Although Halo players are currently enjoying an early look at Infinite multiplayer ahead of the campaign launch on December 8, one of the biggest complaints from the community concerns the first-person shooter’s lack of playlists. But that should change very soon. Like, “before next year” soon.
“We’ve been reading your feedback, and we’re working on plans to add Fiesta, Tactical Slayer (SWAT), and Free-For-All playlists as we speak,” 343 Industries community manager John Junyszek announced this afternoon via Twitter. “We’ll monitor playlist health after the three additions above and adjust our offering if needed, but we’re excited to make these updates before the holidays.”
At the moment, the Halo Infinite multiplayer playlists include Quick Play (a mixture of various four-on-four game modes), Ranked (for super serious, no-radar competition), Big Team Battle (massive 12-on-12 skirmishes), and Bot Arena (humans vs. CPUs), a far cry from the offerings in earlier games. If you only want to play, say, Capture the Flag matches, that’s not currently an option in the playlist system.
This also poses a problem to players looking to grind their challenges since you have no control over what matches you play. Getting a challenge that requires specific modes is particularly annoying right now, though it’s set to change.
Junyszek explained that the developers plan to use special events to test new game modes before throwing them into playlists.
343 Industries is also reportedly working on a Social Slayer playlist, which in 2007’s Halo 3 threw together peripheral squad-based modes like Team Slayer, Team Rockets, and more, but that won’t be ready until sometime next year.
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“This is just the start of the conversation with y’all,” Junyszek added. “We hope you can understand and enjoy the [playlists] that make it in before the team takes a well-deserved break!”
Halo Infinite players previously voiced concerns about the multiplayer Battle Pass due to its (arguably) slow, unrewarding progression. 343 Industries addressed these issues by greatly increasing XP gain, a quick response that’s earned the studio tons of goodwill from the community. Let’s just hope the impending playlist updates keep the series’ notoriously fickle fanbase from giving the devs too much grief as they try to enjoy the holidays.
