343 Industries has always struggled with making theHalofranchise its own while retaining whatHalofans love about Bungie’s work. Living up to Bungie’s legacy hasn’t been easy, but 343 is working to find that balance withHalo Infinite. One of the best ways of doing that is, of course, listening to fan feedback from 343’s testing ofHalo Infinite. That’s already paying off as 343 announced Friday that it would be making changes toHalo Infinite’s combat sensor.
WithHalo Infinite’s technical preview playtest, players discovered that a big change had been made to the game’s combat sensor/radar. The new combat sensor had some interesting functionality. It only displayed enemies if they were sprinting or shooting, thus giving enemies a newfound level of stealth compared to previous iterations ofHalo’s combat sensor. The older versions of theHalomotion tracker displayed almost all enemy movements.
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343 knew that the new combat sensor would be controversial when it included it in the playtest. However, it wanted that feedback to decide if it was the right decision. The response was, as expected, both very loud and very clear. 343 describes the feedback as most players missing the features ofHalo’s classic combat sensor. As such, due to the clear message sent byHalo Infinitetesters, 343 has reverted the combat sensor to a more traditional form.
To be clear, 343 doesn’t say that the new combat sensor will be the exact same as it is inclassicHalogames. Rather, it says that the new combat sensor will “feel more like” the old motion sensor. It isn’t clear exactly how the new sensor will differ. All that 343 says is that movement is tracked other than crouch-walking.
These changes should go into effect by the time 343 launches itsnext playtest forHalo Infinite. Unfortunately, that playtest hasn’t been announced yet, so it could still be far off.Halofans can at least rest easy knowing that whenever it arrives, it’ll bring a more traditional combat tracker and thus a more authentic-feelingHaloexperience.
This situation proves how challenging the situation remains for 343 after all these years. Despite having released two of its own majorHalogames,Halofans still wantHalo Infiniteto have a combat reader akin to what came inBungie’s five majorHaloreleaseshad over a decade ago. As the combat sensor situation shows, 343 understands. Still, it has to be frustrating to want to try new things and know that work may be for naught.
Halo Infinitereleases late 2021 on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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