The SAW, Railgun, DMR, SMG, Spartan Laser
Beam rifle, carbine, feul rod, Storm/Plasma rifle
Mantis, gauss hog,
A lot of these became new and staples. I guess the balance was off, but it was fun for campaign. They haven’t showcased them for campaign either, so I assume they took out so much.
I hope they come down the road, probably will too if this is going to be like the Halo game they are going to build on for the next decade.
Honestly didn’t realize how many iconic weapons were cut until now. Honestly wouldn’t be too upset except for a lot of the new weapons feel underwhelming and a lot of times just outright bad. Really do hope they add some of these back down the line 
I’m not surprised they removed so many vehicles and weapons. I think I’m pretty agreeable with newer changes and things like that, but a lot of people seemed to hate things like the Mantis or the SAW, or all the Promethean weapons for some reason. Instead of just choosing not to use the weapon they’d complain about them, so 343i took their feedback into account and removed them from the sandbox.
But, I’d assume at least some of these will be added in later, similar to how Halo 5 had a lot of added in content post-launch. If not used for multiplayer because of balance issues, they should at least be in for Custom Games and Forge.
There’s not much point in having the SAW and SMG in the same game, unless the SMG is dual wieldable.
The DMR was replaced with the Stalker Rifle and does the same thing but with more damage per shot (I’m personally not a fan of DMR-type weapons in Halo in general so this gun irks me)
There was a sudden surge of people complaining about the Spartan Laser ruining BTB throughout Infinite’s development so that undoubtedly reached 343’s ears and prompted its removal. I personally don’t feel like the Skewer is a sufficient replacement, especially against heavier armor which the Spartan Laser could easily pierce through.
Complaints of the Beam Rifle being a “sniper reskin” likely reached 343 as well (which is rich considering they basically did the same thing with the Stalker Rifle being a battery DMR). The Shock Rifle is an interesting replacement and works pretty well, but ultimately it’s a weaker Halo 5 Binary Rifle with a secondary EMP effect, and the Beam Rifle probably could have existed alongside it and other sniper weapons.
The Pulse Carbine seems to be designed as a hybrid of the Carbine and Storm/Plasma Rifle that replaces both weapons. I think this weapon is unique enough that the ones it replaced could still exist alongside it.
The Mantis is a strange removal, that was 343’s baby and with their push for buffing vehicles it puzzles me that they’d remove one of the most buff vehicles in recent Halo history.
The Gauss Hog removal is more obvious, it was always overpowered and neither Bungie nor 343 ever made any attempts to properly overhaul the balance. I think their idea is to have the Rocket Hog be the new Gauss replacement since it now fires semi-auto instead of 6 round bursts. I still think the Gauss could exist with a slower projectile speed and less bullet magnetism/aim assist while the Rocket Hog keeps its behavior from prior games.
They’re not, they were here for only two games, and the worst games. Plus these weapons would bloat the arsenal. 343 was wise in preferring quality over quantity. And most of these weapons are already in the game, in a different way.
SAW: AR
Railgun, Spartan Laser: Skewer
Beam Rifle, Carbine: Stalker Rifle (I do miss the Carbine)
Storm/Plasma Rifle: Pulse Carbine (I do miss the Plasma Rifle)
The Mantis wasn’t that interesting to game the game. And the Gauss Hog was too powerful, even for campaign.
I thought I remembered seeing the mantis on on three vehicle bay platform in an bbn old preview screenshot?
I have this small hunch that there’s still some content being held back from this beta and 343 are being sneaky sneaky about Dec 8th…
It was in an advertisement for Free Guy. And yeah, they’re probably holding content back. I don’t think it’d be a good move to not have much for Dec 8th.
Would love to see the SAW, DMR, and SMG back in the game, astonished by how few games they’re launching with. Sure maybe they’ll add them later, but what about the Campaign? Even if they add those weapons and we can spawn them in the campaign, we’ll never find them lying around…
Not a huge Mantis fan personally, but would really love to see the Gauss hog back, it’s been a staple since 2004. That and the Falcon! I really dislike the Wasp would love a human aerial vehicle that is more… Halo…
redundant weapons are fine becasue they offer more verity. In the real world is there only an M4 and AK? No. and many of the weapons that were added in H4 and H5 were very loved, and people really liked them. so no they are staple and deserve to be kept in the game.
Redundant weapons are bad. Halo isn’t like most FPS with 10 assault rifles and 10 snipers. It’s quality over quantity. And the current arsenal has already a lot of of variety. And Halo 4 and 5 did a lot of things wrong, especially weapons.
While i overall agree with you, for the Base-Multiplayer atleast, i still hope it will find it’s way back to Infinite for Funmodes and esp. for Forge. I’d really would love to see the Community tinker around them, even if you find them Redundant, it gives alot of value for longliveity if we have more options / choices. (H5 was in that regard amazing to add some req weapons in Forge) But for the Base-Multiplayer i rather stick them to Quality over Quality as well.
its quality and quantity, there are a bunch of fun weapons that people love throughout the franchise. and removing them just because they are a little redundant is really not it. Having two different shoulder rocket styled launchers one that has a Hi Rof but slower projectiles and one that has only two shots but faster projectiles, its redundant because they are both ani vehicle heavy weapons that fire exploding projectiles, but its fun because it offers variety to the sandbox.
And no Halo 4 and 5 added a lot of really cool and unique weapons to the sandbox, and the fact people keep asking for them to make a return, alone, proves you wrong. Sticky det was such a unique and interesting weapon to use in the sandbox. and it sucks it hasnt come back yet.
and that not even talking about weapons that are majority fan favorites that arent in the game like the Beam Rifle, Brute shot, Plasma Rifle, etc.
I’m sure we’ll see at least some of this stuff return. Keep your hopes high.
Thats not an excuse. People still want weapons from reach even though they been in Halo for one game. everyentuslly they need to add quantity, because quality can only go so far before it also becomes repetitive and boring.
I feel like we’ve been asking for the Falcon or Hornet since Halo 4, and what does 343 give us? The Wasp. It’s not that I hate the Wasp, but if I had to choose between it or the Falcon or Hornet, I’d pick either the Falcon or Hornet over the Wasp anyday.
It’s actually a non issue entirely. Not every weapon has to be good for every map. Redundancy in the sandbox intuitively seems like a problem but in actuality it doesn’t matter in the slightest.
It literally has no impact. If weapons have slightly different functionality that is meaningful than they aren’t redundant in the first place.
Its the sort of problem that isn’t really a problem.
I gotta say a lot of the new weapons aren’t very good anyway
Agreed! The Wasp just feels much more like a forerunner type thing. It doesn’t really make that much sense, unless you realize that it was created to be a more balanced opposite to the banshee in MP.
Watching it get dropped in from the Pelican in the campaign overview was so weak… Would really love to see them get more “halo” looking vehicles in the game, everything looks a bit off to me.