Halo Infinite’s Season 5 brings back Extraction mode and adds two new Arena maps, takes away some of the grind
Reworked Battle Pass halves the number of levels you’ll have to unlock for new items
Halo Infinite’s Season 5 lands next week with a reimagined game mode returning from Halo 4, a bunch of new cosmetics - including some inspired by the goopy Flood aliens - and two new maps for its Arena mode, while reworking the game's Battle Pass to make it less of a chore.
Season 5: Reckoning’s headline mode will be Extraction mode, a “reimagined” version of the five-vs-five objective-based mode in Halo 4 where two teams must race to extract crates faster than their opponents by planting a beacon and defending it until the crate is whisked away.
Stalwart competitive mode Arena, meanwhile, will get two new maps in the form of Prism and Forbidden. Prism looks to be a sort of cave environment with glowing purple crystals that can be shot to send damaging shards into your opponents, while Forbidden looks like a stone temple that reminded me a bit of Halo 2’s Lockout.
On the cosmetics side, there’ll be some new gear inspired by franchise baddies the Flood, with helmets and armour suits covered in Giger-esque tentacle-like thingies and squishy-looking skulls. They look kinda gross, which I’m into.
Those helmets won’t be locked to specific sets either, as Season 5 will now allow helmets and armour coating to be freely equipped across every armour core.
Getting the new armour should be easier too, as you’ll now be able to earn Battle Pass XP when playing in custom games as well as standard modes and via challenges.
On top of that, Season 5 will see Infinite’s Battle Pass overhauled to cut its number of tiers in half to 50 - 20 of those will include free its content - and offer multiple items for each new level. Tiers will also offer left and right shoulders together, rather than having to unlock them separately. If you manage to hit Hero Rank, you’ll unlock the Infinite Mark VI armour kit.
Elsewhere, those who like making stuff in Infinite’s Forge will now be able to add AI characters using a new Forge AI toolkit, opening up the ability to create PVE maps. There’ll be new objects, palettes and other options for creators, too.
Season 5: Reckoning launches for Halo Infinite on October 17th, with the Battle Pass running until November 14th.