Halo Infinite is looking grander with each new thing that fans get to see. While the slayer match preview was exciting, the comments that assassinations will be cut from the game at launch have dampened the mood some. The feature, which was added when Halo: Reach was released, has given players some cool ways to take out their enemies for the past decade. As fun as assassinations are, though, their absence from the game is not as big of a deal as it seems.
As an optional in-game feature, the assassination animations already had a decent number of people that would turn them off. The added time it takes to kill enemies was precious seconds that left players vulnerable. The novelty of it is fun, but at the higher levels of play, it is often seen as more of a hindrance than anything else, which seems to be a big part of the reason it is being pulled from Halo Infinite.
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But the option to have assassinations is what a lot of people will likely find themselves stuck on. Fans tend to enjoy options, and the more there are to compliment how each person prefers to play, the more people tend to have fun with a game. It might seem trivial to some, but many people can interpret the removal of one small feature as a slippery slope to others being pulled in the future, even if other fan-favorite Halo features are returning.
The upside about assassinations in Halo Infinite, however, is that there does seem to be a plan to incorporate them into the game’s future. Since Halo’s multiplayer is planned as a live service, there is plenty of opportunity to develop, grow, tweak, and all-around change the game for the better. It also provides the development team some time to get comfortable with what the community’s meta expectations are like for Halo Infinite once the game has launched.
The Halo series'multiplayer has had a serious and competitive fan base for decades, helping to instill a lot of firsts into the FPS community. The time that is taken to rework the assassination feature will probably result in an end product that is much more palpable for everyone, complimenting the faster playstyles that a lot of fans have. This could see assassinations expand into higher levels of play without the worry that an enemy teammate will be able to capitalize on the feature’s use.
Right now, though, many players continue to see the quick action of a regular melee as more reliable than the showy assassination animations. The incredibly reliable one-two combo of shoot and hit gives an advantage to players playing from midrange, and scoring a melee from behind can wrap up a fight before it has even started. With these tactics being used by Halo fans at all different levels of play, it is easy to see how the assassinations fell out of style why they'll be missing upon Halo Infinite's launch.
With Halo Infinite’s release date still a matter of speculation, a lot could change between now and launch. If the assassination rework finds a solid middle ground, it could be brought back into the game sooner than fans might think. With the flexibility that Halo infinite has as a live service, it isn’t too wild to think that it could reappear as part of the game’s first major update rather than as a distant addition to the multiplayer experience.
Halo Infinite is set to launch in 2021 on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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