Daily, Weekly, And Capstone Challenges: Halo Infinite Devs Talk About Progression

343 Industries' latest Halo Waypoint blog piece for Halo Infinite is a big one, featuring interviews with staff talking about Big Team Battle mode (described as "sandbox unleashed"), the Academy (which will be continually updated with new experiences), and a few stories about development -- it turns out that "shipping a AAA flagship title amidst a global pandemic and everyone is working from home" is hard! If you're a Halo fan and have an hour or so to kill, you're welcome to read the whole thing.

For now, though, we'll focus on the progression system that's laid out around the late-middle part of the piece. As expected, there will be a battle pass, in free and premium (paid) flavors, as well as special limited-time battle passes for every season. You'll earn XP to advance along the battle passes to unlock various cosmetics. Nothing new there.

What's a little different is that you won't earn XP for each match you play or win -- not exactly, at least. Instead, you'll have daily and weekly challenges that grant you XP when you complete them. These start out simple -- play one match, capture one point, etc. -- and grow tougher as you complete easier challenges, granting more XP as they increase in difficulty. If you complete all your weekly challenges, you'll get a special "capstone" challenge that grants you a special reward, like a coating or emblem.

Daily challenges are meant to take the place of the regular "XP drip" you'd expect from games that grant XP with every match. It's estimated that a player would need about 16 to 18 hours' of game time to run through all of their daily challenges.

You'll get a new set of daily challenges every day (surprise), and can use a Challenge Swap to switch a weekly challenge. These swaps, as well as XP boosts, will be available through battle passes, via promotions, or through a purchase in the store.

Halo Insiders will get a chance to try out actual multiplayer this weekend (September 23-26) and the next (September 30-October 3). This weekend's technical test will be for 4v4 Arena battles, while next week will have 12v12 Big Team Battles on the menu. The tests will only be active at limited times, so check out the Waypoint post to know exactly when you can get in on the action.