Here’s What Halo Infinite’s Already Infamous ‘Match XP Beta’ Will Look Like

Games Here’s What Halo Infinite’s Already Infamous ‘Match XP Beta’ Will Look Like Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Nov 2, 2022, 08:55am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Halo 343 Halo Infinite is on the verge of releasing its Winter Update, which does look like a lot of solid changes, alongside the official, early introduction of Forge mode, which may be the most impressive thing we’ve seen out of Infinite so far. But also coming is what has been described as a “Match XP Beta,” a truly bizarre term that reflects just how screwed up Infinite’s progression system has been from the start. Progression has relied almost solely on an endless series of completed challenges, but now, the “beta” will start giving out XP just for playing, and achieving certain things within a match not tied to specific challenges.

343 has now detailed what exactly the Match XP system will look like in the game, and what it will factor in when giving out XP. You get baseline XP just for completing a match, then bonus XP based on how well you and your team perform. What that looks like in practice from the example shown would be: Arena Match Complete – 150 XP Top 50% of Team – 50 XP Winning Team – 50 XP MVP – 50 XP Match XP 343 This is opposed to challenges, which will still exist, but those give out 200+ XP or so depending on which ones they are, and that’s almost matched simply by playing and completing one game under the new Match XP system.

MORE FOR YOU The ‘Backsies’ Billionaire: Texan Builds Second Fortune From Wreckage Of Real Estate Empire He’d Sold Watch For A Top In Yields Alex Bregman Is The Heart And Soul Of The Houston Astros Why did this take nearly a year to implement? Why is it called a “beta” at all? 343 has an answer to the second part of that, at least: “The reason we are calling this the Match XP “Beta” is because we are going to be monitoring the values for each reward category, adjusting them as we move forwards with this new model. This means that the values when the Winter Update launches will not be final, and you can expect to see them tuned up or down to provide an enhanced earn rate. ” In my opinion 343 just made themselves look silly by calling such an obvious addition to the game a “beta,” even if I understand that the numbers for XP may change over time.

You can just…change the numbers if you need to, but having this be a “beta” just sounds incredibly stupid. Will this fix progression in Halo Infinite? I mean, it certainly will help somewhat. The challenge system will remain in place but this will be a way to earn XP and move through the various battle passes without hyper altering your playstyle just to complete challenges, or risk barely making any progress.

Challenges themselves are changing too in order to feel less oppressive: They are reducing the number of Challenges required to hit the Ultimate Challenge from 20 to 10 All Challenges in regular weekly decks can be completed in any playlist Challenges are more “general” overall, and 343 says that all challenges in the future should end up being playlist agnostic. I mean sure, sounds good. We’ll see how this “beta” goes soon enough.

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