Halo Infinite devs are too busy to fix the game’s biggest bug
Desync is here to stay
Halo Infinite’s ongoing desync problems won’t be fixed anytime soon, as developer 343 Industries has prioritized other fixes and improvements.
Desync problems have plagued Halo Infinite since launch, leading to enemy players, vehicles, and weapons occasionally glitching across maps and hits sometimes failing to register. While not game-breaking, the network issue is particularly disruptive to multiplayer melee fights.
But it doesn’t look like a desync fix will be appearing anytime soon. Responding to a Reddit post that highlighted melee collisions are still unreliable, senior sandbox designer Brian Berryhill explained in a comment why players are still encountering the glitch.
“The devs that would work on these fixes have been allocated to other Infinite work,” Berryhill said. “Their work has had some knock-on benefit to our UCN [networking] solution, especially around movers (players, vehicles, etc.) on object devices (elevators, pistons, bridges etc.), but not around the melee and "around the wall" shots. These devs are coming home to Sandbox soon (hopefully).”
Although a wholesale desync fix might not be actively in development, Berryhill went on to say it was “high on our priority of fixes”.
melee_andor_player_collision_is_still_incredibly from r/halo
Waiting around
Desync has been something of a sticking point among Halo Infinite fans, who have consistently aired their frustration with the issue since the game launched late last year. A particularly egregious example of the bug made waves on the Halo Infinite subreddit several months ago, leading to Berryhill acknowledging the problem. Back then, they said Infinite's networking team was working to resolve the issue in its latest internal builds.
That resolution hasn’t appeared as quickly as Berryhill or Infinite players would have liked. For a live-service title that sells itself as both pushing the Halo brand forward and harking back to the nostalgic days of competitive multiplayer, a consistent bug is enough to sour players’ perception of the game.
Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox
Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
As the many responses on Reddit show, players aren’t best pleased that desync is still knocking about six months after launch. The idea that it's not an important enough bug to warrant the developer's current attention has particularly rubbed some fans the wrong way. At least they can be hopeful that Halo Infinite’s upcoming co-op mode is shaping up.
Callum is TechRadar Gaming’s News Writer. You’ll find him whipping up stories about all the latest happenings in the gaming world, as well as penning the odd feature and review. Before coming to TechRadar, he wrote freelance for various sites, including Clash, The Telegraph, and Gamesindustry.biz, and worked as a Staff Writer at Wargamer. Strategy games and RPGs are his bread and butter, but he’ll eat anything that spins a captivating narrative. He also loves tabletop games, and will happily chew your ear off about TTRPGs and board games.