Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is a damn chatty game. With voice lines regularly erupting from the series’ legendary announcer, the dueling Spartans themselves, and the series’ new personal AIs, voices come at you as often as bullets and grenades. Now, thanks to a new update (that also packs a new map!), you can finally silence one of those sources of sound.
Burdened with the task of reinvigorating a series over 20 years old without straying too far from its roots, Halo Infinite tries a number of twists to the old arena shooter formula. Personal AIs as side announcers are one of them. While these “mini announcers,” of which you could choose from several (including at least one character from Halo 3: ODST), does occasionally grant helpful info like letting you know when you’re running low on ammo, or if you pick up a grenade and don’t realize it (saving you the a glance at your HUD to focus on the game), they also regularly quip about the gun you were carrying or how you kill someone in over-the-top, unhelpful, and distracting ways.
And, as many Halo Infinite players can attest, there was (and possibly still is) a frequent bug where the game defaults to the “Butler” AI character seemingly at random, canceling out whatever AI you select. So even if you didn’t mind their chattiness or found some of the quips useful, it often wouldn’t work as intended to begin with (the game would often do this with the voice type as well, spontaneously detransitioning my Spartan to sound like a dudebro when I distinctly chose otherwise).
How to turn off Halo Infinite’s personal AI
The new Halo Infinite update tucks a “Personal AI Dialogue Toggle” into the settings menu, as listed as the third item on apost from the Halo Support account.
But that’s not all from this update.
Halo Infinite gets a new map, water physics, and camera improvements
As stated in the post above, Halo Infinite is also getting a Reach-inspired Arena map called Dredge. There’s a specific playlist now dedicated solely to this map for some 2010-era Halo feels.
Players can now also rotate the camera around a player they’re spectating when they’re in a respawn time out. Previously the camera was locked behind whoever you were spectating.
And for Forge maps, you can now add in a “Reactive Water Plane” that ripples and reacts to collisions from players, vehicles, and, of course bullets, among a few other bug fixes and menu tweaks.
But while it is great folks can now mute those AIs, I do bemoan how much of a missed opportunity they were. I happen to appreciate it when the AI lets me know I’m running out of ammo while I’m still in a mental frenzy from my last brush with death…I just don’t need the whole “kaboom!” and “nothing like a three-round burst!” and “such a reliable weapon” or “your accuracy has improved” without any actual stat behind it.