Halo Infinite devs pull Infection and Assault prototypes after accidentally releasing them

Halo Infinite conservatory mission stealth elites — (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

For a brief few hours, Halo Infinite fans had a way to access a prototype version of the series-favourite Infection mode. Naturally, that wasn't supposed to happen, so it has since been pulled.

Halo Infinite's grandiose Winter update is now available, finally bringing with it the series' iconic Forge creative tool. Players swiftly shuffled into the game to see what they could find before stumbling across some prototype modes that shouldn't have been there through a new file-sharing system.

The discovery of modes like Infection and Assault naturally sent players straight to Twitter and Reddit to query what was going on, though senior community manager John Junyszek has since confirmed the modes were enabled in error, and that players will hear more about their release windows when the team has whipped them into shape.

"It looks like you all got an early look at a few mode prototypes," Junyszek says to one fan on Reddit. "Since they still need plenty of work, we'll be hiding the listings - which will unfortunately invalidate any copies. When we're ready to share more about them and their release timings, we'll be sure to let you know."

Infection is a multiplayer game type that debuted in Halo 3. One team of infected players tries to convert the other survivors to their cause by slapping them with energy swords. If the survivors can last the round, they win. The mode has yet to appear properly in Halo Infinite, though that hadn’t stopped players from recreating it in Forge – long before the creative tool was available, incidentally.

Assault, on the other hand, tasks one team with arming and detonating a bomb in the other team’s base, which largely involves the Spartan carrying the bomb to stand around in a circle for a hot minute.

Meanwhile, Halo Infinite bot bootcamp is gone, which has left players without a permanent PVE playlist.