The decision for 343 Industries to launch Halo Infinite without a campaign co-op disappointed many fans of the franchise. However, the studio just announced that they would be ‘flight’ testing an online campaign co-op starting July 15th.
So far, they’ll only be testing online co-op, so Halo fans hoping for couch co-op will have to wait a bit longer. Players interested in getting a first glimpse and testing out the new online campaign co-op will need to register for the free and open Halo Insider Program. It’s important to know that this test is being run in a separate version of Halo Infinite. As such, you’ll be starting all over with a new game, and any progress made can’t be transferred between versions.
Lead World Designer, John Mulkey, explained that the new open-world gameplay of Halo Infinite is why there was a delay in adding the co-op at launch. For the first time, they were faced with difficult questions, such as how to set up a shared world state, keep the fireteam together, and many others.
The solution they decided on is an ‘Area of Operations,’ meaning that players cannot move too far away from each other before getting a warning. If the player ignores the warning and keeps moving away, they will be killed for going AWOL and respawn next to the closest player. The developers wanted to promote team play while still allowing some freedom.
There are also many other features such as sharing cores but upgrading and spending them individually. All players will also be able to keep their progress, meaning they can use the same character to jump between co-op and solo mode while keeping all equipment, stats, and experience.
This online co-op test starting in July is exciting news, and we look forward to seeing how fans receive it. While you’re waiting for campaign co-op, why not look at some Halo Infinite game modes to try in the meantime?
