Key Points
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Whether or not the Halo Infinite Battle Pass is worth it depends on what is important to you when playing.
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Going free-to-play has had mixed results, but it has improved since launch day.
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Whether the Halo Infinite battle pass is worth it is up to the individual player.
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Season 3: Echoes Within starts March 7, 2023.
Is the Halo Infinite battle pass worth it? Since the game launched in November 2021, it’s been a touchy subject. Popular first-person shooters like Overwatch 2 have ditched the loot box cosmetic system in favor of a battle pass. Despite the online controversies surrounding battle passes and calls for boycotts, free-to-play (F2P) games still churn out record profits.
Whether the Halo Infinite battle pass is worth it is open to interpretation. If you’re a Halo megafan like the staff at HaloHype, you’re probably gonna chip in the $10 it costs for new armor additions. It’s fair to be hesitant if you trailed off from previous seasons due to the bare-bones content and not enough to grind for. Before buying the Season 3: Echoes Within battle pass, it’s good practice to consider the history of Halo‘s battle passes, the armor catalog, and pricing.
Halo’s History With Battle Passes
The battle pass trend in video games has pretty distinct tradeoffs. According to Deconstructor of Fun, battle passes are versatile and effective for increasing buying temperature, engagement, and retention. Players are likely to log on and stick around when they have something to work toward, including cosmetics like in Halo Infinite’s pass.
However, a battle pass system does have drawbacks, besides not wanting to buy armor in a series known for earnable cosmetics. Often behaving as direct competition with other purchase types, battle passes may limit users to one-time purchases, thus hurting total revenue. If players have nothing to progress or play, they typically don’t want to spend the extra cash for armor in the store.
Top-grossing video games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Overwatch bring in cash by the truckload from this system alone. Halo Infinite is trying to find its footing, but it isn’t the franchise’s foray into the realm of battle passes.
The Master Chief Collection
Halo: The Master Chief Collection (MCC) started its own battle pass content stream in December 2019. This complete rework of the cosmetic systems coincided with the addition of Halo: Reach to the collection and the subsequent launch of the game on PC.
MCC is a platform for every mainline game in the Halo franchise. The bundle currently includes Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4. Maybe one day, Halo 5: Guardians experiences a resurgence through an MCC addition.
Because MCC is a paid game every battle pass comes with the purchase of the game. Any content added in the future is yours after you own the game, and semi-regular updates add tons of zany armor. As of Season 8, 343 has forgone seasonal battle passes in favor of these semi-regular content drops and game patches.
You can’t buy your way through a season in MCC. You only unlock what you play for. Being player friendly is part of MCC’s DNA, and each game in the collection has received additional original armor, weapon and vehicle skins, visors, and nameplates. Its battle pass system is one of the best in gaming and is over-the-top player friendly.
Halo Infinite
Halo Infinite’s approach to battle passes is passionately “discussed,” and it makes sense for buyers to hesitate. Even the most devout Halo fans express skepticism and frustration with how armor unlocks.
Before delving into the weaknesses of the pass, it’s only fair to celebrate its strengths. Halo Infinite is one of the only battle passes to never expire. Once you have a pass, it’s yours for good.
Pretty sweet, right?
Battle passes have been this way since Infinite launched. They’re yours to progress when you want, no matter what season you’re playing. If the season is already over, you still have the option to unlock that armor. If you want the armor back in Season 2, it’s all at your own pace.
Infinite’s battle pass structure isn’t the most friendly, however. While 343 has made moves to create a better player experience early on, certain armor remained locked to specific playlists. Frustration is common, players grinding long sessions to unlock premium armors in a mode they quickly grew tired of. And to unlock every armor featured in previous titles (for free), you still have to purchase at least one pass.
The free pass holds a solid amount of armor options for the Mark VII armor core, but the premium option gets you a whole lot more. The Season 1 and 2 passes have slots for XP boosts and challenge swaps, which don’t feel very rewarding when they’re counted as a battle pass tier all on their own.
If swaps and boosts became earnable exclusively per matches played, outside of the pass, the player base would be ecstatic. Shoulder armor pieces count separately — left and right. This just feels like an artificial placeholder for more premium items like helmets and coatings to put in the shop at marked-up prices.
The shop has some premium cosmetics but they’re often bundled for about the same price as a battle pass. Infinite’s battle passes have been — for lack of a better term — a janky “Choose Your Own Adventure.” Basically, you pick what types of armor you want, whether you’ll buy exclusively from the shop or just the seasonal battle pass (or both, if you have more disposable income), or don’t pay anything at all.
Infinite’s Battle Passes Reviewed
Recent updates made every armor core and basic armor coating, like red, green, brown, and orange, free. The Winter Update battle pass is 30 tiers of free content, and 343 has slashed prices in the shop. With this said, below is a breakdown of each of Halo Infinite’s battle passes.
Season 1: Heroes of Reach
Season 1: Heroes of Reach launched with Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer on November 15, 2021. The pass has 100 tiers and 165 rewards with Reach-inspired content for the Mark V[B] Armor Core. Most of these rewards come directly from previous titles in the franchise, but the Mark VII core also receives some great armor pieces, some in the free pass. Visors today are cross-core, meaning all the visors you unlock, whether by battle pass, shop, or through gameplay, are pairable with any armor.
Season 1 Battle Pass Rewards
Halopedia’s breakdown for the 165 premium battle pass rewards is as follows:
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11 helmets: Eight for Mark V [B] core, three for Mark VII
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10 helmet attachments: Eight for Mark V [B], two for Mark VII
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12 chest pieces: Nine for Mark V [B], three for Mark VII
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Five shoulder pads (two unlocks for each): Four Mark V [B] pads and one for Mark VII
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Five wrist attachments: Four for Mark V [B], one for Mark VII
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Two knee pads for Mark V [B]
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One glove for Mark V [B]
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Two utility attachments, exclusively for Mark V [B]
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12 armor coatings, six for both cores
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Nine visors: Five for Mark V [B], four for Mark VII
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Five armor kits for Mark V [B], kits representative of Noble Team from Halo: Reach
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General customization, including backdrops, nameplates, weapon coatings, and armor coatings
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Two AI models: Superintendent and LUMU
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40 Challenge Swaps, 19 XP Boosts
All things considered, the Season 1 pass was decent. The armor is a return to the classic art style after the controversial change and doubling down in Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians. However, Reddit and Twitter quickly filled with players’ expressions of feeling preyed upon by the F2P and battle pass methods.
It’s worth the $10 if you want to have all the classic Reach armor possible, but it feels a little dirty to have the classic Mark VI helmet, worn by Master Chief himself, locked behind a paywall in a free-to-play Halo game.
Season 2: Lone Wolves
Season 2 kicked off on May 3, 2022, after a six-month Season 1. The six-month period is twice as long as a typical Fortnite or Overwatch 2 battle pass, and Halo Infinite’s player base suffered for it. The Season 2: Lone Wolves battle pass prominently featured the new Rakshasa armor core for people curious about what Vietnam-style jungle warfare looks like in the Halo universe. (Hint: it’s actually pretty dope.)
Season 2’s pass also saw the addition of 1,000 in-game credits, the price of a seasonal battle pass, after Season 1 didn’t have any way to earn the next pass through gameplay alone like other popular F2P games. This is a welcome change for anyone who wants to save some cash before heading into future battle passes, particularly the Season 3: Echoes Within launch.
Season 2 Battle Pass Rewards
With 180 rewards over 100 tiers, a 15 reward increase from the previous season, the Lone Wolves premium battle pass contains a lot.
Check out the list:
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Eight helmets: An even split between the Rakshasa Core and the Mark VII core
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Nine helmet attachments: Five for Rakshasa, four for Mark VII
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Six chest pieces: An even split of three each for Rakshasa and Mark VII
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12 shoulder pads: Six for Rakshasa, six for Mark VII
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Two wrist attachments: One for Rakshasa and one for Mark VII
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Five knee pads: Three for Rakshasa, two for Mark VII
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Five utility attachments: Four for Rakshasa, one for Mark VII
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Three gloves: One for Rakshasa, and two for Mark VII
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10 armor coatings: Six for Rakshasa, four for Mark VII
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Six visors: An even split of three between Rakshasa and Mark VII
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Two armor kits: Rakshasa armor kits for newly introduced Spartans Sigrid Eklund and Hieu Dinh
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One AI model: Iratus
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General customization, including backdrops, nameplates, weapon coatings, and armor coatings
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39 Challenge Swaps, 19 XP boosts
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1,000 Credits
Season 2’s pass is an improvement over its predecessor, if only for the ability to earn enough in-game currency to purchase the next seasonal pass. The brand new Rakshasa core quickly became a fan favorite for its jagged, do-it-yourself art style, giving Spartans Eklund and Dinh a very lived-in and rustic look. It coincided well with the seasonal theme of Spartans deep behind enemy lines with duct-taped wrist attachments, hand shovels, and classic health packs strapped to their hips.
The Winter Update Battle Pass
While the Season 2 pass is an improvement on its successor, the season lasted from May 2022 to November 2022. This is a considerable amount of time in the free-to-play landscape. In the controversial September developer update, where 343 outright canceled the split-screen campaign co-op and delayed the start of Season 3 until March 2023, the dev team also announced the Winter Update season.
Winter Update, which launched at the beginning of November 2022, brought some essential content additions like Forge, the Custom Game Browser, and network campaign co-op, but 343’s dev team also included a free 30-tier battle pass to keep players occupied until the launch of Season 3: Echoes Within.
The pass features heavily demanded Reach cosmetics, exclusively for the Mark V [B] core, that didn’t make it into Season 1’s pass.
The list includes:
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Three helmets
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One helmet attachment
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Four shoulder pads
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Three chest pieces
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One knee pad
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One utility attachment
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One armor coating
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Five XP Boosts
The Winter Update pass signals some change in quality at 343 Industries. It’s a token of goodwill as the game is — cautiously optimistic at least — expected to ramp up in Season 3. More Reach cosmetics for some of the most immaculate armor designs in Halo’s considerable catalog is a win by most standards.
Forward Unto Dawn — Season 3’s Battle Pass and Beyond
It’s fair to conclude that the Season 3: Echoes Within battle pass also features 1,000 credits players can put toward the eventual Season 4 pass. Developer 343 Industries remains tight-lipped on their plans for the pass and what content will be playable heading into March 2023, so it’s up to the player to decide whether they contribute financially to Halo Infinite.
The competitive and casual scene’s reaction to Forge and the Winter Update is positive. Halo Infinite‘s second year is officially underway, and Season 3 is winding up, looking to take a big swing. The players are waiting with bated breath if that’s a grounder to first, heading into the stands, or somewhere in between.
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