Networking overhaul, weapon balance tunings, bug fixes, stability, and anti-cheat improvements, Firefight Custom, and more—we've got the official briefing on all these major elements in this blog (with even more information to come in the patch notes).
Let’s take a look!
Networking Overhaul
A completely overhauled networking model will be coming to Halo Infinite in a matter of days.
After launch, we heard the feedback around the game’s online experience loud and clear: desync, being shot around corners, etc. And while we did release numerous updates to the previous model, they were not having the impact that players expected and deserved. When we recognized this, the team decided to shift gears and pursue a fundamental change to the underlying networking model. Since then, we’ve been heads down to make it happen.
Last December, we shared a first look at it when it launched in Firefight: King of the Hill and was featured in the Combat Workshop. It was great to see such a positive response from the community online, in our surveys, and on Halo Support—but we knew that it still needed some extra polish before it could roll out on a wider scale.
Now that we’ve given it that extra time, we are confident that this updated model will result in a better and more consistent multiplayer experience.
Easy Anti-Cheat
Easy Anti-Cheat is a tool that monitors players’ PCs while they’re playing to combat cheating. With the March Update, our detection and enforcement capabilities have been enhanced, greatly improving Halo Infinite’s overall security and our ability to respond to cheaters.
If you encounter cheating, be sure to use the in-game reporting feature or head over to Halo Support to submit a ticket at aka.ms/HaloReportAPlayer.
Squad Battle Refresh
Since its debut in Halo Infinite, Squad Battle quickly became a beloved staple playlist for those who were looking for something between the concentrated action of 4v4 and the larger-scale mayhem of 12v12 Big Team Battle.
With the arrival of the March Update, we’ve got a refresh of the Squad Battle playlist featuring seven new maps made by incredibly talented Forgers.
There are some returning classics, like Halo 4’s Perdition and Halo: CE (on PC)’s Timberland, along with brand new maps for you to fall in love with.
- Perdition
- Refuge
- Timberland Evolved
- Rendezvous
- Gyre
- Harvest
- Behemoth
For further details, check out our Squad Battle Refresh blog when it drops next week!
Weapon Tuning Updates
The March Update is packed with weapon balancing changes that seek to address community feedback across the board.
M392 Bandit & Bandit EVO
- Increased reload speed
Reload speed has been increased by 10% to address common feedback that reloading feels slow and clunky.
Heatwave
- Decreased aim assist falloff range
- Decreased aim assist range
- Decreased aim assist angle
We’ve seen players share that they were getting frustrated when getting hit by a longer-ranged Heatwave shots. The weapon’s unique ability to hit those shots, particularly with its alt-fire setting, is still core to its identity. That said, we do feel like it was a bit too easy to be effective outside its intended range.
Starting next week, it will require more precision when going for those long-range shots, while keeping its close-range capabilities largely untouched.
Plasma Pistol
- Faster charge-up time
- Slightly decreased rate of fire for single shots
- Faster overheat
Over time, we have observed that using the Plasma Pistol’s single-shot functionality has become the primary way that players operate the weapon, effectively utilizing all the benefits of the weapon but with minimal risk element.
These changes are intended to give the charged shot greater effectiveness while still allowing players the ability to find success with its single shot.
Stalker Rifle
- Decrease the number of shots to overheat
- Slower venting rate per second
We noticed an increase in community feedback expressing that the Stalker Rifle was over-performing. When watching players use it online, we could see they were able to use the weapon to chain together multiple kills without much room for counter-play.
As a result, we have decreased the Stalker Rifle’s overheat threshold and increased the venting duration. This adjustment should reduce how often players can find success while rapid-firing shots and require them to be more intentional with each pull of the trigger.
VK78 Commando
- Increased close range friction
- Less aggressive bloom
With the change from the Battle Rifle to the Bandit EVO as the primary weapon in Ranked Arena, the viability of the Commando was inherently lowered.
A recurring theme from players was to give the Commando some love, and so the goal of these changes is to give this weapon better handling – to address the feedback around it feeling “slippery” – and a more consistent damage output so players can hold their ground against the Battle Rifle and Bandit EVO.
Gravity Hammer
- Fixed issue that was doubling the power of the Gravity Hammer and its variants
- Increased its original tuning by 1.5x to allow for better damage and knockback
The Gravity Hammer’s reign of terror is… well, not over, you’re still going to be soiling your armored breeches when you turn around only to find a player speeding towards you with a Grappleshot and Gravity Hammer already mid-swing, but it’s not quite the boogeyman it has been recently.
We have increased the damage and knockback of the Gravity Hammer (and its variants) to be 1.5x its pre-Season 5 strength. This places those values at a halfway point between what it was pre-Season 5 and what it has been in recent months.
We’re excited for these updates to make their way to the battlefield next week. Once you go hands-on with them, be sure to share your feedback and let us know how they feel!
And, rest assured, we’ll be continuing to fine-tune the sandbox in future updates.
Firefight Custom
Since Firefight: King of the Hill arrived in Halo Infinite back in December 2023, players have been having a blast fighting the Banished within the House of Reckoning and across other maps—and on custom-made Forge maps.
With the March Update, we are introducing Firefight Custom. This is a “blank” Firefight mode that keeps the high-level structure of Firefight: King of the Hill intact (Sets, lives, skulls, scoring, Custom Game options), but removes all the logic related to hills. In other words, this is Firefight: King of the Hill without the King of the Hill.
Mode scripters will have full control over what constitutes a win or a loss of a point, whether teams earn skulls, which spawners are triggered and when, and if players can earn more lives. We wanted Forgers to spend less time and budget scripting basic features of the mode and instead spend their time on the logic that supports their ideal experience. This new variant also pairs well with Forge’s previously released Mode Creator, allowing mode creators to create their experience once and share it with many map creators.
New Forge Node Graph functions have been added to empower Forgers on this front. These nodes will work in both Firefight Custom and the original King of the Hill variants:
- On Firefight Set Start
- On Firefight Set End
- End Firefight Custom Set
- Fail Firefight Custom Set
- Adjust Firefight Custom Lifepool
- Get Firefight Custom Set State
- Get Firefight Custom Wave Spawners
- Get Firefight Custom Boss Spawners
- Override AI Spawner Definition
With the granularity of these options, Forgers have more power than ever before to create their own unique PvE modes, and we’re excited to see how that continues to level up the experience for players!
Quality of Life Improvements
Forge
In addition to Firefight Custom, Forge will also be receiving numerous bug fixes next week. One of the most noticeable updates will be improvements to Copy Protection for Maps and Modes. Now, Forgers’ creations will be more secure, thus reducing copy-cats, and clearing the way for the creator to get more credit for the things they build and share with the community.
Stability
Last, but certainly not least, this update also has lots of improvements to stability thanks to a plethora of crash fixes. We use data via in-game telemetry, community feedback, and reports shared with the Halo Support team to identify crash fixes that would provide the most impact to our players. If you do ever run into a stability issue with Halo Infinite, please report them on the Halo Support site.
That wraps up this preview of the upcoming March Update. Thank you to the Halo community for your continued support as we continue to go after player feedback that continues to improve Halo Infinite!
When the update drops on March 19, be sure to head over to aka.ms/HaloInfiniteUpdate for the full patch notes.
