Halo Infinite's new mode will change the franchise forever

The Halo franchise is breaking the FPS barrier for the first time with a new dedicated third-person mode.

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Halo has always been a first-person shooter first and foremost. Sure the series has toe-dipped with third-person views, namely when operating vehicles or picking up huge turrets, but you're still playing most of the game in that eyes-on view. That is until now.

343 Industries recently announced Halo Infinite is getting its own third-person mode sometime in November 2024. The new view fundamentally changes gameplay by giving players more optics on their environments. Halo senior community manager John Junyszek has a quick explanation: "You have more awareness, you get to see your Spartan." That last part is important for 343 because the studio continues to sell cosmetic microtransactions for Halo Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer.

The third-person mode will be something that can also be scripted in Forge, and it will be playable first in Firefight, coming to PVP and Forge later on.

"What you are watching is third-person Halo for the first time. We have brought it to Halo Infinite, we're going to be starting with third-person Firefight in a future update, but we also have the ability to do it in PVP and control it in Forge. We are extremely excited," Junyszek said at a community stage devtalk at day 1 of the Halo World Championships 2024 event.

Junyszek also confirmed that the third-person mode can be scripted, highlighting a Juggernaut gametype that jumps right to third-person.

"As soon as the player becomes the Juggernaut, we flipped it from first-person to third-person."

The new functionality was apparently a laborious effort at both 343 Industries and assist studio Skybox Labs.

"Big shout out to the team at Skybox, and at 343. We all pulled together, everybody got to fix bugs, everybody got to help with implementation. It was a ton of work, but a ton of fun the whole way through," Halo Infinite senior software engineer Colin Cove said at the event.

Halo Infinite's third-person mode is coming sometime in November 2024 and will be released alongside a new update for the game.