Halo Infinite has been marketed by Microsoft and creators 343 Industries as a return to classic Halo. But that doesn’t mean everything is the same as before. For example, 343 has added a drop weapon button to the game, a series first that will help anyone who needs to give their buddy a power weapon, among other things.
Yesterday afternoon, 343 hosted a livestream showing off Halo Infinite ahead of its first multiplayer technical preview, which begins on Thursday. In previous Halo games dropping a weapon was a bit of a chore. Players would have to find a weapon on the ground and swap that firearm for whatever they wanted to “drop.” Doing that would allow someone else to pick up the weapon. It appears that the drop weapon button is mapped to right on the d-pad on an Xbox gamepad, though all of Halo Infinite’s actions are remappable.
It’s funny that after playing Halo for two decades, I never complained about weapon swapping to drop weapons for friends and teammates. It was just how Halo worked. But now, with the introduction of a drop button, I’m realising how weird of a workaround we’ve all been using this entire time.
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I’m excited to see how this small, but potentially powerful feature will be used in Halo Infinite. Beyond being useful, there are trolling possibilities. For example, while going through an enemy base I could drop a sniper with one bullet and exchange it with a fresh, fully-stocked sniper — leaving the other team with my garbage.
“Dare we say this is maybe the end of betraying your teammates to take sniper?” community director Brian Jarrard joked during the stream. But likely, people who were willing to kill and betray their own teammates just to get their armoured paws on a power weapon will probably just keep betraying you in some way. But one can hope!
Some of you Xbox Insider members won’t have to wait long to try out Halo Infinite’s drop button. The first technical preview for the game starts today and runs through the weekend. This first preview is mainly focused on players fighting bots, though 343 did say it might turn on a 4v4 Slayer mode towards the end of the preview if it gets enough data on bots during the weekend.
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