Halo Infinite campaign co-op and Forge mode release dates delayed
With the launch of Halo Infinite's multiplayer earlier this week, 343 Industries announced that season 1 will last longer than anticipated. Instead of three months as initially planned, season 1 has now been extended to six months. Unfortunately, this has implications for features beyond multiplayer, as the extension of season 1 also means that the launches of campaign co-op and Forge mode will be delayed.
Campaign co-op and Forge pushed deeper into 2022
Over the summer, 343 Industries revealed that while it was working on campaign co-op and Forge mode, neither of those features would be ready to go at launch in December. Instead, 343 planned to have campaign co-op ready to go at the start of season 2, while it expected to have Forge mode ready at the beginning of season 3.
When 343 shared those plans, it also expected each season to last around three months. Now that we know season 1 will be lasting an extended six months, that, unfortunately, means campaign co-op and Forge mode will be delayed in turn. 343 Industries head of creative Joseph Staten confirmed the delays in a brief interview with Eurogamer.
"Yes, we are extending Season 1. So our goal still remains what I said before, which is to ship campaign co-op with Season 2 and Forge with Season 3," Staten said. "But those remain goals. Those remain targets. And we can't commit to any hard dates right now, because as we're seeing with this multiplayer beta, other things might move up in the priority stack for us."
While Staten's statement leaves the possibility of further delays open, he did commit to getting both features out the door at some point in the future, saying that both elements are "really big promises that we've made that we need to make good on."
Two crucial features missing at launch
Indeed, a lot of players probably consider campaign co-op and Forge to be important features. The co-op mode for the campaign has been a cornerstone feature for the Halo series ever since the very first game, while Forge mode has its own subset of hardcore fans. Forge was originally introduced in Halo 3 and lets players make maps for custom games.
The two features have become significant parts of the Halo experience over the years, so there are undoubtedly fans who are sad to hear that they won't be in the game at launch. However, based on what Staten told Eurogamer, it seems we can expect campaign co-op in May 2022, while Forge should come down the pipeline three months later, presumably in July 2022.
That's assuming everything pans out as 343 is expecting and the company transitions to a three-month rotation for seasons after season 1 wraps up. Assuming 343 can deliver the co-op and Forge modes when it's hoping to, this represents a three-month delay to its original plans. That's not bad, but of course, any delay stings a little bit. We'll let you know when 343 shares some more concrete details on the respective launches of Halo Infinite campaign co-op and Forge, so stay tuned for more.