Co-op will not be available in Halo Infinite's campaign until May 2022 at the earliest

And it's possible that we won't get our hands on Forge until late summer.

The previews are in, and the campaign for Halo Infinite looks fantastic, with Wes predicting an open world rebirth for the venerable series. However, while we already knew co-op wouldn't be available until after launch, 343 has confirmed that it could be another six months before we can crash onto Zeta Halo with a friend.

343 initially stated that co-op would not be available until Season 2. Seasons were originally scheduled to last three months, but with Season 1 now expected to span six months, the developer told Eurogamer that it's still waiting for the new season to provide co-op play.

"When we talked about campaign co-op and Forge, I told you that our objective is to ship campaign co-op in Season 2 and Forge in Season 3," series veteran and 343 Head of Creative Joseph Staten told the site.

"Yes, we are extending Season 1. So our goal still remains what I said before, which is to ship campaign co-op with Season 2 and Forge with Season 3. But those remain goals. Those remain targets. And we can't commit to any hard dates right now, because as we're seeing with this multiplayer beta, other things might move up in the priority stack for us."

That statement also implies that Forge mode, Halo's powerful built-in map creation tool, won't be available until late summer. However, as Staten points out, these are only estimations, and they may easily be pushed back if the game's other issues (like as a frustratingly stingy battle pass) take precedence.

"If it turns out that our progression system just isn't working the way that we intended, if we need to move some of these bigger rocks sooner, then we as a team will make those decisions and will clearly communicate to our fans why we're why we're doing certain things."

343 has already started tweaking that pass, with the intention of eventually adding a more autonomous progression system. Hopefully, this won't add to the already excessively lengthy wait for some vintage Halo co-op action.

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