During a stream in advance of the Halo Infinite Techincal Preview, 343 Industries multiplayer lead Tom French confirmed that Assassinations wouldn’t be coming to the game at launch. Since Halo: Reach, Spartans have been able to sneak up on opponents and grab them for one of several animations usually involving a knife and physical trauma. While popular among many fans, the games typically had an option to switch them off and supported quickly tapping the melee button to get a more traditional back whack instead.
There are a lot of changes coming to the world of Halo multiplayer when Infinite launches this holiday. Most notably, Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer will be free to play, a first for the series. While Halo 5: Guardians had a robust update schedule after its launch, Infinite‘s multiplayer suite aims to be in competition with true live services like Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Rainbow Six Seige.
After showing some of the first in-game footage of Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer in a recent livestream on the HALO YouTube account, Tom French and community manager Brian “Ske7ch” Jarrard brought up the topic of Assassinations, with French going into detail as to why they wouldn’t be in the game at launch. Recalling a story from an eSports event, French related that players at many levels play without the animations due to their length. Because the quicker melee kill is always available, pro players want those few extra seconds to remain dominant. The team at 343 Industries wants to reexamine Assassinations in the sandbox and see how the knife kills could fit in without becoming a nuisance for players at the highest skill level. This took them out of the game initially, and the developers have not solved the problem in time for Infinite‘s upcoming debut.
While this is surely disappointing to many Halo fans looking forward to Infinite, it’s par for the course when it comes to Halo sequels. The franchise has traded out features in every major entry, including deployable equipment, various weapon types, and even entire game modes. It doesn’t seem that Halo 5‘s card-based Warzone will be in Infinite in any capacity, and it would likely need a name change anyway thanks to the Call of Duty battle royale that shares its name. In addition, none of the footage shown so far has featured many of the Forerunner weapons that were so prominent in past games from 343 Industries.
As of now, until the final product is available, a lot about Halo Infinite at launch is still up in the air, but the hope is that the developers can iterate quickly and create an exciting cadence of additions that please new and old fans alike. Halo 5 was a pretty slim package at launch but evolved over time into a game worthy of the Halo name thanks to the addition of retro weapons, new cosmetics, and user-created maps. As an official live game, Halo Infinite will almost assuredly follow in those same footsteps, taking the same seasonal concept from 343’s work on The Master Chief Collection and bringing it to the next step forward in the journey of Master Chief. So, while it might not be in at launch, multiplayer Spartans will have the ability to stab each other in the back in no time.
Halo Infinite will release on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC in 2021.
