewarding experience. In the past, we didn’t have anything like season passes, so it didn’t matter that the only rewards for playing were the satisfaction of killing your mates. Now though, every game has a reward system, and not having a decent one will kill your game fast. There’s no reason to keep playing otherwise. Even without rewards though, moving up through ranks feels ridiculously hard. Following the update, things have improved somewhat, but it still feels unrelenting when trying to push up your ranks.
The core focus in any Halo game should really be the campaign, but we live in a day and age when everyone expects lots from a game’s multiplayer mode. 343 Industries has likely got its ducks in a row and worked on the campaign to the point that it’s great. However, you can tell that playtesting hasn’t been going on, or at least hasn’t happened enough, with the multiplayer mode. There’s still so much to work out, but that’s why this beta is so good.
Hopefully, with the feedback from this early point before the game is out, Halo Infinite will be a better game for all players when it launches. 343 Industries needs to focus on getting this right now, and it’ll pay off for them in so many ways when the future of Halo Infinite becomes clear.