As promised, Halo Infinite has received its 29th content update, and with it came a smaller operation pass and a host of other changes.

The update’s main focus is Halo Wars-related content, such as the Mark IV armor core and accessories related to the Spirit of Fire. These items are featured in this update’s operation pass, which is free for everyone for five weeks before the operation changes again. However, an optional purchase worth 500 coins will give players permanent access to the pass, and the MA5 weapon model.

343 Industries also revealed the next two operations, along with their duration. The first one after Spirit of Fire is called “Cyber Showdown III,” which runs from March 5 until April 1, 2024, and will focus on Chimera-themed rewards. After that, it’ll be “The Yappening II,” which will run from April 2 to April 29 and will feature customizations inspired by the Grunts.

The next major change for this update is the introduction of a new multiplayer map, called “Illusion.” Accessible via custom games and matchmaking playlists, Illusion puts players in an ONI lab that’s experimenting with active camouflage. Because of this, players who are within the experimentation zone will appear invisible unless they sprint, fire their weapon, or leave the area.

Several armor-related changes were also introduced in this update. Aside from the Mark IV armor core, players can also repurchase the Halo Championship Series Year 1 Armor and Weapon Kits; the sets will be available in the shop until May 28. Additionally, players can now equip each item separately instead of only being able to use them in a set.

Speaking of armor pieces, players can now use any shoulder pad with any armor core. Previously, shoulder pads weren’t universally usable, so certain designs were only compatible with specific armor cores.

343i has also updated how the Armor Hall will appear to players. Previously, the Armor Hall showed the player’s armor core as they were customized, which led to longer load times. To solve this problem, 343i decided to change it so that the Armor Hall would show the default appearances of each armor core.

Lastly, Halo Infinite has an updated title, menu, and loading screens.

Image Credit: 343 Industries.

Here’s the rest of the update, which includes new features for Forge, and some weapon balance changes. A list of resolved issues and bug fixes will also be included below.

Halo Infinite Content Update 29 Patch Notes

NEW OPERATIONS AND ARMOR CORE

The Spirit of Fire Operation, which launches alongside this update, features a free 20-tier reward track themed around the Halo Wars series. Additionally, the Mark IV Armor Core is available to all players for free and will unlock immediately after this update has been installed. Players do not need to purchase the Spirit of Fire Operation Pass to acquire this Armor Core.

Upcoming Operations

Looking ahead, the next two Operations that will be active after Spirit of Fire are:

• Cyber Showdown III
  • Active between March 5, 2024, and April 1, 2024.
  • Free 20-tier Operation Pass featuring new Chimera-themed rewards.
• The Yappening II
  • Active between April 2, 2024, and April 29, 2024.
  • Free 20-tier Operation Pass featuring armor customizations inspired by (and, in some grim cases, sourced from) the Unggoy, also known as the Grunts.

NEW ARENA MULTIPLAYER MAP: ILLUSION

A new Arena multiplayer map, Illusion, is now available in Custom Games and various Matchmaking playlists. On Illusion, players will fight in a symmetrical Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) lab experimenting with active camouflage. Players who enter the experiment zone will become invisible until they sprint, fire their weapon, or leave the zone.

MULTI-USE SHOULDER PADS

All shoulder pads in Halo Infinite, regardless of when or how they were released, can now be used on any Armor Core.

UNLOCKED HCS ARMOR AND WEAPON KITS

All Halo Championship Series (HCS) Year 1 Armor and Weapon Kits have been updated so that their included customization items can now be equipped separately. The included Coatings, Emblems, and Visors can now be used on all Armor and Weapon Cores. This change did not remove the existing Armor and Weapon Kits; the original Kits are still available for use via the Armor and Weapon Kit sockets in the Armor Hall and Weapons Bench menus.

If you did not purchase these Kits during their initial run, some of the Year 1 bundles have temporarily returned to the HCS Shop menu:

• Cloud9
• FaZe
• OpTic Gaming
• Sentinels
• Spacestation Gaming

ARMOR HALL PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

To improve performance and load times in the Customization menus, the preview tiles throughout the various Armor Socket menus have been updated from dynamic images to static images. As a result, the preview tiles will now show Armor customization items on their original, non-customized Armor Core rather than the currently viewed Armor Core with its equipped customizations.

NEW MAIN MENU BACKGROUND

The Halo Infinite title screen and main menu have been updated with a new background scene depicting the damaged Zeta Halo ring. The loading screen used while entering or leaving a multiplayer match has also been updated with new artwork.

NEW FORGE FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS

AI Toolkit Updates

This update introduces several new additions to the Enemy AI toolkit: AI patrol zones, a vehicle spawner, and new AI trait nodes.

The new “Wander While Idle” toggle on the AI Spawner object allows AI units to patrol within a single AI Move Zone. When this toggle is enabled on an AI Spawner that’s linked to multiple AI Move Zones, AI units will move from one linked zone to the next then patrol within the final Move Zone.

The new AI Vehicle Spawner object allows creators to add AI-piloted vehicles to their Forge maps. When the AI Vehicle Spawner is selected, players can select the vehicle type and AI unit type that will be piloting the vehicle via the Object Properties menu. In addition to this new spawner object, AI units can now pilot or be passengers in vehicles that are found on the map. If players are piloting vehicles near AI units, they will now attempt to hijack the player’s vehicle as well.

Several new AI Trait nodes were added in this update. The traits listed below are compatible with all AI units available in Forge:

• Bonus Health
• Bottomless Clip
• Damage Resistance
• Bonus Health
• Health Recharge
• Movement Speed
• Movement Speed With Turret
• Prevent Weapon Firing
• Vampirism

As there are now separate Player Trait and AI Trait nodes, a new Traits category has also been added. These nodes are compatible with both Player and AI Trait nodes. The nodes marked below with an asterisk (*) were originally found in the Player Trait category but were moved to the Traits category in this update.

• Apply Trait Set
• Apply Trait Set For Seconds
• Apply Trait Set Until Death
• Combine Trait Lists*
• Declare Trait Set*
• Get Random N Traits*
• Remove Trait Set
• Remove All Trait Sets
• Trait List*

Covenant Objects

Players now have access to new Covenant-themed Forge assets and various visual FX. This includes the following object types:

• 11 primitive shapes
• 17 structure pieces
• 34 accent pieces
• 54 decals

Mode Creator and Mode Prefabs

Prior to this update, Forge creators who designed game modes needed to use the Custom Game Mode Editor menu or build their mode into a map file via Script Brain objects. To improve the Forge mode creation experience, this update introduces the Mode Brain object and mode Prefabs.

Forge creators can now build a multiplayer game mode within a Mode Brain object in Forge then publish it as a Mode Prefab. Similar to Forge map files and object prefabs, other players can search for, bookmark, and rate Mode Prefabs. In Custom Games, Mode Prefabs function as game modes and can be used on any map file.

Aside from improving Custom Games and the mode creation process, these changes will also result in less Forge map budget being spent on mode logic and less time being spent replicating mode logic across maps.

Customizable Foliage and Decals

Players can now adjust up to three colors and the metalness of the most used foliage objects in Forge.

Several decal objects have also been updated to support additional color customization:

• Cracks
• Dirt Patchy
• Leaks – A
• Leaks – B
• Road
• Runoff
• Splatter
• Stain
• Stones
• Streak

New Placeable Weapons

The Infected Energy Sword, the Sandwich, and the Mythic Sandwich can now be placed in Forge maps. The Mythic Sandwich first appeared as a weapon in an Easter Egg on the map Forbidden, while the non-Mythic Sandwich is a new addition to the weapon lineup.

The Infected Energy Sword can be spawned via Weapon Racks and Weapon Pads, however, the Sandwich and Mythic Sandwich cannot. The two Sandwich variants must be placed on a map instead.

New Sandbox Nodes

Two new Script Brain nodes have been added to improve gameplay scripting:

• On Repair Field Heal: detect if an item is being repaired by an active Repair Field equipment.
• On Player Infected: detect if a player has become infected or is infecting another player.

Other Forge Improvements

In addition to the new features and content above, the Forge team is continuing to fix bugs and implement various smaller quality-of-life improvements. For example, this update contains the following improvements for object scaling:

• Improved single axis selection with a mouse when using the Translation and Scale widgets on a selected object.
• Scaling an object on two axes at once is now less likely to result in the object snapping back to its previous scale.

BALANCE CHANGES

BANDIT EVO

The Bandit Evo’s error angle has been reduced to 0, meaning it no longer has bullet spread (also known as “bloom”) when firing.

RESOLVED ISSUES AND BUG FIXES

GLOBAL

• Improved stability for Halo Infinite on both Xbox consoles and PC.

PC

• In-game colors no longer appear washed out or grey when playing in borderless full screen mode on a PC with an AMD GPU and a FreeSync capable monitor.
• Players using an AMD RX 5000 or 6000 series graphics card on PC will no longer experience a crash when viewing the “About Battle Passes” menu or when selecting the “December Update” news item on the main menu.
• An issue causing PCs with an NVIDIA graphics card to experience extended loading screens on launch has been resolved. If your PC has an NVIDIA graphics card, update to the latest recommended driver version (546.01) or later.
  • For more information on PC requirements and recommended graphics drivers, visit the PC Hardware Specs and Drivers for Halo Infinite article.”

MULTIPLAYER

Menus

• Armor Hall performance and load times have been improved by changing the dynamic preview tiles to static images.
• Nameplate emblems now load consistently after completing a multiplayer match.
• Thumbnail images in the Maps menu no longer flash while loading.
• Players who have completed all of their unlocked Battle Passes and Operation Passes but have locked Battle Passes or Operation Passes that are incomplete will no longer receive a “Congratulations” message after finishing a multiplayer match.
• Previewing an unequipped Battle Pass now automatically highlights the next locked tier in that Pass rather than the first tier.
• The Multi-Core icon no longer overlaps with the preview tile for individual bundle items in the Shop.
• Improved legibility of the “Multi” icon and label while viewing Multi-Core customization items in the Armor Hall menu.
• Players’ equipped customizations now appear correctly when previewing Multi-Core items in the Shop menu.
• When viewing the Inspect menu for a customization item contained in a Shop bundle, the description text can now be scrolled through using the right joystick on a controller.
• The widget displaying a player’s current Rank in a Ranked playlist now scales appropriately with the selected screen resolution.
• The Team Lineup tab of a Big Team Battle match’s Post-Game Carnage Report (PGCR) now consistently aligns the selected Gamertag and the arrow over the Spartans displayed on-screen.

Gameplay

• To mitigate an issue affecting equipment falling out of the playable area on various maps, all equipment pads in the Ranked Arena playlist and Ranked custom game map variants will no longer enter the “red rack” state when players pick up their equipment.
  • A future Halo Infinite update will resolve this issue and reintroduce the “red rack” state for equipment in Ranked playlists and Ranked custom game map variants.
  • This change was made via a backend playlist update. To view the weekly changelog for Halo Infinite multiplayer playlists as well as the map and mode combinations for all playlists, visit the Halo Infinite Multiplayer Playlists page.
• Plasma and Hardlight Coils now consistently inflict their expected area-of-effect (AOE) damage when destroyed by gunfire.
• Players can now catch Fusion Coils thrown at them more consistently in Firefight.
• Firing at the turret of a Rockethog now consistently transfers damage to the entirety of the vehicle like it does on the Warthog.
• The Plasma Pistol and Ravager can no longer be charged and fired while converting an Extraction Device.
• All Banished bosses and High Value Targets can now be healed by the Repair Field equipment.
• Downed players now receive an on-screen notification when they are being revived by the Repair Field equipment.
• Doors throughout the map House of Reckoning will now open consistently when approached by players.
• Players can no longer access unintended areas outside of the playable space on the map Chasm.

Custom Games

• The XP Cap notifications on the Match Details menu and the Custom Game lobby menu now have consistent formatting.
• Marking now works as expected in offline Local Arean Network (LAN) Custom Games.

Customs Browser

• A new sorting type option has been added to the Customs Browser menu: Time Elapsed. When selected, this option displays the current runtime of each Custom Game session in the top left corner of its tile.

Theater

• Rewinding a Theater film to a previous kill will no longer result in the killfeed and score notification being duplicated.
• Resolved an issue that allowed players to view a non-functional camera perspective when selecting an Observer as the spectated player in a Theater film.
• Heads-Up Display (HUD) animations no longer play when a Theater film is paused.
• When viewing a Theater film, a player leaving the match no longer has a chance to disconnect the first-person camera of another player from their Spartan.
• Map thumbnails now load more consistently in the My Match History menu.

Observer Mode

• The reticle alignment between Observers and players’ first-person perspective has been improved, meaning an Observer’s reticle will now more accurately depict where the player is aiming.
• Observers can now consistently navigate through player perspectives when AI bots are present in Custom Games.
• Resolved a crash that occurred when observing a Custom Game with only AI bots as players.
• The order of players listed in the Custom Game lobby menu is now consistent with the order of player perspectives available to Observers in-game.
• Starting a Firefight: King of the Hill match with an Observer present will no longer result in the Observer having a Spartan in-game.

Visual

• Weapons submerged in water now consistently display outlines.
• The selected Brightness setting value is now applied consistently across Forge and non-Forge multiplayer maps.
• The Brightness setting can be adjusted in the Screen Calibration menu, which can be accessed by navigating to the Video tab of the Settings menu and using the shortcut listed on the bottom of the screen.”

FORGE

File and Map Publishing

• The Credits tab of a Forge file’s Details menu now wraps to a second column when there are too many collaborators for a single column.

Edit Mode and Creation Tools

• The Forge Budget meters will now display tenths of a percentage rather than only whole numbers.
• Improved single axis selection with a mouse when using the Translation and Scale widgets on a selected object.
• Scaling an object on two axes at once is now less likely to result in the object snapping back to its previous scale.
• Improved physics, materials, and collision on Banished, Forerunner, UNSC, and Biomes objects.
• Using a mouse to drag the scroll bar in a swatch’s color dropdown no longer results in the color preview tiles moving during scrolling.
• The “Get squads from spawner” node in a Script Brain now consistently returns squads.
• Script Brains that create Nav Markers will now work consistently across all rounds of a Custom Game.