343 promises drastic changes to Halo Infinite's events with the return of Fracture: Tenrai in January
Demon slayed.
343 has promised significant changes to the structure of time-limited events in time for the return of Fracture: Tenrai in January.
For those out of the loop, Fracture: Tenrai was Halo Infinite's first time-limited event, and it received severe criticism from the community for numerous reasons, including 343 selling premium Samurai-themed cosmetics in the game's store.
Speaking at Halo's Holiday 2021 livestream last night, 343's head of design Jeff Hook outlined the plans to change events for the future.
First, the number of XP boosts and challenge swaps in the event pass will be reduced and will be replaced with content (i.e. cosmetics).
Second, cosmetic items previously only available on the store and the event pass will now only be available within the Tenrai event itself.
Hook also acknowledged that Halo Infinite's free-to-play model has been controversial: "One of the biggest challenges we knew we would have and no matter what we did we would have this. Which is changing Halo [from] 20 years of box product models to a free-to-play model is not something that is going to be inherently satisfying for most of our players."
He added the team would work on this balance, so players do not feel compelled to purchase in-game items while also making such items attractive to support the continuous development of multiplayer.
This week, it became clear 343 still had work to do to find that right balance. With the refresh of the in-game store on Tuesday, players weren't happy with the release of the HAZOP armour set at the cost of 2000 credits (£14.39).
But the real issue is that HAZOP is a legacy armour set that players could unlock relatively easily in previous Halo titles. In other words, 343 was perceived to be locking previously free content behind a paywall.