This was the season that finally got me playing "Halo Infinite" again. I joined in during the tail-end of the season and was surprised by how much more fun it had become.

Challenges were no longer unbearable, there was a good number of maps in rotation, and I could have (a bit) more freedom to choose what mode I wanted to play! It was completely refreshing compared to what came before.

Though, with all that said, the problems with the core concept of the live service model still hurt the game a lot. The battle pass still sucks, daily challenges still aren't all that fun, and the general systems implemented still make it feel so much less satisfying when compared to older titles in the series.

This was a great step in the right direction, but it still wasn't enough to full save the game. Still, I play this game once a day now for whatever reason, so they must be doing something right.

An actual season
3 months long
good QOL improvements
2 new very good maps
1 new very fun game mode
1 new kinda cool weapon
1 new cool equipment
a new 100 tier battlepass that comes with extra perks like an extra coating plus more xp
and 2 new armor cores

but now for the bad stuff

1. the armor cores are kinda ugly and have very little customization
2. the post launch support for this season was really bad
yeah it had events
but not very good ones
the events consisted of firewall and 2 narrative events
and none of them really felt like events

for context
the other events in previous seasons were all tied to a playlist and had a theme and matching challenges
for example the yappening which was a goofy event with goofy modes and a goofy event pass with very easy to complete challenges
but these events did have some flaws
like forcing players to play a playlist they didn't exactly like
or forcing them to do really annoying challenges
for example
doing very specific challenges in fiesta ahem tenrai event

season 3's solution to these complaints was to make every event just "play the game" and thats really boring

like season 2's narrative events suck
way worse than season 3
but at least season 2's events tried to tie into the gameplay
saying how "oh if you play the map breaker in our simulation iratus will get really pissed and come after you at which point we will trap him in the servers!!!"

while with season 3 you just play the game for a bit then unlock a 10 second cutscene

issue #3 is just my disappointment with the greedy bullshit not changing

if cross core wasn't ready for this season thats fine
but selling 1 coating over and over again for multiple cores instead of just bundling all the coatings together is stupid as hell

and when they do bundle all of the coatings together
they charge like $15 for it

the battlepass was still layed out like shit
with emblem variants taking up multiple tiers
and shoulder pads still not being one tier

and idk man this refusal to change just upsets me

I really hope season 4 improves on this stuff

this is what i'm talking about!
this is 343 accelerating and getting better at introducing fun new content!
along with forge and co-op, this is Halo Infinite's come back!

this one's a 4.