New Halo Infinite roadmap targets online co-op in August

Two feudal Japanese-themed Halo spartans — (Image credit: 343 Industries)

It's been a long wait for Halo Infinite's campaign co-op, and we still have a summer of waiting ahead before it arrives. A Halo Infinite blog post published Friday lays out what to expect for the remainder of 2022, beginning with season 2's launch on May 2.

Campaign co-op now has a "late August target," putting it square in the middle of season 2. Infinite's second season stretches until November 7, which is unusually long for a live service game. The blog post stresses 343's biggest priority remains the health of its developers and getting "into a sustainable development rhythm so that we can deliver great experiences to all of you while maintaining a healthy work/life balance."

Halo Infinite S2 roadmap — (Image credit: Microsoft)

"We know we need to deliver more content and more features more quickly. Staying true to priority zero means that sometimes we need to slow down in order to stay healthy and move faster later. But we’re also aggressively looking at ways to accelerate," the post states.

Campaign co-op was promised for season 2 when Halo Infinite released last year, so it's essentially coming in on target, even if the season is lasting longer than expected. It won't arrive fully formed in August, however: network play will be available at first, with splitscreen coming at a later date in season 3. And network co-op's August date is listed as a "target," which 343 describes as dates that "will become more certain over time." It's not quite a lock just yet.

Some good news, though, is that Forge may be arriving before its original schedule in season 3, though again with a caveat: it's listed for an open beta targeting September. 343 explains the goal is to get Forge into players' hands more quickly so that custom maps can start making their way into multiplayer:

"We've successfully had Forge in private flighting with a limited audience for some time, so we’ve decided to forgo a large-scale formal flighting program and go right to open beta. With this approach, we can get the core Forge tools out to everyone quicker while also remaining focused on our core priority of continuing to improve foundational aspects of Halo Infinite. Forge will persist from the open beta onwards, evolving and growing over time."

In addition to Forge and online co-op, season 2 includes new game modes, two new maps, and the ability to replay campaign missions. Earlier today Nat wrote that Halo Infinite's first season put its worst foot forward; hopefully with season 2, Infinite finds itself on surer ground.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).