In November 2023, during Halo Infinite Season 5, developer 343 Industries first introduced the concept of Operations. They were brief free content releases that would last a few weeks and took the place of what was previously called Events.
This week, as part of the first Halo Infinite community live stream of 2024 (via PC Gamer), 343 Industries revealed that, going forward, there would be no more long Seasons updates for the game. Instead, the team will continue to release new, but smaller, Operations updates that will last around four to six weeks and will include battle passes with only 20 tiers.
This new era of Halo Infinite updates officially starts soon, on January 30, with the Spirit of Fire Operation. Players can expect a new area-style multiplayer map, a new Halo Wars-style Mark IV Spartan armor, and the ability to switch out shoulder pads with any Spartan armor style. The Forge editor will also get some objects and buildings for mod editors to try out in their maps.
343 Industries will even have a tie-in with the upcoming Season 2 of the Halo TV series on Paramount+, in the form of three optional helmets based on the Spartans in the show.
So why is 343 Industries shifting from months-long Seasons to shorter Operations updates? It"s likely because the developer is cutting back on content updates for Halo Infinite in general. The live stream had the team"s community director Brian Jarrard state:
We have a dedicated team working on supporting Halo Infinite and continuing to deliver coming forward, but also, we have additional teams now that are accelerating towards the future working on brand new projects.
Of course, 343 Industries has not stated exactly what those projects will be like. There were rumors earlier this month that an unannounced Halo-based battle royale project, developed primarily at Certain Affinity, had been recently canceled.