Halo Infinite progression system: how does it work?
Update: As of November 18th, Halo Infinite’s controversial progression system has been overhauled to allow players to gain XP from participating in matches. Completing Challenges will still grant additional XP at roughly the same rates we saw at launch, but with some tweaks to “better serve players of all skill levels”. Although this update means the current Weekly Challenges have had to be reset, all players who log on between November 23-30 can claim this week’s Ultimate Challenge reward as compensation for the inconvenience. While they’re no longer the sole source of XP in Halo Infinite, Challenges remain a major part of the game’s Battle Pass progression system. Daily and Weekly Challenges grant rewards to players who complete specified in-match activities that refresh, as the names suggest, both daily and weekly. There’s also an Ultimate Challenge that kicks in if you finish all your Weekly Challenges with time to spare. A significant departure from tradition in Halo Infinite is that level progress won’t become more demanding over time. Advancing from level 1 to level 2 will require the exact same XP gains as advancing from level 99 to level 100, for example. This will be another big change for players who are used to ranking up fast in a game’s early stages and having to strive for more advancement down the line.
Halo Infinite Challenges and their XP yields
There are core three types of Challenges in Halo Infinite: Daily, Weekly, and Ultimate. Daily Challenges, as the name suggests, reroll every day. You can receive up to three Daily Challenges per day, with progressively more difficult challenges unlocking once easier ones are completed. An example of an entry-level Daily Challenge is to simply take part in a match. Weekly Challenges are similarly self-explanatory, rerolling once per week. Players can complete up to 20 of these per week, with three unlocked for you to work towards at a time (four for premium Battle Pass holders). Weekly Challenges can be a little more involved than Daily Challenges, though still quite straightforward. Sample requirements include: winning a match (as opposed to just taking part), performing specified gameplay feats, or killing a set number of enemies with a particular weapon. Daily and Weekly Challenges both unlock in Stages, with progressively higher difficulty levels once you’ve completed the easier ones:
Stage 1: A Challenge which can be completed in any game mode, including a Bot Arena against AI opponents. Stage 2: A Challenge which requires you to participate in a PvP match. Stage 3: A Challenge which requires you to win a PvP match.
If you complete all of your Weekly Challenges before they reroll, you’ll be issued an Ultimate Challenge. As you might expect, this will be a tougher feat than what you’ve faced so far, but the reward for completing it will be something suitably shiny, like a rare item skin.
Halo Infinite Battle Pass and the progression system
Progression in Halo Infinite is measured by the Battle Pass system, which features 100 tiers of rewards per season. Like many games of its type, Halo Infinite includes two Battle Pass progression paths: a free one and a paid one. For every 500 XP you accumulate, you’ll advance one level through your chosen path and unlock a goodie, usually along the lines of a skin or new animation. This means that players who choose not to fork out the extra cash for the paid Battle Pass will still have something to work towards, as every level of the free pass still nets you a reward. The advantage of the paid Battle Pass is that the rewards are a bit better, and are unique at every level. The free tiers, on the other hand, tend to feature more generic repeating items. Furthermore, the paid Battle Pass sometimes gives you an XP Boost as your reward, something I didn’t see any evidence of on the free path. However, players on the free path often receive a reward that allows them to reroll a Weekly Challenge they don’t like, which could potentially be quite useful. With the surprise launch of the game’s multiplayer modes three weeks before the campaign’s release date on December 8th, Season 1 (Heroes of Reach) is now active. The season will last for six months, with the changeover to Season 2 planned for May 2022. Not only does this give you plenty of time to weigh up the pros and cons of purchasing the premium Battle Pass (or not), but it’s been confirmed that Battle Passes don’t expire when a new season launches, so you can keep working through owned Battle Pass content at your own pace.
Halo Infinite time-limited event passes
In addition to Battle Pass Challenges, Halo Infinite will also feature limited-time event passes. These free-to-play events will feature their own separate progression track of 20 tiers each, and completing them will net you an event-specific reward. The flagship for this feature will be the Fracture: Tenrai event, which will be available for around one week per month during Season 1, with other time-limited events filling out the rest of the calendar. Every time an event recurs, players who’ve made progress on it in the past can pick up where they left off, so you’re not back to square one if you don’t finish all the tiers in a single week. 343 Industries have clarified that taking part in time-limited events will also contribute XP towards your main Battle Pass progression. However, this only works in one direction, and you won’t gain XP towards any limited-time events while playing on the main Battle Pass. That’s everything we know about Halo Infinite’s progression system, but watch this space for updates about future seasons and any tweaks to this admittedly divisive system.
