Halo Infinite update rewinds time to Halo 2’s birthday and throws the FPS back 20 years with a nostalgic mode that deletes sprints and adds classic maps

On November 1, 2024By Littum

Halo 2 stomped onto the scene a full two decades ago with the full weight of a 1,000-pound super soldier, but it’s already been recreated in fancy fashion once via The Master Chief Collection, so its milestone birthday is being celebrated in a Halo instead Infinite update that throws it back to 2004 (just without all the MySpace hype).

Newly rebranded Halo Studios announced today that Halo Infinite would be getting a surprisingly meaty update called Operation: The Great Journey on the classic shooter’s anniversary on November 5th. The surreal third-person mode is part of the package, but what’s even more exciting is a playlist that basically rewinds time.

The upcoming Delta Arena playlist essentially emulates classic Halo gameplay, erasing the modern quirks that have plagued the series in the years since. This means you won’t be able to climb ledges in this playlist, there will be no player collision, your jumps are all flying again, and sprinting – probably the series’ most controversial change – isn’t allowed here either. It’s 2004 settings in a 2024 update.

To get you even further into the Mountain Dew and Doritos mood, the update also folds in classic Halo 2 maps made by fans with Forge, the series’ custom level editor. Iconic battlefields from Midship to Lockout, which get a lush overgrown facelift, are all on the way.

“Twenty years ago the gaming world was introduced to halo 2, and things were never the same,” the official Halo Waypoint blog explains. “The multiplayer experience created friendships, pushed online gaming into the mainstream, took MLG to another level, and was truly a catalyst for the early gaming and online eras.”

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is also getting some love as the infamous Halo 2 demo from E3 2003, the one that never made it into the final game, is being rebuilt by a group of modding diggers and put into the PC release, freakin’. .

The Halo Studios executive said “gamers’ consumption habits have changed – the expectation of how quickly their content is available.”