The most important update to Halo Infinite will be made available on November 18. Community livestream of 343 Industries will happen tomorrow, November 17, at 11 am PT to reveal what is coming. Players have shown a mixed reaction to the announcement, with some people being excited about the new armor content, while others are still waiting for the long absence of playable Elite characters in the franchise to be over.
The Halo Twitter account was the one that made the news public and showed such amazing and grandiose armors that appear to be inspired by the Elite designs. They are talking about the armor of the Spartans that appears to be from the Covenant Honor Guard, which is, to put it mildly, very cool visually. This is where the confusion comes from – players are not merely admiring the new cosmetics, but they are actually demanding the return of playable Elites.
One user @RIPOFF_Pro ended up flooding the chat by repeating: “pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease just give us playable elites alreadyyyyyy,” and this was a mood indeed. Additionally, @BarryWhite30830 was right on time with “That’s cool and but playable elites when?” There seems to be a growing tendency in the community where people are being divided along the lines of those who are excited about the new armor and those who think that they are just being teased with an Elite-style gear that they will not get.
The comments are really illustrative of the diverse reactions. There are some players who absolutely love the new armor designs. @thebrainbuiider wrote in capitals “😱OH MY GOOOOD🤯 Honor Guard Spartans! (Content, Content) I can already see it now… a spartan honor guard of the Swords of Sangheilios!🤩” However, @HaloFanForLife called the armor “G.O.A.T.ed! My favorite Elite armor of all time.” Thus at least from the standpoint of the presentation, 343 is indeed connecting with the design team.
There are players like @diggerdong55 who have cut to the chase and said, “Looks like shit. Maybe it would have been cool on an elite tho.” Even more aggressive @InsaneInRedrum stated, “This is just outright disgraceful and disrespectful to the elite player base to give the best armours of elites to shitty Spartans is ugly halo is finished,” which is… dramatic but you probably get the point where they are coming from.
The entire debate about playable Elites is one that has lasted for ages, and it is really interesting to see how different players interpret it. @horrebro204 wrote, “Tbh that ship has sailed with Infinite, as much as I would love for them to come back it’s just not gonna happen with Infinite. I prayers the next mp game has them, I miss playing as an Elite with unique hud and fp animations for weapons,” which is, probably, the most realistic one, honestly. Infinite has been released for some time now, and allowing a whole new playable species with different hit boxes and animations is really hard work.
@kraken_kuddly made a good point, saying: “I’m absolutely thrilled that more stuff is coming to Infinite, but I really really would love for The Sangheli to be an armor core. Plenty of Sangheili accessories exist and all you would need to do is port over the enemy’s mesh and maybe make some new viewmodel animations?” They are not mistaken – the enemy Elites’ assets already exist in the game, so it would not be very difficult to adapt them for player use.
The community conversation becomes even more heated when one witnesses the exchanges among players. @CoolGuySwag13 replied to another comment saying: “People genuinely believe they’re gunna out playable elites into a 4-year-old halo game, this community isn’t fucking real lol, they’re probably complaining about sprint still too” which is… very accurate about the Halo community’s continuous tendency to hold onto certain desires forever.
Still, there are other concerns being raised in the replies. @Yabo_San commented: “please fix the bug in co-op that prevents you from switching abilities,” thus pointing out that the matter is not just about the Elite debate. @Vader_119 shared his useful insights regarding matchmaking times saying: “BTB 12v12 takes around 2-3 minutes at 3 am, less than a minute at 7 pm Firefight always took less than a minute 4v4 around 1-2 minutes I don’t play 8v8 so idk IMO it’s a very healthy player base” which indicates that the game’s user base is really thriving despite some negative comments.
It is astonishing how one single announcement can provoke such a wide range of opinions within the Halo community. You have the ones who are happy because of the new content, the ones who are asking for features that have been missing for years, those who argue about the Halo franchise’s direction on PlayStation and Xbox platforms.
