Halo Infinite's first-ever Mid-Season Update is here, introducing a huge variety of improvements to the game but adding no new content.
Halo Infinite's first season has been mired in criticism, despite the plethora of content it introduced and the many events that have come along the way. It honestly comes as a surprise that Season 1's Mid-Season Update comes with literally no new content, seeking merely to improve ongoing issues with the game. The fears brought forth when we first found out about the Mid-Season Update have sadly come to light.
You see, no number of Fracture: Tenrai, Cyber Showdown or Tactical Ops Events are going to add what a seasonal update can add. We need new maps, we need some new weapons, we need new content. Despite the rumors that still persist about new maps possibly coming to the game, we can assure you that the Mid-Season Update is not the event we wanted it to be.
That does not, however, mean that it is necessarily a bad update. It is a patch, after all, so it comes with a huge assortment of legitimately fantastic improvements to the game. This Mid-Season Update may go down in infamy for not bringing new content to Halo Infinite, when new content could surely help with Halo's faltering player-base, it should be praised for the many bug fixes and improvements that it brings.
What is Coming in the Halo Infinite Mid-Season Update?
343 Industries are introducing a ton of game improvements and bug fixes in the Mid-Season Update. These include improvements to first-person animations, the game's audio and cheat detection as well as quick resume in Xbox Series X|S consoles. There are also big stability improvements coming to the Xbox One version of Halo Infinite, and the OpTic Gaming Bundle is being made available in the Halo Championship Store.
Patch Notes: Halo Infinite Mid-Season Update
Following are the complete patch notes for today's Mid-Season Update for Halo Infinite Season One. You can also find them in full on Halo Waypoint, for those of you who want 343 Industries' comments thrown in there.
Halo Infinite Mid-Season Update: Global
- First-person animations, including reloading and clambering, now appear smoother at all framerates.
- The following sound effects are louder in the audio mix for both multiplayer and campaign:
- Enemies throwing grenades
- The Needler's supercombine
- Player Ravager completing its charge
- Multiple improvements to Quick Resume on Xbox Series X|S consoles including increased reliability of reconnecting to Halo Infinite's multiplayer and customization services. Players who have purchased Halo Infinite's campaign digitally should also see less prompts to purchase Campaign after using Quick Resume.
- Players who did not receive an Achievement after completing its requirements should see it unlock after updating and launching Halo Infinite.
- Improvements to Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range (HDR) output on Xbox Series X|S consoles.
- Color accuracy improvements when playing on a PC with an AMD GPU and FreeSync capable monitor(s). If you want to play with HDR enabled, ensure it is enabled HDR in Windows and the AMD Radeon Software/Settings.
- Stability improvements for Xbox One consoles.
- Launching Halo Infinite with an out-of-date PC graphics driver will now direct players to download Halo Support's recommended drivers.
- PCs with Intel Integrated Graphics hardware may experience less graphical corruptions.
- Intel Integrated Graphics are below Halo Infinite’s minimum system specifications. Gameplay on this hardware may be functional but is likely not performant.
Halo Infinite Mid-Season Update: Multiplayer
- Improved cheat detection and other anti-cheat improvements.
- Sound effects for receiving damage as well as enemy footsteps and gunfire are now louder in multiplayer's audio mix.
- The Combat Sensor's range has increased from 18 meters to 24 meters in Big Team Battle (BTB).
- Added new telemetry to help our developers gather more information on shot registration issues.
- After receiving a matchmaking ban, players can select the Play button in any matchmaking playlist to see when their ban will end. This expiration time will be in the MM/DD/YY format and PT time
- The Optimal Polish Initiated armor coating is now available for all players who have submitted a valid code on Halo Waypoint.
- Players standing on destroyed vehicles will no longer experience stuttering or desyncs.
- Matchmaking playlists now reflect accurate Estimated Wait times.
- The Post-Game Carnage Report (PGCR) will now reflect the correct winning team after online matches.
Halo Infinite Mid-Season Update: Campaign
- Improvements to Campaign's save system to prevent data loss.
- Interactive items, such as uncollected audio logs and ammo crates, now have their intended sound and visual effects after completing the Campaign's final mission.
- The description of Forerunner Artefacts now appears correctly when playing in a language other than English.
Halo Infinite Mid-Season Update: Known Issues
- Local Area Network (LAN) servers cannot be started from the in-game menus.
- LAN servers can be started on Steam by launching Halo Infinite with the following launch options: -server -console -lan
- This workaround is currently only available for Steam.
- This issue only affects starting a LAN server on PC. Joining a LAN server in-game works as expected on all platforms.
- The Bot Bootcamp matchmaking playlist has an inaccurate Estimated Wait time. Actual wait times may vary but should be much shorter than the listed Estimated Wait.
Well, there you have it, folks: Halo Infinite's first-ever Mid-Season Update! It is full of fantastic improvements to the game that fix a variety of different issues, despite the fact that there is nothing new being added here. Let's look at it glass-half-full: Halo Infinite is a great game, so any further improvements are great, even if it's nothing new.