If you’ve been keeping up with Halo Infinite throughout season four, you’ve probably noticed that developer 343 Industries has been ramping up the amount of content it’s been putting into the title. The pattern has reached its inevitable peak with today’s release of a trailer for season five, dubbed ‘Reckoning,’ which is slated to launch on Oct. 17.
Halo Infinite season five won’t just be coming with two new Arena maps and a new battle pass as players have come to expect but also includes many massively requested new features and gamemodes. That includes the anticipated return of the PvE Firefight mode with a King of the Hill twist, as well as Extraction, a competitive mode that hasn’t been seen since Halo 4.
Firefight is inevitably going to be one of the big talking points from this reveal. The trailer suggests that it won’t be coming when the season launches on Oct. 17 but instead sometime later down the line in the mid-season. In a feature announcement that feels complimentary to the return of Firefight, Halo Infinite will also be adding an AI Toolkit to its Forge mode. That means having the ability to place down AI combatants pulled straight from the campaign in order to build arcade experiences that cater to PvE sensibilities.
This was a feature that the developer teased it was working on some months ago, but it appears to have come sooner than players were expecting.
Reckoning is making some significant changes in the cosmetics department, too. Ever since Halo Infinite launched its armor core system, and the inability to swap armor pieces between the armor cores has been a point of much criticism. Steps were taken to improve it somewhat when armor coatings and visors were made to be cross-core compatible, but season five makes the most significant step yet by making helmets cross-core compatible as well.
When all this is combined with 20 free tiers in the battle pass, Flood-themed cosmetics, and the surprise quality-of-life update to allow players to earn battle pass XP in custom games, season five’s content package reads like something of a community wishlist fulfilled.
The specifics of what will be included in that battle pass remain under wraps, but a brief clip toward the end of the trailer teases the return of Master Chief’s Halo: Combat Evolved-era Mark V armor as a wearable cosmetic. It’s placed right alongside his Halo Infinite design in the shot, which will finally become available as a PvP cosmetic in season five as the reward for achieving Hero rank in multiplayer.
Halo Infinite’s fifth season, Reckoning, launches on Tuesday, Oct. 17.
