(Shamelessly copied from u/Quillows on Reddit)
Do not undersell that Halo Infinite is a new industry low
I say this because there seems to be a lot of confusion outside of this space as to what’s going on. So I wanted to make something that summarizes just how bad this is, and do so in a way that can make sense to people who aren’t aware of what’s happening, or aren’t well versed with Halo.
If you are a youtuber, article writer, or just trying to convince a friend, feel free to use this post as a script. No credit needed.
All prices listed are USD and rounded up to the nearest dollar. You can find sources and examples inside the citations and [brackets]. Important info is bolded for easy skimming.
- Public consensus
The general public consensus I tend to see is that the progression is the only real problem, and that Halo fans are just making a big fuss for almost no reason. It’s the same as other Free To Play games, right? Just fix the progression and it’s all good, right?
Unfortunately, no. Even compared to other games like Fortnite or Apex Legends, Halo Infinite is more greedy and anti-consumer in many ways. And the core gameplay being genuinely stellar does not excuse the greed on display here. We won’t even need to talk about Halo Infinite vs previous Halo titles to showcase this.
Let’s dive into the examples.
- Challenges and Challenge Swaps
As I’m sure most are aware, challenges are the only way to progress through the paid battle pass (as well as free event passes). Sometimes you’ll get very specific challenges you have to go out of your way to complete. This is annoying, but they conveniently sell you challenge swaps as a solution to the problem they created. Challenge swaps can be unlocked through the paid battle pass and free event passes, or bought 2 for $2. You can also buy and unlock exp-boosts to level up faster. Or, if you happen to feel frustrated by not leveling up as fast as you’d like, you can buy battle pass tiers directly for $2 per tier. This totals around $200 to get everything, if you want to pay.
343i have stated they are working to improve the progression system, but doing so will take time. However, they are more than willing to leave us with a subpar system you can dump money into in the meantime. Even with a placeholder fix, it’s arguably not better at progressing than before. [[u/pwdkramer] [calculated that the quick progression fix is only an improvement after the first 24 matches in a day]
The fact that challenge swaps are monetized proves this progression system was designed with manipulation in mind. You spend $10 on a battle pass, and it’s (intentionally) so difficult and annoying to progress that you might genuinely consider buying a few swaps or tiers. You’ve already spent money on the pass, you’d naturally want a complete product, and that’s what they’re betting on. That SHOULD be a big enough red flag on it’s own, but unfortunately, it gets worse.
- Armor Cores
This is THE number one biggest offender. Currently there are three Armor Cores: Mk.VII, MK.V, and Yoroi. The Armor Core system limits individual cosmetic items to only work with one compatible Armor Core. (Seemingly the only armor cosmetics that don’t apply to this are Emblems and Armor Effects.)
This means you can’t mix and match armor pieces freely, but that by itself is not that big of a problem. An argument can be made that this keeps the different armor art styles from clashing.
But these limitations apply to more than just armor. Armor Coatings (player colors) as well as Visor colors, are also limited to individual Armor Cores.
This means you could unlock or even purchase an Armor Coating, and then not be able to use it on your favorite Armor Core. This also enables 343i to sell that same color twice, or charge for items that are free by default on other cores.
We are already seeing this happen. The Yoroi core starts with no Armor Coatings unlocked. But in the storepage of Nov 25th, the Cadet Blue Armor Coating, one of the starting colors available for free on the default armor, is being sold in an $8 bundle under a new name for the Yoroi core, along with a visor included in the paid battle pass.
No additional work is done on 343i’s part to make this Armor Coatings work with the Yoroi core. It is literally the same texture being sold to you.
A bug in the Halo Waypoint app proves the armor core limitation is arbitrary. In this app you can customize your armor on the go. Thanks to this bug, we can see that not only are armor pieces compatible across cores with minimal issues, but Armor Coatings and Visors are just textures and presets that work universally across all armors They are selling the exact same file to you. And on the Nov 26th shop you can see **343i are literally trying to get you to buy Red for the second time’s, and nothing is stopping them from doing it a third time. They could potentially try to resell it even more times if they add more Armor Cores.
This would be the equivalent of trying to individually sell you the free unlockable colors in Apex Legends, not just once per color, but also for each individual character.
**Even the bots (computer players) have more customization options than players do, as they can seemingly wear random armor with no restrictions.
And I haven’t even mentioned that Weapon and Vehicles coatings are not compatible beyond their specific items either, and how the same Emblem can be sold for armor, weapons, vehicles, and profiles separately.
Not to mention they could sell you armor pieces equivalent to what’s in the battle pass for a different core. Allowing them to sell the same or similar armor pieces twice, if they wished.
- Armor Coatings
Aside from what was mentioned in the section above, equipping Armor Coatings are the only way to change the color of your character. By default you only get 10 colors to choose from for the Mk.VII and Mk.V cores (Yoroi gets none by default). Notable exceptions include Pink, Black, and White. The only way to get more colors is through free events and premium purchases.
In fact, one of the only ways to get the color white was to spend $20 on the Zvezda armor bundle in the store during launch week (Nov 15th-21st). There is no way to purchase it separately. If you didn’t like the armor in the bundle, and only wanted to paint your character white, you had to pay $20.
To top it off, if you did buy that, you can only equip it to the default armor core. Meaning you will likely have to purchase that color again if you want to use it on other armor.
**Some of the armor coatings are so basic it can be hard to tell the difference between them, and yet they’re still sold separately despite practically being duplicates. **
Even games like Apex Legends are more generous in this regard. On average, each character has the same 14 basic skins, and 24 higher tier skins, all of which can be unlocked for free via gameplay. And most of Apex’s or Fortnite’s premium cosmetics are far more interesting than basic color schemes. Most Halo Infinite Coatings look like they can be made in under half an hour, and they still charge 5-20 dollars for them. [[u/Skjolbir] shows off how easy modern texturing can be in [this post]
- Armor Kits
This is another type of cosmetic sold in the store and Battle Pass. Each Armor Kit is a pre-built set of cosmetics you can apply to your spartan, but these cannot be changed or customized at all.
In the Battle Pass, several Armor Kits can be unlocked. Each kit represents a character from Halo Reach’s “Noble Team”. Yet some of the armor pieces used in these kits cannot be found elsewhere inside the Battle Pass.
If we take a peek at the leaked bundles [planned to appear in the shop, we can see these missing items are seemingly going to be sold separately
If true this means 343i sold you the Armor Kits in the Battle Pass, and is planning to sell the ability to fully customize some of those kits as a separate purchase.
This also applies to the eSport Armor Coatings currently being sold in the shop as Armor Kits.[
- The Battle Pass
Halo Infinite’s season 1 Battle Pass is called “Heroes of Reach”, it has 100 tiers to progress through, and features an Armor Core and cosmetics based on the iconic armor of Halo Reach.
Aside from the frustrating (and monetized) progression problems, many fans are still ecstatic to see their favorite armors return, yet some fans can’t seem to find their go to armors in the pass at all. Like with the Armor Kits, looking at the leaked store bundles [reveals many of these missing armors are seemingly planned to appear in the store and cannot be unlocked through the Battle Pass.
4 of these bundles, each including helmets and armor pieces from fan favorite sets, (CQC, JFO, GUNGUR, and HAZOP,) appear as if they’ll each cost you an additional $20[ [ x ] if you need them to recreate your old look.**
Purchasing these four sets alone would cost $20 more than Halo Reach did when it launched. (If you bought Halo Reach when it launched it would have cost $60, and if you add all 3 of its map packs the total would be $95.) Collecting all of the Halo Reach inspired armors planned to be available would cost more than the game they were based on plus all of its DLC, and you would still have to grind through the Battle Pass to boot.
With how many bundles and armors Halo Infinite already has ready to sell, not including all the Halo Reach inspired armor in the Heroes of Reach Battle Pass feels like a scummy move, and sets a bad precedent for future seasons.
It also appears **even the promotional art used to directly promote the Battle Pass in game shows off cosmetic items planned to be sold separately
And to top it off, Halo Infinite’s Battle Pass doesn’t even reward you with premium currency, whereas the passes in games like Fortnite or Apex Legends have enough earnable currency to buy the next Battle Pass at no additional cost.
- The Tenrai Event
This is a free event advertised 6 months prior to Halo Infinite’s early multiplayer launch. It features a free event pass you can progress through like a mini battle pass.
Let’s start with the false advertising leading up to the first event in Halo Infinite.
In the Multiplayer Overview Trailer, **343i showed off the Yoroi Armor Core with an amazing-looking helmet and armor while saying “We’ve seen the samurai already. That’s one of our event armor cores, and that’s gonna be something that players can earn through gameplay for free.”
Later in the Inside Infinite June 2021 blog they revealed the “Fractures’’ events, showed off a beautiful artistic render of the Yoroi Armor as it appeared in the Multiplayer Reveal trailer, and implied you could unlock things “–like the Yoroi armor shown in the multiplayer trailer.” for free.
Yet throughout all of this, they failed to mention that the helmet and several of the armor pieces they showed off in both the trailer and the blog are not actually a part of the free event. Instead they are premium items to appear in the store at a later date.
Technically you could say 343i didn’t actually say we would get the helmet for free, as they only said we’d get the “Yoroi Armor Core” for free. But even if they didn’t technically lie, it’s still very misleading at best. They got everyone hyped for cool armor coming during a free event, only to pull the rug out from everyone and make them pay for what they got excited for.
Even the artwork used to promote the actual free unlocks used in the trailer and waypoint blog features items that are only available for purchase .
Plus, the progression through the Tenrai event pass is even worse than the battle pass. Not only is it also challenge based (which you can of course use those purchasable challenge swaps on), you can’t actually complete the pass until we get well into 2022.
The pass uses special event challenges that appear in your list of weekly challenges. Each event challenge completed earns a tier in the event pass. Not only do you have to complete the regular weekly challenges to make room for more of the event challenges, you only get 7 challenges to progress with for each week of the event. The event isn’t continuous either; each of the 6 weeks is split up to appear at different dates. You cannot progress the pass outside of these dates. With these restrictions, the earliest you could complete all of the challenges needed to unlock everything in the pass is March 2022. If you miss just 2 of these weeks you cannot unlock everything in the pass.
Without purchasing anything, one of your only free cosmetic options will look barren for months. But they do conveniently sell premium Yoroi armor pieces, of course.
And 343i have not stated if these armors or cosmetics will be available after this event ends. Needless to say, this event can easily generate a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out). This conflicts with some of the implied values 343i stated leading up to launch[
- Item Prices and Value
This will be the most subjective part of the explanation. What price something should be is almost completely subjective.
But it is clear that Halo Infinite cosmetics are more expensive than games like Fortnite or Apex Legends. But how? They literally use the same prices to sell their items. Each item costs around $5-$20. The catch is in how these cosmetics are used.
In Fortnite, the most expensive your character can be on average (not counting emotes or Wraps) is $55. To do this, you’d simply need to buy a $20 skin, use the Back Bling of a different $20 skin, and buy a $15 pickaxe. Apex is even simpler. If you don’t count what doesn’t directly affect your player appearance, the highest an outfit can be is around $30 (thanks to an expensive bundle).
Halo Infinite’s maximum can be much higher. In fact, it’s too early to calculate. Theoretically, each equipable cosmetic type could come from a separate $20 bundle. With 13 armor cosmetic types directly affecting your appearance, a single Halo Infinite outfit could cost $260. Maybe that price will be even higher one day. And that’s not considering Weapon or Vehicle Coatings.
Even if you only buy one “low quality” $5 item for each slot, it could still amount to $65. That’s $10 More expensive than constructing a premium Fortnite outfit made entirely out of legendary items. Plus, the cosmetics you would purchase in Halo Infinite to do this can’t be used freely, thanks to the Armor Core System.
That’s of course the worst possible scenario and assumes a player only wants to equip a separate premium item in each slot, but it illustrates how quickly these prices can add up.
To make yourself look how you’d like in Fortnite or Apex Legends you only need to purchase one or two specially designed cosmetics that appeal to you, or find a few you like in their Battle Passes. Do that, and you have a complete outfit.
In Halo Infinite armor pieces are meant to be mixed and matched (with limitations) to create a much more customized look. This also means a “complete” outfit is one more built to the player’s taste. But a huge amount of the options are behind massive multi-purchase price tags. Many players may never be able to afford their dream look. You cannot even recreate every possible Spartan from Halo Reach without spending more than $20, as the battle pass alone does not contain every armor piece from the game it’s inspired by. Even better off players may not be able to afford buying 5+ bundles and a Battle Pass to make their perfect outfit.
This brings me to my last point. Modern free-to-play prices aren’t just high, they’re inaccessible. Many players have to SERIOUSLY think about spending 10-20 dollars, and they certainly can’t make those purchases regularly. So even if you’re ok with this free to play model and pricing, you have to acknowledge it’s locking many players out of the fun of customization entirely.
For a moment, imagine if everything currently in the store was priced 1-5 dollars. Suddenly those same players described above will be able to make purchases more freely and frequently. These are people 343i will hardly make money off of as it is now, so lowering the prices to something affordable could actually negate the loss of profit per purchase. I know I certainly would be willing to make a few purchases within a week if the prices were manageable, but as they are I don’t feel like buying anything at all.
Through leaks, it seems everything planned to appear in the shop could total around $1,035. So even with the imaginary low prices, being roughly only a quarter of the current prices, Halo Infinite would still have over $250 worth of cosmetics to sell in Season 1 alone. Even if half of those bundles are being saved for season 2, AND they were only priced 1-5 dollars, that’s still more than $100 dollars of stuff to sell in a season, and that’s not even including the Battle Pass. And let’s not forget that the campaign is still full price if you don’t have gamepass.
Even though collecting everything would still be far out of reach for any average consumer, lowering the prices to what was suggested would still make customizing your character significantly more affordable. It would become a lot closer to real player expression, and less of a flex of one’s wallet.
- In closing
Combine everything together and Halo Infinite is legit trying to bleed players of everything they’re worth, and they’re willing to cut and restrict content and features, at the cost of user experience, to do it. It’s an inexcusable mess that brings everything else about the game down. We cannot let this become the next beacon of the industry, or games of the future will be even worse.
I haven’t been able to highlight every problem in this, and I didn’t even talk about how much better Halo used to be with player expression and progression, but this is long enough as it is.
Halo Infinite absolutely should make money. Microtransactions used to support a game are not inherently evil, but there’s always a breaking point, or a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and in this case there’s actually an insane amount of greed and manipulation going on here. Regardless of how Halo Infinite changes, we should always push back against companies heating the pot and making games more and more anti-consumer.