Screenshot: 343 Industries / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
It ain’t perfect, but damn do I love Halo Infinite. So naturally, I wasn’t all too thrilled when it suddenly kept crashing before it even reached the main menu and nothing seemed to fix it. Verifying the game’s file integrity, reinstalling it, restarting Windows, casting spells and rituals in the forest. Nothing! Turns out, the problem for me and many other players was that we were using Nvidia driver 555.99.
Long-Lost Halo Demo Comes To Life
Released on June 4, 2024, Nvidia Game Ready and Studio Driver 555.99 caused quite a bit of havoc for many fans of Halo Infinite as it rendered the game unplayable for most who had an Nvidia card and were timely with their driver updates. The workaround, of course, was to roll back to driver version 555.85. Halo developer 343 Industries acknowledged the issue early on. It released a statement via the official Halo Support X account stating that it was working with Nvidia to be sure the issue wouldn’t persist into the next driver update. Thankfully, driver version 556.12 was released on June 27 and lets Halo Infinite launch and run without issue.
How to update your Nvidia driver to play Halo Infinite
Odds are if you found your way to Nvidia driver 555.99, you probably know how to update your system to the latest version to get back into some Halo. If not, you can download the driver via Nvidia’s GeForce Experience app (which is how I prefer to manage my drivers), or by downloading the driver directly from Nvidia’s website. The latter is a handy way to locate past drivers should you run into any other issues.
While rolling back to the previous driver was the solution to playing Halo Infinite on a PC with an Nvidia card, it’s usually preferable to keep your machine’s drivers as up-to-date as possible. But now that 556.12 fixed the Halo issue, I have a can of Monster energy, an aggressively frantic metal playlist, and endless rounds of Husky Raid with my name on them.
Halo Infinite is killing its seasonal model in 2024. Three years after its initial launch, the live-service multiplayer shooter is shifting toward more bite-sized, 20-level battle passes arriving every four to six weeks. Developer 343 industries announced the content change in its January update stream on January 19, along with several other major features, cosmetics, and more that are set to arrive on the FPS this year
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
This guide will take you through everything you need to know about Halo Infinite in 2024—and it’s all looking rather exciting.
Halo Infinite in 2024: Goodbye Seasons, hello Operations
343 Industries didn’t mince words regarding the future of Halo Infinite’s content releases. As community director Brian Jarrard said during the stream, “we’re shifting away from seasons.” Seasons would arrive every few months, usually with some kind of theme and 100-tiers of unlockables through the battle pass. Instead, you can now look forward to regular “Operations,” starting with “Spirit of Fire” on January 30. Each Operation will have 20 levels of rewards to chew through, so while they’re not called “seasons” any more, things should still feel somewhat similar.
Operation Spirit of Fire isn’t the only thing arriving on January 30, however. You can look forward to the following additions once this update arrives:
Mark IV armor core (free for all players)
The ability to swap shoulders across different armor cores
A new 4v4 arena map named “Illusion”
Get hyped for Halo Infinite’s new map, “Illusion”
The new map, “Illusion” will have a symmetrical layout, making it great for competitive play as it ensures more even starts for each team. There’s even a super-narrow corridor running straight through the center with an uninterrupted sightline between opposing enemy bases, which will likely be a magnet for some serious carnage. If you’ve ever played Husky Raid, which has teams of Spartans face off against one another in a simple corridor, you know how deadly hallways can get in Halo. There’s also a lot of variable elevation from what we saw in the stream.
This new map is looking really promising and should be an excellent addition to the map rotation across various playlists.
Gif: 343 Industries / Kotaku
But that’s not all! Remember that corridor running straight through the map? Well, if you step in there, you go invisible. Objective based games like capture the flag or even king of the hill ought to see some interesting plays with a stealthy option like that so readily available.
The possibility that future maps might contain interesting augmentations like readily accessible invisibility or unique power weapons sounds like a welcome change from the usual rollout of standard arena maps that recycle the same guns and traversal methods.
Halo Infinite is leaning into nostalgia
Though there have been a few variations on Halo’s iconic assault rifle in Infinite, the stock assault rifle is reminiscent of the one that appeared in 2010’s Halo Reach. Joining this will be a new skin for the assault rifle that makes it look just like the assault rifle from Halo Combat Evolved, the game that started it all. As it’s just a skin, it won’t come with any change in stats (sorry, no 60-round magazine). The skin will be a part of the paid version of the January 30 operation.
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Kotaku
And the new Mark IV armor core, which is from the 2009 RTS spinoff Halo Wars, will also drop as a free cosmetic for all players.
Finally, in what seems like a cosmetic element pulled from the new “Illusion” map, there’s a square-shaped overshield that looks straight out of Halo Combat Evolved. It’s little things like this which help sell Halo as a cohesive world—and given the amount of stylistic changes the series has gone through, these unifying features are more than welcome.
Forge and playlist updates are on the way
If you’re into Forge creations, there’s some other fun headed your way on January 30, including Covenant-themed items in a nod to the series’ main antagonists and lovers of all things purple. Extra color customization options will also be available on January 30, which will add even more color options to choose from across the wide variety of in-game objects in Forge. Finally, “script brains,” which is a fancy term for code that lets complex objects t behave in unique ways, can be saved to game modes and used on multiple maps—previously script brains were inherently tied to a specific map.
Screenshot: 343 Industries / Kotaku
There’re also Flood-themed items coming to Forge, as well. Based on Halo’s undead enemy faction, these assets look particularly gnarly. Brian Jarrard referred to them as “moist” on stream. You’re welcome.
Finally, Big Team Battle will get three community maps added into the rotation in February, as well as refreshes to Husky Raid, Squad Battle, and Firefight. But most importantly, a new way of selecting matches is expected to arrive sometime in 2024 that is similar to Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s “Match Composer,” which lets you search across broad categories like player count, game type, and more (instead of mode-specific playlists).If you’re sick of playlists locking you into the same game modes over and over again, this should be a great way to customize what games you want to play. It works wonderfully in The Master Chief Collection.
If you’re looking to get some more time in with Halo Infinite, 2024 is shaping up to be a very good year for the iconic shooter franchise.
