343 confirms Halo Infinite's controversial Fracture: Tenrai event ends on Tuesday as backlash continues
Fiesta event playlist also disappears until January.
343 has confirmed Halo Infinite's controversial Fracture: Tenrai event ends on Tuesday as the backlash to the game's progression, battle pass and cosmetics continues apace.
A tweet from the official Halo Support account announced Fracture: Tenrai ends as originally planned at 6pm UK time on Tuesday, 30th November.
This also means the Fiesta event playlist, which I've had a lot of fun playing, goes dark until the Tenrai event returns to Halo Infinite in January 2022.
Fracture: Tenrai, the game's first limited-time event, has sparked a vociferous backlash from Halo Infinite players for a number of reasons.
This event, which is free to access for all players, contains its own 30-tier progression track that includes the samurai-inspired Yoroi armour core and other related Yoroi armour pieces.
Progress on the event pass is made by completing event challenges, which means you can't progress simply by playing the limited-time playlist. Once you've completed all available event challenges in a given week, you will have progressed as far as possible until the next Fracture: Tenrai event.
This means progress along this event pass is gated - you can only complete seven event-specific challenges during this first week of the event, which means you can only complete seven tiers of the event pass.
343 has said it plans for Fracture: Tenrai to make six total appearances over the course of Season 1, with its next appearance set for January 2022.
The way the event-specific challenges work feels miserly. The event challenges are mixed in with the normal weekly challenges, so you have to complete normal weeklies just to access the event challenges you need to complete to progress through the event pass. Some players have struggled to complete these event challenges, too.
Adding to the furore is the fact 343 is selling limited-time, premium Samurai-themed cosmetics in the Halo Infinite shop. These cosmetics have been slammed for being too expensive. The Chonmage armour set, for example, costs 2000 credits - or £14.39.
Confusingly, you need the Yoroi armour core obtained by completing level five of the Fracture: Tenrai event pass to equip the Samurai-themed cosmetics sold in the shop. This means you're currently able to buy cosmetics from the store you may not be able to actually use.
There's also concern that the Fracture: Tenrai event pass does not include enough cosmetics to earn (16 of the 30 tiers are XP grants/challenge swaps) and that the cosmetics it does include will take too long to unlock - all while the shop sells the good stuff for cash.
Halo community director at 343, Brian Jarrard, took to Twitter last week to address the concern.
"Been traveling so slow to respond - but please know the constructive feedback is being heard loud and clear," Jarrard said.
"Changes will take time and our priority this week is giving the team a much deserved break for the holiday after a long final stretch. Thank you for understanding."
343 is now under pressure to make significant changes to the way Halo Infinite progression works ahead of the game's launch proper on 8th December. It's also under pressure to make big changes to the way Fracture: Tenrai works before it returns in January.
"Yes I am still playing Halo and feeling everyone's pain on progression," Jerry Hook, Head of Design at 343, tweeted last night. "We are back at it next week and this will be top of my list with the team."