343 Industries has had an uphill battle for Halo Infinite’s armor customization once the game released, as many players have been unhappy with its systems. Despite arguably providing what are the best-looking Spartans in the series to date, Halo Infinite may also have the most restrictive armor customization in part due to its Armor Core system. This decision sacrifices player expression and convenience for in-game coherency and monetization, requiring players to spend $8 for a blue armor coating when in previous games they could select whatever color they want. This issue is exasperated by the lack of free armor components in the game as well.
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Reddit user psychontrol went through the painstaking task of calculating the armor costs of the seven Spartans in one of Halo Infinite’s most prominent images. The image is often used to demonstrate the player freedrom available in Halo Infinite, and how open-ended the customization is, but psychontrol demonstrates how deceitful that intent is. “Remember the iconic Spartan lineup from the mlutiplayer beta last June?” psychontrol starts in their post on the Halo subreddit. “Some of these cosmetic combinations cost $60 or more, even before including the price of any unreleased items of unknown value.”
Of the seven Spartans shown, the cheapest one is estimated to be around $10, the only confirmed price being the cost of the paid battle pass. On the other end of the spectrum, there are two Spartans sitting at $60 and above, the orange one to the center left and the magenta one on the far right.
These Spartans are so expensive because they contain components that are a part of $15 and $20 bundles, the priciest sets available in the Halo Infinite Item Shop. A user in November estimated that purchasing all of Halo Infinite’s seasonal content would cost upwards of $1,000.
There are two primary problems with Halo Infinite’s customization that are reinforced by psychontrol’s work. Firstly, charging for armor components is not inherently bad, but in many cases, the customization options shown here (or similar items) were available for free in previous Halo games.
The second problem involves Halo Infinite’s marketing: it is too late to do anything about it now, but had players known how much they would have to spend to make their Spartans look like these ones, the community feedback would have started well before the game’s launch. Since 343 Industries did not do this though, it is experiencing some backlash from fans.
Halo Infinite is available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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