Halo Infinite might have only come out last week (opens in new tab). But Halo modding is an art going back decades, and it didn't take long for modders to crack 343's newest creation open.
In the game's first week, modding was fairly limited, and the game's Nexus Mods page (opens in new tab) is limited to mods that realised you can swap the game's loading screens out for any .mp4 you fancy. But over the last few days, a few more ambitious creations have appeared on Infinite's battlegrounds.
Feel like Infinite's Warthog is a little underpowered? Then let me introduce you to GameCheat13's Tank Hog.
But the true rite of passage for any burgeoning Halo modder is to figure out how to make the latest variation of the Pelican dropship fully flyable. This week, veteran Halo modder RejectedShotgun managed exactly that—and while he reckons it could use a bit of work, it flies beautifully over Infinite's big team battle arenas.
Give it time, and I'd like to hope he figures out a way to let you use the Pelican to airdrop something better than a Gungoose for your team. Tank Hog creator GameCheat13 has also managed to get the Banished Phantom dropship (opens in new tab) working in game, laying the groundwork for some daft aerial battles.
It's still early days for Infinite modding, but it'll also pay to see how 343 responds to these efforts. The studio has actively encouraged modding in the Master Chief Collection, releasing full mod tools for Halos 1 through 3 (opens in new tab). But Halo Infinite is a live free-to-play game—and outside of older exceptions like CS:GO or the legal grey space of Apex Legends' underground mod scene (opens in new tab), contemporary F2P games don't often open themselves up to modders.
The MCC itself launches with the option to run the game without anti-cheat but with matchmaking turned off, letting you mess around with the game's files freely. Here's hoping for a similar feature to eventually come to Infinite.
Modding or no, an early peak at Halo Infinite's impressive Forge mode (opens in new tab) suggests fan-made creations will radically transform what Halo Infinite looks like when it arrives next year (opens in new tab). But it'll still fundamentally be a closed box, and I'm excited to see modders continue to tear open Infinite's guts and do things the in-game editor won't allow for.
At the very least, I'm hopeful some enterprising modder will port Yoyorast Island (opens in new tab), the best Halo map of all time, into Infinite.
