343 Industries says it's made the "difficult decision not to ship split-screen campaign co-op" for Halo Infinite, although Forge will arrive in November
Despite a 2017 pledge never to skip split-screen co-op in another Halo game, 343 Industries announced today that the feature has been scrapped from the Halo Infinite roadmap. In an update video, developers said Halo Infinite local co-op resources have been redirected to other areas in need of improvement, particularly the FPS game’s live service component – which itself is seeing Season 3 delayed to March 2023.
The news that 343 Industries is scrapping local co-op for Halo Infinite isn’t mentioned in the blog post accompanying the 30-minute update video, but Halo creative lead Joseph Staten briefly mentions it at around the 11:45 mark. You can watch the video below:
“We have had to make the difficult decision not to ship campaign split-screen co-op,” Staten says, looking at the camera, explaining that the studio’s resources will instead be dedicated to things like improving the pace of seasons and adding new experiences that the team has yet to reveal.
Head of live content Sean Barron says that his team determined that releasing Season 3 immediately after the conclusion of Season 2 would “severely negatively impact” all of 2023, and determined that it should be delayed, but he says that it was important to release an update on November 8. 343 Industries says this will be the biggest and most robust update since Halo Infinite launched last year, and it will include the long-awaited Halo Forge beta and the campaign network co-op beta, which had been scheduled for release in Season 2.
According to the updated Halo Infinite roadmap, Season 3 will run March 7 – June 27.