This isn’t the first time we’ve heard whispers of a battle royale gamemode planned forHalo Infinite. Much of it came inthe form of leaked info, but this one is a bit more concrete.
A former game director fromCertain Affinity, a studio that assisted with manyHaloprojects, has described something very interesting onhis LinkedIn profile.
As noticed byGamespot, this developerexplicitly mentions a Halo Infinite battle royalegame as a"fantastic experience"for himself and his team.
“I led a large team of designers working on a canceled Battle Royale mode for Halo. I believe this product could have been a game changer for the franchise. We loved playing it and working on it was a fantastic experience in spite of its cancelation.”
Despite the mode’s glaring non-existence in the game’s current release, we did catch hints of what a mode like that could have felt like. Veterans of Halo Infinite may rememberLast Spartan Standing, a short-lived gamemode from the game’s second season, that was a small-scale battle royale.
This gamemode has since been removed from Halo, but that hasn’t stopped fans fromexploring its design space. Halo Infinite’s forge tools are pretty extensive, and players are keen to push it to its limits.
Could a Battle Royale have Changed Halo Infinite’s Fate?
Halo Infinite’s launch is something that lives in both fame and infamy. In the opening hours of the game’s launch, when the main thing players cared about was “does it feel fun,” people loved every second of it. When people wanted to dig deeper, opinions soured.
Halo Infinite’s content drought has been discussed to death at this point. And while the game has certainly taken steps to solve the problem, many regard it as “too little, too late”.
Nowadays, Halo Infinite’s raw gameplay is still as fun as it ever was, and it has the armor customization, forge tools and progression paths people demanded. But it took so long to create them, that many players simply moved on to other games.
Halo Infinite Is A Game Utterly Without Hype
I can’t bring myself to care about endless Battle Passes.
So when this dev says that a battle royale “could have been a game changer”… it’s hard to say if it’s correct, but it certainly could have made a difference.
“Halo has an incredible sandbox” has been said so many times now that you could make a drinking game out of it. It’s said so often because, let’s be honest, it’s true.
The sheer number of options available, the number of tools players can scour the maps for, the interplay between combat and vehicles… from an outsider’s perspective, it all looks like the perfect breeding ground for a massive battle royale.
But while we all get to be outsiders, only a few get to be insiders. And today we found one, still gushing about the experience to this day. It’s a small look into a world that could have been, but fascinating nonetheless.
