Halo Infinite Season Two Update Fixes Busted Battle Rifle

Screenshot: 343 industries

To watch Halo Infinite closely is to submit to a constant emotional boost. One day, it tops the charts. The next day, it feels like all social media is calling it a “dead game”. Or maybe the developer adds a ton of cool stuff to the game…then breaks a ton of other cool stuff…then undoes what was broken? Yeah, it’s a wild ride. Yesterday developer 343 Industries deployed a patch claiming to fix (most of) what was broken by another patch earlier this month, meant to announce the second season of the first person shooter.

Released on May 3, Second season of Halo Infinite, called “Lone Wolves”, introduced a handful of new modes and cosmetics to the content-starved game. But the update patch changed the game in a way that irritated the Halo Infinite fanbase. For one, it introduced a bug that caused the Combat Shotgun, a burst weapon that has been a staple of Halo for decades, to become stuck. The developers have also quietly removed a handful of skill jumps – methods of traversing around levels that aren’t immediately obvious to most players, meaning they’re essentially shortcuts used by those who are either dedicated, well-informed.

This combat shotgun error is now fixed, says 343. (Curiously, 343 noted that the fix fixed repeated firing of “semi-automatic pistols” in the game, but I haven’t heard of any other weapons to (aside from Combat Shotgun jamming.) Earlier this month, Halo Community Manager John Junyszek confirmed that the jamming was indeed an unintended bug, but the studio has yet to publicly elaborate on how it turned out. occurred or why it took several weeks to undo the error. Representatives for 343 did not respond to a request for comment.

More importantly, yesterday’s patch restores a handful of skill jumps that were removed from four maps: Aquarius, Bazaar, Live Fire, and Streets. Yes, the so-called “pizza jump” – where you can jump from a pizzeria’s awning to enter an adjacent building – is back, a restoration of one of Halo’s most popular map shortcuts. Infinity. On Twitter, Alexander “Shyway” Hope, a Halo esports commentator and analyst known for shedding light on how skill jumps work, Noted that most of these shortcuts look “exactly the same as before”.

I hope too underline that 343 did not restore all deleted jumps. For example, an electrical box on Live Fire, which players once used as a shortcut to reach the central part of the map, is now purely cosmetic.

But on the other hand, some jumps that were briefly purged are even easier to see. A narrow ledge on Aquarius, for example, now has a yellow pipe next to it. Without the pipe, a casual player could look at the ledge and immediately write it off as part of the visual background. But with the yellow indicator, that player’s curiosity is aroused. It’s Video Games 101. You see a bright yellow thing, you want to jump on it. It’s all part of the developers’ eternal quest for balance: ensuring the game remains fun for the most dedicated fans without alienating casual gamers in the process.

In this week’s patch notes, 343 simply stated that “various skill jumps that relied on small props or thin ledges have been restored on subsequent maps” without giving further explanation. I expect players to spend the coming days and weeks researching all the minor changes the studio may have introduced.

This week’s update also adds a number of minor changes. In the campaign, thescorpion gun, an achievement that gives you access to a tank gun with unlimited ammo, is being restored. (Speedrunners, rejoice!) And, for the dozens of us wearing this season’s new Rakshasa armor kit in multiplayer, your leg should no longer mysteriously disappear at the start of each match.