We’ve been expecting a battle royale mode from 343 Industries’ latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo Infinite. However, the company was quick to shut down the idea.
A video from a Microsoft insider, Brad Sams, surfaced on the internet a few days ago. In the video, he said that the upcoming Halo Infinite will have a battle royale component. Sams is known for accurate reports and maybe this time he was right after all, and maybe the company did try to make the mode or considered it, but decided to play it safe in the end.
Frank O’Connor, the boss of the Halo franchise, replied on the famous gaming forum ResetEra, saying 343 Industries "will not talk about the launch content of Halo Infinite until we're ready, I haven't watched the video so if I am misinterpreting the headline as 'Halo Infinite is launching with/as a Halo Battle Royale mode' that is still not the case.”
“You can probably make your own Battle Royale mode in Forge even right now though. It's a mode, not a genre. And all the variants out there now are in my opinion quite radically different from my perspective. Apex vs Fortnite is chalk and cheese--one focuses on movement and map traversal and the other on building and budgeting. Like CTF. BTB Super Fiesta (for example) contains a lot of the shenanigans and emergent fun of that kind of large experience but big sandbox modes are not Battle Royale any more than Oddball is CTF." He added.
O’Connor humorously said that we’d still have a BR, well, a battle rifle to be precise.
"The launch modes for MP are not 100% defined and are subject to change till quite late in the process--but Battle Rifle will still be there. So, you can have BR. But are we interested in big social modes with loads of organic shenanigans? Yes. Specifically, a blimp full of survivors heading to an Island after a (metaphorical) lecture from Beat Takeshi? No," O'Connor wrote in his post. "We are NOT doing this as of now--and no plans to--but Battle Royale could be made for any of the Halo games in MCC or [Halo 5] with some content and scripting additions, because it is a mode. It would have limits based on each engine. I'm pointing that out to be clear that it's one of the ways we think about gameplay possibilities rather than a single direction for a title."
Halo Infinite will soon be available for Xbox One and PC although a release date hasn't been announced just yet. Are you a bit disappointed that Halo Infinite won’t have a battle royale or are you one of those players who are actually glad they aren’t going through with it? Let’s wait and see how the game will do when it is finally released. For now, we’re looking out for further announcements.
