Halo Infinite adds Halo 2-inspired playlist and third-person mode

Halo Infinite’s latest major update introduces classic Halo 2 maps to the game and a third-person mode, among other features.

Operation: Great Journey drops today, four days ahead of Halo 2’s 20th anniversary on November 9.

It features the Delta Arena playlist, which includes recreations of seven Halo 2 multiplayer maps paired with game modes like Slayer, Oddball, Capture the Flag and King of the Hill.

The playlist includes legacy gameplay settings and the starting weapon is the MA5K Avenger, which is inspired by the Halo 2 SMG.

“While utilising custom game settings to recreate Halo 2’s movement is relatively easy, capturing that classic ‘feel’ was a bit harder to nail down,” Halo Infinite designer Evan Colson told Xbox Wire.

“Considering all the subtle difference between Halo Infinite and Halo 2, a 1:1 recreation was never quite in the cards, but what we did come to was that of an amalgamation between the two, with settings that move like legacy Halo, but plays with elements of the modern sandbox.”

As announced at the 2024 Halo World Championship last month, Operation: Great Journey introduces a third-person mode to Halo Infinite too.

Microsoft has also revealed plans to release a fully playable version of the Halo 2 demo shown at E3 2003, including gameplay that never made it into the final game. It will be added to the Steam Workshop on November 9 as a mod for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

The platform holder recently rebranded 343 Industries as ‘Halo Studios’ and confirmed that it’s working on multiple games developed with Unreal Engine 5.

The news was announced during the Halo World Championship, and accompanied by a video showing a technical test of various Halo-themed locations running in UE5.

Certain Affinity was one working on what could have been a ‘game-changing’ battle royale mode for Halo Infinite, the studio’s former design director Mike Clopper recently claimed.