Halo Infinite design lead is 'feeling everyone's pain' about the battle pass

Halo Infinite design lead Jerry Hook says that addressing complaints about Halo Infinite's battle pass progression "will be top of my list" of things to do when the development team gets back to work after a post-release break.

The gameplay in Halo Infinite is quite good, but the battle pass is another matter. Nat cut right to the heart of the matter a couple weeks ago, telling 343 Industries that "your battle pass sucks": The idea of non-expiring battle passes is popular (and a nice change from the usual "you snooze, you lose" approach of most other games) but there's a lot less enthusiasm for what is widely viewed as an excessive amount of work required to advance through it.

Another major issue is Halo Infinite's daily and weekly challenges, which players say disincentivizes "good" gameplay by requiring them to ignore team goals in order to get their own stuff done. Essentially every team-based game with a battle pass has clashed with these opposing incentives in the past, but it's a new problem for Halo.

"Finally got this god forsaken challenge done," Redditor lifeisprobsahoax wrote. "Felt like a complete scumbag camping with a gravity hammer or sword for the killing sprees. This ultimate challenge was completely reliant on RNG."

Redditor Colaborenth put a finer point on it: "Challenges have made me a worse teammate."

Fortunately, it sounds like action is in the relatively immediate offing. "Yes I am still playing Halo and feeling everyone’s pain on progression," Hook tweeted yesterday. "We are back at it next week and this will be top of my list with the team."

343 has already made one round of changes to Halo Infinite's battle pass, tweaking it shortly after it went live to award XP for finishing matches—initially battle pass XP was only awarded for completing daily and weekly challenges. Community director Brian Jarrard described those changes as "an initial step" to address complaints with the battle pass, and said that "more robust" updates are in the works but would take more time to roll out.