Halo Infinite Winter Update to Overhaul Battle Pass Progression System - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 November 2022 / 2,514 Views
343 Industries in a new Halo Waypoint post announced the Winter Update for Halo Infinite, which launches on November 8, will overhaul the game's Battle Pass progression system.
The Winter Update will introduce Match XP Beta, while Challenges and Ultimate Rewards have also been reworked to improve progression for the Winter Update Battle Pass, Season 1 and 2, and future Battle Passes.
Read the Halo Waypoint blog post with the details below:
MATCH XP BETA
We are excited to be taking the first major step towards evolving Halo Infinite’s player progression experience by directly acting on player feedback to evolve XP and progression in Halo Infinite.
With Match XP, players will be rewarded for playing whatever mode they want, and your performance in those matches will tie into those rewards. As such, when the Winter Update launches, the majority of XP that you will earn will come from Match XP.
Match XP consists of:
- XP for completing matches
- Additional XP for your performance in the match (this accounts for things like being on the winning team, your end-of-match placement, and more)
Take a look at how it appears in-game...
The reason we are calling this the Match XP “Beta” is because we are going to be monitoring the values for each reward category, adjusting them as we move forwards with this new model. This means that the values when the Winter Update launches will not be final, and you can expect to see them tuned up or down to provide an enhanced earn rate.
We look forward to getting your feedback on the rate of progression in the free Winter Update Battle Pass!
CHALLENGES & ULTIMATE REWARDS
Up to this point, completing Challenges has been the main progression driver through the Battle Pass—Challenges grant XP which levels you up each reward tier. With the Winter Update, we are looking to evolve this system as we pursue the goal of helping players progress their Battle Pass at a faster rate in response to community feedback. This means that the system will transition to be Match XP-focused with Challenges providing a bonus boost.
We still believe that Challenges can help spark players’ interest in the game and provides some good direction for short-term goals, which has previously been part of the multiplayer experience in Halo: Reach and Halo 4, but the purpose of Challenges will be “redirected.”
Completion of Challenges will still provide some XP, but they will now primarily serve as the path towards earning customization items each week through the Ultimate Reward.
This system is getting an overhaul of its own based on player feedback, which can be summarized in three main points:
- We are reducing the number of Challenges required to hit the Ultimate Challenge from 20 to 10
- All Challenges in regular weekly decks can be completed in any playlist
- Challenges are more “general” overall
Since launch, a common point of feedback we’ve received from the community was that players didn't enjoy queuing for playlists they wouldn’t otherwise play, simply to complete a Challenge and move their Battle Pass progression forward. Mode-specific Challenges were found to be prohibitive to playing with friends, and players shouldn’t have to choose between progress or playing together.
The Winter Update will mark the beginning of shifting all challenges to be playlist agnostic. For the time being, Event Challenges will remain in their current form, tied to their respective Event Playlists, but players can expect to see this change in the future as well.
These overhauls to progression also mean that a Fireteam of friends can stick together and move through their Weekly Challenges and Battle Passes without needing to worry about each player’s individual challenges.
As we’re looking to address a lot of the community feedback we’ve received around Challenges and we’re shifting the philosophy, the Winter Update’s Ultimate Rewards will feature the most popular Ultimate Rewards from Seasons 1 and 2 to help players get another chance to earn them in case they missed them last time.
We hope you all enjoy the opportunity to earn these on the new and improved system during the Winter Update.
CAREER PROGRESSION
In addition to these improvements for Match XP, Challenges, Ultimate Rewards, and your Battle Pass progression, the team is also continuing to work on an overarching Career Progression system.
We’ll have more to share on that in the future, but it is important to plant a stake in the ground at this point and make clear that what’s coming in the Winter Update is just the beginning of broader changes to come.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This game should have launched this winter and not last. All of these changes are welcome but feel far too little and far too late
Hard for games like this to recover after losing so many players. Has been done before though. D2 managed to do it.
I’ll come back if they do battleroyal on halo if not I’ll wait for the next halo in the meantime I left halo 2 months after it came out due to lack of maps so I jumped ship to Fortnite and cod mw2 . The story was good but the no support sucks this time around . In halo 4 and 5 I remember maps coming out steadily. Still love halo just taking a break
Good article!
