One of the largest updates so far for Halo Infinite has now gone live with Operation: Banished Honor. Rather than continue with a seasonal format, 343 Industries announced a few months back that Halo Infinite would shift to release smaller Operations. This would allow 343 to bring more content to Infinite on a quicker basis and would encourage players to jump in and out of the game more often. Now, the latest of these Operations has been let loose and makes some huge shifts to multiplayer. 

Available now across Xbox and PC, Operation: Banished Honor for Halo Infinite notably brings a couple of different features to the title. The first is an overhaul to how in-game currency works, as Spartan Points have been introduced and can be unlocked in a variety of different ways. This has gone live in tandem with the Exchange, which is a new area of Halo Infinite where players can purchase cosmetics that were previously released. Beyond this, other new features have hit Forge and Ranked mode.

Likely the biggest alteration in this patch comes with some of Halo Infinite’s weapons. The Plasma Pistol has now seen its EMP ability from previous Halo games restored in this update, which makes it far more effective against vehicles. Other balance tweaks have been made to the Gravity Hammer, Sniper Rifle, Cindershot, and Spike Grenades. These updates have also been made alongside a litany of others aimed to resolve specific bugs and other errors.

To get a look at the full patch notes for this new Banished Honor update in Halo Infinite, you can view them below. Additionally, you can head over to Halo’s official site to learn more about all of the additional features that have hit the game today. 

Halo Infinite Banished Honor Update Patch Notes

BALANCE CHANGES

PLASMA PISTOL

Return of the King! We’ve heard your feedback regarding wanting the plasma pistol having the capability to EMP vehicles and we are giving you just that! Considering the plasma pistol’s functionality in past Halo games, we believed this update was something our players would recognize and enjoy. Also, we are hoping to see the plasma pistol find more use cases in BTB and Arena environments.

• Enabled “EMP” side effect for the Plasma Pistol’s fully charged shot.

MK50 SIDEKICK

We know the rapid-fire functionality feels great and is a core identity to the weapon, but we wanted to address player feedback on the time to kill when on the receiving end of sidekick encounter. A side effect of this is slightly less blooming which will result in a more consistent time to kill when wielding the sidekick.

• Rounds per second decreased 6.6 >> 5.6.

GRAVITY HAMMER

After our most recent tuning update, we receive additional feedback that the Gravity Hammer was too strong. To address this feedback, we slightly brought in the range in which an enemy can be eliminated from the shockwave effect. Jump in and give it a swing…or two and let us know how it feels!

• Radius low 1.25 >> 1.75.
• Radius high 2 >> 2.5.

CINDERSHOT

The Cindershot is a fun and powerful weapon to use, but we acknowledge it can be frustrating to be redirected by the impulse of the explosion. To eliminate that frustration and address player feedback, we eliminated the gravity effect that would pull players around and slightly reduced the rate of fire. We hope this will improve both sides of the combat experience while still maintaining the Cindershot’s effectiveness as a power weapon.

• Instantaneous acceleration -4 >> 0.
• Alt instantaneous acceleration -3 >> 0.
• Rounds per second decreased 1.33 >> 1.1.

S7 SNIPER RIFLE

The Sniper Rifle’s ready-up time after being picked off the ground or a power-weapon pad felt too lengthy. In order to help the sniper feel snappier we wanted to address this by increasing it’s ready-up time when being picked up. We hope this will allow for more sniper highlights when a player picks up the sniper off the ground or from a recently slain player.

• Ready initial playback speed scale 1 >> 1.2.

SPIKE GRENADES

Spike Grenades have been underperforming in the core gameplay loop, and we felt a change in detonation behavior may improve its viability. The first step we took was to ensure the Spike Grenade reached its intended target by preventing its detonation midair. Additionally, once the spike grenade does reach its intended target it will detonate more quickly – similar to other grenades in the sandbox. These updates should help with zone control and better reward skillful grenade placement.

• Detonation timer starts changed from immediately when at rest.
• Timer decreased (low & high) 1.8 >> 1.2 seconds.

GLOBAL

• Improved stability for Halo Infinite on both Xbox consoles and PC. 

PC

• Restored functionality to the Limit Inactive Frame Rate option for newer NVIDIA graphics drivers.
• Swapping between the Lore and Attachments tab of a helmet in the Armor Hall no longer results in a framerate dip on PC.

XBOX

• Improved stability when navigating through the Armor Hall menus on Xbox consoles.

MULTIPLAYER

Gameplay

• Dropping a weapon is no longer faster than swapping between weapons.
• Vehicles no longer play their “doom state” sound effects prior to reaching the actual doom state.
• Scorpions will no longer be dropped off by Pelicans on the map Deadlock.
  • Developer Notes: “Players gave us feedback that the Pelican vehicle drops on Deadlock did not feel good when dropping off Scorpions and Wraiths. We liked the focus on tanks, but agreed that the power of the Scorpion was too much and noticed it could dominate matches. To help address this, we’ve updated to vehicle drops on Deadlock to only bring in Wraiths, while the rest of the vehicle pads still spawn in their normal vehicles.”
• The Skewer has received improvements to improve its feel on higher latency.

Menus

• Using the Clear Filters shortcut listed along the bottom of a menu will now consistently result in the onscreen filters being cleared.

Custom Games

• When setting up a Custom Game with the Firefight: King of the Hill game mode, adjusting the Auto-Revive Timer option in the Firefight tab of the Mode Editor menu now functions as expected when selecting a value below 10 seconds.
• The Ranked: CTF 3 Captures game mode no longer requires teams to capture the flag 5 times to win when played in a local offline match.

Customization

• The standalone version of the OpTic Gaming visor is now the same shade of green as the visor seen in the OpTic Gaming Armor Kit.
• 54 Multi-Use Armor Coatings have been updated to work with all available Armor Cores and Armor Kits. Open the accordion below to view the full list of updated Armor Coatings and the Armor Cores and Kits they are now compatible with.

Visual

• The Mirage IIC and Rakshasa Armor Core no longer appear distorted when using the To The Front stance.
• The upper arms of the Mirage IIC Armor Core no longer appear to stretch or distort.
• The UA/Viator, SAP/Recon, and SAP/MT Shoulder pads are now consistently visible at any distance in gameplay.
• Players can no longer look through the Mark IV Armor Core’s legs when the Field of View (FOV) setting is set to 78.
• Reduced instances of secondary weapons clipping into the back of the Mark V Armor Kit for the Mark VII Armor Core.
• Small gaps are no longer present in the shoulders of the Mark IV Armor Core.
• Selecting a Transhumeral prosthetic arm on the Mark IV Armor Core no longer results in the equipped Shoulder Pads becoming misaligned.

FORGE EDIT MODE AND CREATION TOOLS

• The Infected Energy Sword is now localized in the Object Browser menu for non-English languages.
• Setting the Squad Intensity value to 1 in the Override AI Spawner node will now result in AI units spawning.
• Improved performance when viewing a map’s Nav Mesh on Xbox One consoles or PCs with lower quality video settings enabled.
• The Get All AI Units on Team node will now function as expected after an Elite is added to a squad of Marines.
• Rapidly duplicating objects in Forge is now less likely to result in a crash.
• The Cycle Parent option in the Object Properties menu now works as expected when used on a Prefab containing duplicated objects.
• The Round Platform object no longer has a chance to change from Static mode to Dynamic mode when a Forge map is loaded.
• Improved stability when using the Delete All map property and the Undo function in Forge.
• Created or placed Prefabs are now automatically selected when playing with a mouse and keyboard.

KNOWN ISSUES

MULTIPLAYER

Gameplay

• Players are unable to respawn in any Free-For-All (FFA) game mode on the multiplayer map Argyle.
• When starting a Free-For-All (FFA) match on the multiplayer maps Dredge and Houseki, two players may spawn next to one another.
• Occasionally, firing sound effects may continue to play if the melee button is pressed while firing the VK78 Commando Rifle. When this issue occurs, bullets are not being fired while the melee animation plays.
• Headshots with the Stalker Rifle Ultra variant are not tracked in the killfeed or scoreboard and they do not count towards any Medals or Challenges.

Menus

• The Banished Honor Trailer and promotional images depict the Datacore Administrator Visor as being included in this Operation’s reward track. The Datacore Administrator is part of the Facing Firewall Shop bundle while the Banished Honor Operation includes the Essence Decompilation Visor.
• Using the shortcut button listed along the bottom of the Exchange menu to purchase an item may result in a prompt to use or purchase Credits. Attempting to use Credits when this issue occurs results in the item not unlocking and no Credits being consumed.
  • If you encounter any errors when attempting to purchase a customization item in the Exchange menu, view the item’s Inspect menu and attempt to purchase the item again. If errors continue to occur, submit a ticket so the development team can investigate.
• The items available for purchase in the Exchange appear as “currently unavailable” and “Vaulted” in the Customize menus.
• If all Battle Passes and Operation Passes are completed, the Daily Custom XP Cap will incorrectly be listed as a “Daily Custom SP Cap” in both the Custom Games and Customs Browser menus.
  • XP will continue to be awarded when this issue occurs; SP will not be awarded for any completed Custom Games.
• The Spartan Points balance in the top right corner of the post-match rewards menu does not increase after completing a Challenge that awards Spartan Points.
  • The Spartan Points balance listed in this menu already includes the Challenge’s awarded Spartan Points. No Spartan Points are lost when this issue occurs. 
• The post-match rewards menu may occasionally show XP values or gains from a previous match rather than the most recent match. When this issue occurs, the correct amount of XP is still awarded on the backend.
  • If you are experiencing this issue, submit a ticket so that the team can investigate. If possible, please include any match information such as the map, mode, and/or a rough timestamp of when the match occurred.

FORGE

• When using the Deactivate Shrinking Zone node, the Shrinking Zone stops and no longer does damage to players but the Zone boundary remains visible.