On Friday, 343 Industries released a lengthy post summarizing many of the changes, fixes, and improvements made to Halo Infinite after receiving tons of feedback from its technical preview in August. One of the biggest changes is that the motion tracker is being tweaked and will operate more like it did in past Halo titles.
Early in August, over the course of a weekend or so, 343 Industries ran a Halo Infinite technical preview for selected players on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. While the preview suffered from some server issues at first, it eventually stabilized and let players fight against bots of various skill levels. The bots were impressive, the overall game felt good and Halo-y and it looked solid too.
But some, including Kotaku’s own Ari Notis, had issues with the new motion tracker. Before, in past titles, you only appeared on motion trackers if you walked or ran. If you crouched and moved slowly, you would stay off the radar. In Halo Infinite’s preview, you only showed up on the radar when shooting or sprinting. So you and bots could walk around, safely hidden off the radar. This changed up the usual rhythm of Halo matches. Crouch walking wasn’t really useful anymore, beyond occasionally hiding behind cover, so most players just ran around at normal speed. This led to situations where you could walk into an area and get ambushed by a whole team.
While some liked the new changes to the motion tracker, it appears that 343 Industries saw more negative feedback and is now reverting the radar back to how it worked in the past, as explained in a post on Halo Waypoint.
“While some appreciated the new approach, we found that most players missed the old properties in these social matches,” said 343. “We’ve updated the Combat Sensor to feel more like the ‘Motion Tracker’ of old, which shows all movement besides crouch-walking, and should have that ready for folks to test in the next flight. Be sure to keep an eye on it and let us know how it plays!”
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The beauty of Halo, at least in the past, has been the ability for players to customize game modes and create their own horrible or amazing creations. So I hope that for folks who prefer the more competitive radar seen in the beta, that 343 includes an option to turn it back on or has a more “hardcore” playlist that uses it. But for me, a longtime fan of Halo who prefers the classic radar and how matches play out using it, I’m happy for the change.
If you care about all the other changes — including tweaks being made to the UI, gun noises, how bots move around the map, what medals will look like, and how daily challenges work — you should check out the full post over at Halo Waypoint.
