Halo’s Firefight has always been a staple of the series, standing as the perfect blend of co-op wave-based defense against the computer-controlled hordes of campaign enemies.
Ever since Halo Infinite’s 2021 launch, the community has asked when the iconic cooperative game mode would return to the franchise, with season five finally bringing it back after two more years of waiting.
Halo Infinite’s Firefight pits you and up to three other teammates. Instead of the goal being just surviving the waves of enemies like in previous entries, Infinite’s Firefight now features a King of the Hill objective, which players must secure and defend against the AI hordes. Here’s everything you need to know about playing Halo Infinite’s Firefight Mode.
What is Firefight in Halo Infinite?
Halo Firefight is a PvE game mode where Spartans must capture and defend hills against waves of AI-controlled enemies. Just like the campaign, players can choose the game mode’s difficulty level before heading into battle, which will determine the enemy health, numbers, and AI, alongside each player’s own starting loadout options for weapon and equipment choice.
Typically, a round of Firefight would spawn in groups of enemies, who try to seek out and eliminate the human players. These waves include all enemy types featured in the campaign, and also include special boss waves of themed enemies, like Elite Brutes with enhanced Gravity Hammers.
Once all enemies are eliminated, players will get power weapons like the Rocket Launcher, armor abilities like Active Camo, or extra team lives before the next wave starts.
If any Spartans die in Firefight, they will respawn from a pool of lives after a short amount of time. Once all lives run out, players will stay dead until the end of the wave, where they respawn, or when all players are eliminated, ending the game.
Halo Infinite features Firefight King of the Hill, a new spin on the game mode where Spartans must capture five hills from the Banished forces and defend them, just like in the standard multiplayer mode.
The mode will only end once players capture and hold all five hills or when all lives are depleted, with no time limit on how long the match can go on before ending.
New additions to Infinite Firefight include an initial loadout choice. Eearly gameplay footage has shown Spartans with unlimited Grappleshot and Threat Sensor charges, just like in the campaign, and the new ability for players to be revived mid-wave, allowing teams to save their limited pool of respawns when on the harder waves.
Fireteams who successfully complete a wave perfectly, without any player going down will also get a random Skull for the remainder of the match, making each additional wave harder and harder as more and more difficulty modifiers are added, alongside the scaling enemy waves. These skulls are pulled from the campaign pool and negatively affect the entire team. Examples include Fog, which disables the motion sensor, Black Eye, which makes Shields regenerate only on successful melee hits, and Thunderstorm, which makes players encounter elite and harder versions of each enemy type.
Firefight King of the Hill will drop with nine playable maps, three of them being community made. Early gameplay has shown the Arena map Forest, and campaign mission House of Reckoning as two of the Firefight supported maps.
How many players can play Firefight?
Firefight can be played solo, or co-operatively with up to four players in the official multiplayer playlist, though custom lobbies can bypass the limitation completely by changing the game mode’s preset rules. Forge game options allow for up to 12 Spartans on the same team, or even a competitive 12-vs-12 Big Team Battle Firefight, with players fighting against each other and the AI controlled Banished forces.
Firefight: Multiplayer Playlist
Currently, Firefight King of the Hill is not available in Halo Infinite as a dedicated playlist in the multiplayer browser, and cannot be played yet.
Although featured in the initial season five trailer, the official Halo Waypoint news blog later confirmed Firefight King of the Hill will not drop when the new season starts, but will instead launch later in the season.
There is no official release date on when Firefight King of the Hill comes out, but fans could possibly expect it to come out alongside a themed Operation to celebrate its return to the series.
Firefight: Customs Browser
Although Firefight King of the Hill is not playable, you can use the new and improved Forge AI features to create your own Firefight mode or join another player’s custom game lobby.
The Forge AI toolkit allows players to spawn in all different enemy types and even allied marines from the Halo Infinite campaign, with game mode and scripting options opening the way for PvE or even PvPvE experiences on any of the new supported maps. Eager players who don’t want to wait for the official Firefight King of the Hill release can instead jump into any community-created custom lobby and join the fight against the Banished now.
You can find these community modes by selecting Custom Game from the main menu, then Customs Browser to open up the matchmaking list. From there, you can search for any game with available space running a custom Firefight mode. Each creator’s Firefight lobby will contain their own rules, and each game will offer a vastly different experience from each other.
Players can keep up with the Halo Waypoint blog and social media accounts for more information regarding the official release of Firefight King of the Hill.
