Halo Infinite competitive settings revealed, includes Battle Rifle starts

What you need to know

• 343 Industries has revealed Halo Infinite's competitive settings.
• The settings include Battle Rifle starts, a disabled Motion Tracker, no grenade hitmarkers, and Slayer, CTF, Strongholds, and Oddball as available modes.
• The goal with these settings is to give players a viable and effective weapon on spawn while also emphasizing the importance of teamwork and communication.

Halo developer 343 Industries has revealed the Halo Infinite competitive settings in a new livestream and blog post. These settings will be used in the game's competitive Arena playlists, and they'll also be active during Halo Infinite esports competitions. The competitive settings include:

• Battle Rifle starts
• Motion Tracker disabled
• Grenade hitmarkers disabled
• Slayer, CTF, Strongholds, and Oddball modes

During the livestream, the developers explained that the goal with these settings was to make sure each player had a powerful utility weapon after spawning, while also ensuring that players wouldn't be able to identify where enemies were in a cheesy way with the Motion Tracker or grenade hitmarkers. Instead, players in competitive Halo Infinite need to use close communication to keep track of where the opposing team is.

In the blog post that accompanied the livestream, the developers noted that ultimately, the goal with Halo Infinite's competitive experience is to promote fair play, teamwork, and mastery through a combination of mechanical skill and good gamesense. 343 Industries has also designed the experience in a way that ensures sandbox items like power weapons and equipment pieces are powerful, but not too powerful; with smart playmaking, opponents can outplay the advantages these items provide and take control of them themselves. I highly recommend reading through the blog for several more in-depth developer insights about Halo Infinite's competitive experience.

Halo Infinite launches Dec. 8, 2021 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles, and Windows PCs. The campaign will cost $60, but the multiplayer is free-to-play. Notably, Halo Infinite preorders are available now.