One of the most highly-anticipated features is finally coming to Halo Infinite, with the Campaign Network Co-op preview coming on July 11.
Halo Infinite has taken a much different approach to release than past games, going for incremental updates in a live-service fashion. Co-op has long been one of the most beloved features of the Halo franchise, and this network co-op even brings a few new features.
There’s a lengthy announcement post on Halo Waypoint, but we’ll go over some key features. Part of the reason it’s taken so long to introduce co-op is, apparently, how much of a challenge it was to implement. Lead World Designer John Mulkey says,
“One of the greatest creative challenges has been in how we support this new, more open experience and the many new questions that raised. How do we set up a shared world state? How do we keep the Fireteam together? How do we determine intent and mission focus? How do we prevent sequence breaking the narrative?”
Halo Infinite’s co-op will allow four players to play together using any combination of Xbox systems and PCs, and it can also be played via the cloud. 343 Industries also says co-op will retain the world state and progress of each player. As Mulkey explains,
“I could be playing Solo campaign, jump into a Co-Op session for a few hours, then launch back into Solo play and all the mission progress, acquired collectibles, equipment found, achievements earned, and upgrades made in either session would be intact. Gone are the days of playing someone else’s game while earning no progress.
The way we are handling this is through something we internally refer to as “No Spartan Left Behind”. When players join the Fireteam and choose their save slots to play on, the game aggregates the states of all missions across those saves and sets up a world state in which any missions completed by all Fireteam members are marked as complete while any missions not completed by all are marked as incomplete.”
Much like the rest of the game, Halo Infinite’s co-op will likely evolve over time, but it’s a feature fans have been wanting since the game’s release.
Halo Infinite is currently available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
