Halo Infinite to focus on smaller updates as 343 Industries work on "brand new projects"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Halo Infinite won't receive a sixth season update and is moving away from the 'seasons' model entirely. Instead, on January 30th it'll receive a new arena map, a new operation and a handful of other new features, and it'll continue to be updated with shorter "Operation" battle passes in future.

343 Industries shared the news in a January update and 2024 roadmap livestream yesterday.

"We're making a shift in how we're approaching Infinite going forward. We're no longer referring to seasons, we're shifting away from seasons. Semantically, for what it's worth, our January 30th update will henceforth be known as 'CU29'," explained community director Brian Jarrard.

Operations will feature 20 tiers and will run for four to six weeks, and the first is Halo Wars-themed. CU29's new map is for the Arena mode and is called Illusion, and the update also includes new Forge features, a new armor core and customisation rewards.

When asked at the end of the livestream where season six was, or why they weren't calling these updates season six, Jarrard reitered the updates that were coming - but also confirmed that 343 Industries were now working on new things.

"It's going to be a very exciting year for Halo, we're off to an exciting start," he said. "We have a dedicated team working on supporting Halo Infinite and continuing to deliver going forward, but also, yes, we have additional teams now that are accelerating towards the future, working on brand new projects, so I just want to tantalise you with that. There are a lot of things cooking here, we could not be more excited."

Halo Infinite had a rough, staggered launch, with its multiplayer, co-op and various features being added post-release over a period of months. Then 343 Industries were affected by Microsoft's layoffs last year. Infinite has been more exciting of late though, thanks in part to Forge features enabling wild player creativity.