The development of “Halo 5: Guardians” didn’t really stop with the game’s release, and it looks like 343 Industries have learned a thing or two from companies like Valve who like to keep their games continuously updated. Fans have been very satisfied with the developer’s attention on the game, and just recently, they got even more toys to play around with. “Halo 5: Guardians” is not getting an entire new game mode (although it’s technically only new for that specific game), as well as a variety of new goodies like maps, weapons and skins.
The new Infection mode was previewed on a live stream, in which the developers also shared some details about the other content they’re adding to the game. Infection should already be familiar to fans of the franchise, and it’s one of the favorite modes of many classic “Halo” fans. Players are split into two team, zombies and non-infected, with the zombies trying to infect everyone else.
It’s important to note that while “Ghosts of Meridian” is already live, Infected is not part of that update and will be released later on during the year as part of another content update. For now, players are still getting a variety of new items added to the game so they should have plenty of fun until 343 Industries are ready to roll out the new content pack.
Many have been praising the studio for releasing the most recent content package for free, as it includes a significant amount of new gameplay elements which many other studios would have gladly charged a premium price for. And as can be expected, the update brought back many players to the game and added a fresh boost to its player numbers. Hopefully, that crowd will stick around until the next major update is ready.
This has been a typical problem of online shooters from the start – the game can easily lose its luster and start feeling boring after a while if no new content is added, but on the other hand not all players are usually willing to pay for that new content. As a result, releasing paid content packs can significantly fracture a game’s community and lead to rapidly declining player numbers – while releasing that content for free can be problematic for the studio if they have no other source of revenue in the meantime.
It looks like 343 are handling the situation quite well so far though, as the studio has been able to deliver some very good releases to their fans, and we expect them to do even more in the near future. Many players see even more potential in “Halo 5” in the face of new maps and weapons, and we often see suggestions for new game modes as well. And while it’s pretty much guaranteed that 343 are keeping an eye on those discussions, we wouldn’t expect the studio to directly respond to ideas that they find interesting.
That doesn’t mean that fans should avoid posting those suggestions though, as it’s very likely that the game’s developers could at least get some clever ideas from reading forums. Any smart game studio would know to follow fan forums with a close eye, as it’s not rare for some creative threads to pop up. Valve have occasionally included things requested by their fans in “Team Fortress 2”, “Dota 2” and “Counter-Strike”, and other companies are known for the same too.