Halo Infinite will launch without campaign co-op or the Forge map-building mode

Halo Infinite will launch without campaign co-op or the Forge map-building mode, Xbox has announced.

In an extensive development update, Halo Infinite creative lead Joseph Staten explained that campaign co-op and Forge both need some additional polishing time. Both experiences are now due to launch as part of the seasonal roadmap in 2022. Staten says the goal is for campaign co-op to launch in season 2 about three months after launch and for Forge to launch with season 3 roughly six months after Halo Infinite releases.

I probably won't need to remind Halo fans that playing through the campaign with a friend is very much fundamental to the core Halo experience, right alongside PvP multiplayer. Forge is another fan-favorite feature that lets you create your own game mode with an extensive selection of custom maps, rules, and more.

"Unfortunately, as we focused the team for shutdown, and really focused on a quality experience for launch, we made the really tough decision to delay shipping campaign co-op for launch. And we also made the tough call to delay shipping Forge past launch as well," Staten said.

"Our number one priority is making sure that whatever we ship, whenever we ship it, it meets the right quality bar, and across all platforms: Xbox devices, PC and all its different configurations. And when we looked at these two experiences, campaign co-op and Forge, we made the determination they're just not ready."

Staten also reaffirmed to fans that despite not having a concrete release date just yet, 343 and Xbox are still "100% committed" to launching Halo Infinite this holiday season with a single-player campaign and free-to-play multiplayer. Furthermore, news on the release date is coming "very soon."

Find out what we thought of the free-to-play multiplayer mode in our hands-on Halo Infinite technical preview impressions.