Halo Infinite Season 2 Modes Overview

We first received news about the long-awaited second season of Halo Infinite’s multiplayer last month. Since then, we’ve seen a lot more talk about the changes coming with the next season as well as a breakdown of the two new maps. With the release of the second season being less than two weeks away, we now have a preview of the three new modes that will also be debuting. A short preview video can be seen below (along with my summary) and the Halo Waypoint blog post can be read here.

The first mode is King of the Hill, a returning classic that many players have been clamoring for. This time around it’s coming with some tweaks. It all starts with a neutral hill spawning and waiting to be captured. For each second a player remains on the hill uncontested by the enemy team, they’ll fill up a capture bar. Once a capture bar has been filled for a team they’ll earn a point and a new hill spawns on the map. The sequence/pattern of hills will be consistent in ranked mode, while in quick play they’ll be randomized after the first hill.

Land Grab is the second new mode that puts another spin on zone/area control. Two teams will fight over three neutral zones that spawn around the map. Once a player(s) has managed to capture a zone, their team receives one point and the zone is locked. After all three zones have been captured, there will be a brief intermission and then three more neutral zones will spawn. A team has to score 11 points to win and the number of zones spawned will change depending on how close a team is to winning. Only two zones will spawn if a team needs a single point to win, while only one zone will spawn if both teams need one final point.

What might be the most interesting mode is Last Spartan Standing. It takes cues from the Escalation Slayer mode from Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which in itself is a spin on the classic FPS mode commonly called Gun Game. It is a free-for-all mode where players have five respawns, a set loadout, and can receive a new weapon after killing an enemy. A big departure from those game types, however, is that players will upgrade to more powerful weapons instead of weaker ones and they can choose when to upgrade. Each player’s leveling progress also takes into consideration assists, and an eliminated enemy drops a bonus XP bubble.

It also takes a bit of inspiration from battle royale game modes. Each match takes place on a Big Team Battle map with 12 players. Once a player has gone through all of their respawns they can choose to leave without a penalty. Although any weapons or vehicles that typically load up on the map will be disabled, some equipment can be found in key locations or randomly through ordnance pods. An approaching danger zone will additionally force all players to meet up in one area.

All three modes will also be available in custom games to let players add their own tweaks. King of the Hill and Last Spartan Standing will both be available to play the same day season 2 launches, while Land Grab will come out a month later with the Fracture: Entrenched event. Only King of the Hill is being added as a permanent mode though, with the other two being limited-time modes during the remainder of the season. If the mode is enjoyed well enough though, it could be added as a permanent mode later on.

Although the preview video does list Elimination as a returning mode, it isn’t detailed in the video itself or the blog post. We do know that it will be returning in season 2, however, thanks to a mention in the season 1 outcomes report that came out at the beginning of the month.

New playlists and variant modes will also be added in the upcoming season. They include Ninja Slayer which gives everyone energy swords and grappleshots exclusively, Rocket Repulsors which does the same only with rocket launchers and repulsors, and Vampireball which is an Oddball-variant where the skull is a one-hit kill and absorbs 50% shields for each kill.

The second season is set to launch on May 3rd. Although fans haven’t been thrilled with either the amount of content or the content release schedule among other things, there is an underlying hope that the second season will be handled better. A good portion of the community is also eagerly awaiting for campaign co-op and Forge mode to be released during season 3. With this new content and shorter/normalized season lengths it might not feel nearly as far off as the wait for season 2 has felt.