Suspicions that Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries had quietly raised the prices of the game’s cosmetics were confirmed yesterday as community director Brian “ske7ch” Jarrard explained the arrival of multi-core armor—a feature players have waited two years for—is the culprit.
Despite the unexpected level of transparency in openly admitting season five’s price hike, players are still left with a bitter taste in their mouths that customization features many believe should have been in Halo Infinite since launch have resulted in a greater strain on their wallets.
“Shop prices on many offers have changed in conjunction with multi-core functionality being added to customization content,” ske7ch wrote in response to a tweet by content creator XLR8 pointing out the pricing discrepancies. He pointed out that in season four, similar price increases occurred for armor-coating bundles after that feature became multi-core as well. He further mentioned that “proactive” adjustments had been made to bundles featuring shoulder armor too as, like helmets in season five, they will be given multi-core functionality at a later date.
“I understand this isn’t necessarily what everyone wants to hear, but I hope this at least helps explain what did change and why,” ske7ch said. The sentiment that it isn’t what players want to hear is made apparent by the vocal response the announcement has received across social media.
“While I appreciate communication and transparency from ske7ch, the community was clearly not a fan of Halo Infinite’s pricing logic,” XLR8 said in a follow-up post. “The studio and the community are at an impasse, and there has to be a better way forward.”
Critiques of Halo Infinite’s pricing model for the store are nothing new. Feedback since the game launched eventually led to its first major rework and round of cost reductions in January of last year, but even that did little to improve the overall reception to the cost that new premium bundles were levying at players.
While posts have attempted to defend Halo Infinite’s prices by directly comparing them to similar competitors such as Call of Duty and Fortnite in the market, which make clear that Infinite’s bundles are either similar in price or cheaper by comparison, the numbers do little to quell community anger.
“There’s a lot of anger around the current prices,” content creator Rebs Gaming wrote in a follow-up to those comparisons. “343 Industries relies on shop revenue to continue developing Halo Infinite, which explains the prices. But the shop would bring in much more revenue if the prices were lower/fair especially for highly anticipated armor kits.”
“Charging more for fixing your own mistakes,” reads one frustrated post on Reddit discussing the update. “Infinite has gotten many W’s recently but this just straight up sucks.” As one player then added: “It’s just kinda deflating. I understand that the content took company time and money to update but NOT having cross core until now is on them.”
This is ultimately where the heart of the issue lies. Multi-core has been one of the most heavily anticipated features to finally launch with season five. After almost two years of waiting for it even in a limited capacity, players don’t like discovering that it came with a hidden cost—especially not on armor pieces that were previously cheaper. I can think of a few bundles I would buy now knowing I can use the armor on different cores, but the knowledge they will return more expensive than before adds an unfortunate air of hesitancy.
Season five of Halo Infinite is now available and its first Operation, Combined Arms, begins later this month on Nov. 14.
