Microsoft and 343 Industries have published a trailer for Halo Infinite Season 5: Reckoning, revealing footage of some of the new stuff set to arrive in the multiplayer shooter’s fifth post-launch content wave.
Some highlights from the trailer include a reimagined version of Halo 4’s Extraction Mode, which we get a brief look at while the video shows off some gruesome flood-inspired customization options. The footage also gives players a sneak peek at two new arena maps: Forbidden and Prism. So far, the latter stage looks to be a claustrophobic cave with tight corners and bright purple crystals, which, if shot, will spawn shards that glom onto enemies, Needler-style. The former, meanwhile, gives Halo Infinite Season 5: Reckoning players an abandoned temple with long, narrow lines of sight to play with.
Other additions set to arrive in Halo Infinite Season 5: Reckoning is the option to add AI to Forge creations, the ability to earn Battle Pass XP in Custom Games, and a Hero Rank reward that grants access to the Infinite Mark VI Armor Kit. This new season will also allow players to equip any helmet with all Armor Cores. While you wait for the new content to drop on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S on October 17, 2023, you can watch today’s new trailer below.
Halo Infinite was released in 2021 as the latest entry in Microsoft’s flagship Xbox franchise. Although it was received well at launch, the following months and years left many worried about Master Chief’s future. For starters, on September 1, 2022, 343 announced that split-screen co-op support had been canceled. Only two weeks later, 343 studio head Bonnie Ross announced she would be leaving the company. Her departure didn’t exactly signal hope for the Halo community after the loss of split-screen co-op, especially considering it was already taking the developer much longer than anticipated to release additional seasons of content.
Then, in January 2023, Xbox and Bethesda were hit with mass layoffs, with the shift also seeing Halo Infinite creative director Joseph Staten moved over to Xbox Publishing before he eventually left the company altogether in April. There have been some positives, such as the reintroduction of Forge and a Custom Game browser, but 343 still has its work cut out for it. We’ll know if Halo Infinite Season 5: Reckoning will be enough to win back the player base when it launches in a few weeks.
