Microsoft recruits Certain Affinity to help with Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite The Halo 2: Halo 3 was an excellent renewal. It features a wide-ranging campaign, well-tuned multiplayer and a nostalgic package that harkens back both to Xbox Live’s glory days and the sounds of power shields jumping up. It’s also been slow to add new content to its excellent-but-troubled multiplayer mode, but help seems to be on the way in the form of Austin studio Certain Affinity, which has been hired to assist 343 Industries in “further evolving Halo Infinite.”

The news comes via the briefest of posts on the Certain Affinity site, which notes the studio will be “deepening our relationship with 343.” Founded in 2006 by Max Hoberman, the former multiplayer and online lead for the Halo series, Certain Affinity has carved out a niche as a support shop, largely assisting in the development of games in the Call of Duty and Halo franchises.

Certain Affinity’s hiring appears to be in step with recent comments from 343 about the Halo developers’ efforts to expand in order to meet the demand for more agile updates and a faster cadence of content. Responding to fans on Reddit, Brian Jarrard, community director at 343, spoke quite frankly about the “challenges and constraints” the studio is facing in supporting Infinite.

We’re certainly not happy to be unable to meet player and community expectations, it’s a difficult situation that’s going to take the team time to work through. Right now the focus is on S2 and we’ll have more to share on that in the coming weeks. There are many production planning and costing tasks, along with hiring. is all happening which doesn’t really lend to detailed regular updates. It is understandable that the community lacks patience. I find it understandable. It will take some time to sort out the details and then we’ll be able to share as much information as possible.

After an amazing launch, there was much to talk about Halo InfiniteThis has led to community frustration, a dearth of content and a disappointing seasonal model. The decision to delay major features, such as Campaign co-op and Forge map editor and long outages that have largely wiped out a multiplayer mode has only added to these frustrations.

How to get there Infinite up to speed will be a long and slow task for 343 and partners, but the studio is positioning forthcoming Season 2 — dubbed Lone Wolves — as the first small step, with two new maps, new multiplayer modes, and a bevy of tweaks.

Halo InfiniteSeason 2 will launch on May 3.