UPDATE: January 19
Hey everyone - The Hotfix was deployed at 10AM PT today for Xbox and PC and included a fix for an issue with Oddball but also was hoped to address the ongoing matchmaking issues affecting Big Team Battle.
Unfortunately it looks like today’s patch did not fully resolve the BTB matchmaking problems. The team is continuing to investigate and while we believe there may be some minor improvements, matchmaking is still not working as expected.
Many people worked hard to get this fix out the door and it’s naturally very disappointing we’re not seeing the desired and expected results. We know this is an ongoing source of frustration and the team will continue to work towards a resolution.
We’ll continue to provide updates as we have them. In the meantime, we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate this issue.
The aforementioned grants of 5 XP boosts and Challenge Swaps also went live at 10AM today. Log in any time between now and 10AM PT on Feb. 16 and they’ll be automatically added to your inventory.
Thank you and our sincere apologies that today’s update did not go as we’d hoped. More to come.
UPDATE: January 18
Howdy folks - Quick update that so far so good with the certification process. As of now, the BTB hotfix is tracking towards being released tomorrow, Jan. 19. When the hotfix does go live, the aforementioned grant of XP boosts and challenge swaps will also be active (automatically granted upon log in).
We’re almost there. Thank you for your patience as we’ve all dealt with this issue. Fingers crossed we’re back to full BTB fireteam shenanigans very soon.
UPDATE: January 14
Happy Friday, everyone!
As promised, back with a quick update on the status of Big Team Battle.
Yesterday the test pass was completed and the hotfix is now in the process of going through Xbox certification. As long as no issues arise, we are targeting releasing this hot fix middle of next week. (note that Monday is an office holiday in recognition of MLK Jr Day)
To kick off the new year and also offer a small token of appreciation for your patience during these issues, all players will be granted 5 XP Boosts and 5 Challenge Swaps. This will be active once the hotfix is released and automatically added to the inventory of every player who logs in. This grant offer will remain active for about a month so just log in any time before then and you’ll get hooked up.
We continue to work towards the mid-February patch and will share details as we get closer. Additionally, work continues on plans/updates to other key topics we know are top of mind for the community (economy, armor customization, ranked, cheating, networking, etc.).
Thank you and have a great weekend!
Hey everyone, happy new year! Hope everyone had a safe and awesome holiday break.
The 343 Team is largely back in action this week and I know many of you are very eager to get some updates on a number of topics. We are working on a broader info update and driving towards being able to share more details and a roadmap to help answer your questions and manage expectations.
That exercise is going to take some time to flesh out but please know it’s in process - there’s just a lot to dig into and it’s a rather complicated web of work items / dependencies / priorities, etc… so we want to be sure to share informed, accurate information.
In the meantime, we want to first and foremost provide a situation update on the state of BTB in Halo Infinite. As you know, we’ve been dealing with some frustrating issues with BTB nearly since launch and despite a few attempts at solving and mitigating before the holiday break, we were not able to get this fixed. While BTB has remained playable, there are matchmaking issues that increase with more players and larger fireteams have a low chance of successfully joining into a game together.
A strike force continued to work on this over the break and we’re optimistic to say we believe we have a fix in hand for the core issue. This went into QA last week and so far it’s looking positive - we are not seeing this issue occur internally using this build.
Next steps are to continue testing and then move into the certification process as we prepare to release a hot fix / patch for this issue. It’s a little too soon to give an ETA yet but please know our goal is to release this as soon as we can while ensuring it doesn’t have any other unintended impact to the retail product. It won’t be this week, but we hope it’s not too much further out and we’ll share an update as soon as we have line of sight on a release date (once we clear ‘cert’ we are then ready to ship).
We know there are a number of other topics you’re eager to hear about - including some issues with instances of cheating. The team has been working on a patch for mid-Feb that looks to address this and other things, and we’ll have more details to come as we get closer to release. We are actively triaging and still working to get as much as we can into this Feb update while still ensuring no negative impacts or regressions to other parts of the game.
For now we are opting to slipstream the BTB fixes given the broad scope of impact on all players. That’s not to say issues like cheating or wonkiness with the ranked experience aren’t important, but they have other dependencies and are on a bit longer timeline than this BTB fix which is nearly ready to go.
Thank you for your patience and continued support. While we were blown away and humbled by the reception and launch of Halo Infinite, we’ve got a lot to get after now as a live service studio. We will continue to make improvements and address feedback everywhere we can - though some things are going to take more time than many of you, and us, would like. Thank you - please keep the feedback coming - we’re in this together with a great foundation to grow and evolve upon. Stay tuned for more details.
