As part of Halo Infinite multiplayer’s effort to fix everything about itself that is not actual gameplay, 343 announced major changes to the game’s much-derided microtransaction store.
Head of Design at 343, jerry hook, posted a thread about the changes coming next week and the store experiences that will continue after that:
So the changes appear to be:
- Generally lower prices
- More stuff inside the lots
- More individual items available outside of bundles
This precedes the Cyber Showdown event which begins next week, just when these store changes should go into effect on reset, so any cosmetics scheduled for this event in the store should probably be cheaper than this which we got in the Fracture: Tenrai event.
Players have complained about the Halo Infinite store since launch, saying the prices were way too high for what was on offer, though admittedly many were on par with other games that sell premium skins like Fortnite. I think a big part of this repression is how restrictive a lot of the cosmetics are in Halo Infinite’s core armor system, which is something pretty fundamental to the game that can’t be changed without a significant amount of work. The ability to purchase more individual items doesn’t really matter if those items continue to only apply to one core.
The most recent and biggest store-related controversy was the introduction of a new voice AI, Mister Chief, based on a popular meme of the time, which was in a bundle that cost $20. It’s unclear just how much the prices are dropping, but honestly, it’s not a move we often see in most games.
Another problem with Halo Infinite is that there is effectively no way to earn in-store currency to purchase items, which is not true in games like Fortnite or Destiny, which can have high prizes, but also paths for players to periodically earn V-bucks or Bright Dust to use in the cashier. So maybe that’s something they’ll have to consider in the future as well.
Many of these changes will go live this week with the Cyber Showdown event, but clearly others will take longer to roll out, so it’ll be good to keep an eye on the store each week to see what new things they’re trying in order to create a better experience. And if that doesn’t work out, they’re clearly responding to fan feedback pretty well, and more changes could be on the way.
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