Preview for August Drop Pod | Hello

Coming next Tuesday, August 9, the next Drop Pod will focus on improving the player experience on multiple fronts. This update is set to expand each player’s customization options, including QoL improvements, and will lay the foundation for more community-requested features.

Let’s take a look at what’s inside!

At the moment, there are many masks in the game divided across 5 cores of armor. If you want to use the shiny gold Noble Mask (which until now has been locked in Mark V. [B] armor core) to complete your look on any of your other cores, you’ll be able to achieve this when the August Drop Pod lands.

What this means is that all masks currently in the game, and all future future masks, will work across all helmets from all armor centers.

Continuing the theme of improving customization options, the Drop Pod will also allow some Mark VII helmet accessories to be worn across multiple Mark VII helmets.

This is in response to player feedback we’ve seen requesting an expansion of Mark VII helmet accessory compatibility. Of course, this step came with some complications because most helmet accessories for the Mark VII core are designed to fit a specific helmet, but some also fit nicely with other Mark VII helmets.

Live Team took some time with our artists to figure out which helmet accessories look best and fit without weird cutouts or large eyelets. Since certain kits can have large gaps or cuts, not every Mark VII helmet will be able to use every helmet accessory – but the total number of options has been greatly increased.

If you have already unlocked these helmets and their attachments, they will be automatically usable. If you unlock them in the future, all possible combinations will be unlocked for you. There will be no need to open them on a per-use basis.

A full list of helmet and helmet accessory kits will be included in the Drop Pod patch notes when they are published.

On the multiplayer experience front, this update will make it easier for us to implement more ranked playlists going forward. Things will start in doubles, which is set to drop two weeks after the Drop Pod launches — along with a CSR reset. In addition, Team Doubles social playlist will accompany ranked doubles on launch day, meaning Halo Infinite will get 2v2 fun twice as much.

We will monitor the status of Ranked Doubles and all of our playlists as they are added to our matchmaking lineup. If all playlists continue to perform as expected, we will keep these additions and keep trying adding more categorized playlists in the future.

In opening this blog, we mentioned that we are laying some foundations for the future as well. While there is no change in the player’s face here Just So far, this Drop Pod contains a lot of the basic work required to run area identification in the future. This will allow players to choose between all searches in all regions (faster search times) or their local area (better test votes).

This feature is still some time away, but gamers may discover some backend work done to start putting things in place. We’ll have more to share about Zone Selection as we get closer to its launch.

With this Drop Pod version, your active challenges will be viewable while you’re in a match on the paused list. We know it’s helpful to be able to peek at your active challenges (as well as their descriptions) at any point during a match, so we’re very happy to do so.

Please note: This screen will not display the exact numbers (remaining or total) of your challenges yet. Since challenges currently update at the end of a match, we chose not to display numbers on purpose to avoid any confusion about not seeing them being updated in real time. We are working on making it such a challenge an act Tag during a match, but we wanted to make this useful first step for all of you because it was ready.

As usual, we will have the full patch notes available on the Halo Support website (aka.ms/HaloInfiniteUpdate) when the update is released.

Thank you for your continued feedback on waypoint forumsTwitter, Reddit, and more as we keep pushing to make Halo Infinite the best experience it can be. We look forward to seeing you online when the Drop Pod drops next Tuesday, August 9!