Since the old days of Halo 2 on the original Xbox, many players (myself included) have been enjoying zombie-inspired competitive modes in these games. And now, finally, Halo Infinite, the latest, somewhat beleaguered entry in the franchise, is adding its own version of this popular game mode in its upcoming season four update.
Halo Infinite launched in December 2021 to rave reviews, mostly thanks to its fantastic open-world campaign. However, its multiplayer hasn’t been as well-received, with fans upset over long seasons that often brought about very little new content. And while some recent updates have helped improve matters, adding more features, modes, and maps, the game is still missing some classic elements from Halo games of old. For example, it didn’t have an official Infection mode, aka “zombies mode.” But that will change next week with season four.
On June 14, after teasing it in May, 343 released a new trailer announcing the arrival of Halo Infinite’s own zombies mode. And on Thursday, the company posted a blog going into more detail about this new mode, how it works, and why the zombies look like weird neon-covered demons.
Halo Infinite’s new zombies mode, explained
According to 343, in this new season of Halo Infinite, an alien AI—Iratus—has taken control of a UNSC facility’s systems and now uses its powers to puppet some old Spartan armors. This is why the “zombies” this time around are covered in red, glowing neon patterns, as it is Iratus’ digital infection spreading and controlling Spartans. A bit odd, but past infection modes in Halo games have changed up how the infected combatants look, with some games using basic Spartan models and others creating Flood-like versions of players.
As for how this mode will play, if you’ve enjoyed hours of zombie-inspired modes in past Halo games, you’ll likely be familiar with these rules.
- Infection is played in rounds and each round has one team trying to infect the other team by killing them. If an infected player kills a survivor, they join the horde.
- At the start of each round, a few players are randomly selected by the game to start out as infected. Everyone else is a survivor.
- Survivors begin with limited supplies and weapons. So you’ll need to explore the map to find more ammo and better weapons to survive the digital zombies.
- For survivors to win they need to outlast the zombies for a set amount of time. The infected players only win when all the other survivors are killed and turned into fellow zombies. When there is only one survivor left, they get infinite ammo and an overshield. However, they are also marked on the map by an on-screen indicator, making it impossible to hide.
And that’s it! Relatively simple, but endlessly fun. I’ve likely clocked hundreds of hours in just this game mode back in the Halo 2 and Halo 3 days of Xbox Live. I remember countless hours of Halo 2 zombies, back when the mode was an unofficial custom creation and you had to pause the game after you died to switch teams and join the infected. It was clunky, but still a blast. Later on, Halo 3 and other Halo games would make the game style official, and it became one of the most popular ways to play those classic Bungie-developed entries.
Sure, it took a bit for this popular mode to finally make its way into Halo Infinite, but I’m happy it’s here. I expect I’ll be booting up Infinite soon to check out this new spin on the classic.
Interestingly, in a separate Xbox Wire post, 343 says it is looking into officially adding other popular custom fan modes into the game in the future. That’s nice, and it makes me hopeful that Halo Infinite will continue to get bigger and better. But if not, well, at least we got a zombies mode.