Halo Infinite Season 2 adds a bunch of new content (we’re getting everything from new maps to a battle pass with bloody Clippy the paperclip in it), but it’s some rather significant gameplay changes that have got top-level players talking.
Since Halo Infinite released, the best players in the game have been looking for any advantage they can get by stress testing every corner of every map for secret jump spots. These often take a great deal of skill and practice to execute, but mean you can traverse the map or take up vantage points that your opponents won’t expect. They’ve also mastered the art of ramp sliding, whereby you can move faster by dropping from a height and sliding down sloped surfaces. Both of these are unintentional mechanics on 343’s side, but they have become an extra, high-skill layer to Halo Infinite’s meta.
However, for Halo Infinite Season 2, 343 has removed several of the most prominent and effective jump spots and has nerfed sliding. This has angered many of those in the pro Halo scene, mainly because these things were never even raised as being problematic and the community was not made aware that these changes were happening.
Halo Championship caster Alexander ‘Shyway’ Hope, who also gives tutorials on how to pull off some of the mechanics that were targeted in the Season 2 update, has been vocal on this topic.
“Note that I have no animosity towards anyone, [I] love Halo Infinite, this community, and that’s not changing,” he says in a tweet. “But making significant changes to game balance [without] transparency or insight from your most dedicated fanbase just doesn’t feel like the best way to foster a healthy community.”
Note that I have no animosity towards anyone. Love Halo Infinite, this community & that’s not changing.
But making significant changes to game balance w/o transparency or insight from your most dedicated fanbase just doesn’t feel like the best way to foster a healthy community
— Alexander (@Shyway) May 4, 2022
Another Shyway tweet asking the community whether 343 should revert these changes has also racked up over 1,800 retweets, at the time of writing.
OpTic Gaming’s pro Halo player Tommy ‘Lucid’ Wilson was also outspoken on the changes, saying: “Who asked for any of these?”
The removal of these jump spots and the nerf to sliding has certainly put a bad taste in the mouths of many members of the competitive Halo community, right off the back of the most recent HCS Major in Kansas City.