No, the key art above is not an advertising image for Wolfenstein. It’s a promotional shot for a cosmetic set Halo infinite armor called Eaglestrike. Pretty nice, right? Good news: The set itself is pretty easy to get. Bad news: Your personal version will not look cool months.
Halo infinite‘s second season has only been live for a few weeks, and developer 343 Industries has already rolled out two “events” – or time-limited playlists where you can play to unlock specific rewards – for the free-to-play shooter. The first event of the season, “Interference”, focused on the new not-call-it-a-battle-generous Last Spartan Standing mode. The second, “Fracture: Fortified”Is about the new not-call-it-king-of-the-hill Landgreb fashion.
“Fracture” incidents are essentially an excuse to add non-conventional ones glory cosmetics to Infinite, justified in lore through a lot of things to do with interdimensional rift and multiversal travel and blah blah blah. In season 1 was “Bride: Tenrai”Event allowed players to unlock the samurai-inspired Yoroi set using a 30-level bonus match pass. Earning rewards in “Entrenched” works pretty much the same way.
Just like the pass to “Tenrai”, it’s for “Entrenched” for free and you can complete it along with your standard seasonal. Progress is made by completing challenges associated with the currently active “Entrenched” playlist, which puts you into combat in Land Grab.
To standard kampppas, completing challenges gives you XP, and earning 1,000 XP gives you a level up. But for events, XP does not matter: once you complete a challenge, unlock a new level and earn its reward – no need to keep track of XP or add armchairs or anything like that. (Completing fracture challenges also gives you XP against your standard combat pass.) Some of the challenges like “completing a Land Grab PvP battle” are a breeze. Others, like “win a Land Grab PvP match”, are subject to your teammates’ skill level. Good luck.
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The catch is that there are virtually no good rewards in the first week. You can get a gunshot quite early and you get the Eagle Strike itself relatively quickly as well. But it is … basically it. Cosmetics that are legit worth grinding are not available until later levels. Here are some of the standouts that will become available as “Fracture: Entrenched” cycles in and out of availability:
- Level 3: Eagles prospects, an obviously ridiculous attitude (that I definitely equip the second I earn it).
- Level 5: Base Eaglestrike armor.
- Levels 13 and 14: The meaty Crabshell shoulder pads for Eaglestrike.
- Level 17: Carbon Tundra, the first armor coating for Eaglestrike – this is the moment when everyone rocking the armor will not also rock the same exact color scheme.
- Level 20: The Kerberos helmet, similar to the kind of thing a soldier would wear in the trenches during World War II.
- Level 29: Ultramarine Core, a delicious mahogany and indigo armor coating that I have called dibs on, sorry.
Right now, since you can only have up to 10 Entrenched-themed challenges available for a given week, you will make a hard stop after hitting level 10, which means the Eaglestrike armor does not start to look unique among players , who use it before July (unless, of course, 343 Industries makes a lot of enticing armor coatings available in the microtransaction store in midweek).
“Fractured: Entrenched” is currently scheduled to run one week per month over the next few months. Halo infinite‘s in-game menu says the first week ends on May 30th. But i a blog post, 343 says that the first week ends on May 31 at. 14:00 ET. In other words, the game does not seem to show the dozens of odd hours, the event is active during the weekly reset every Tuesday – but if you do not meet all your challenges on Monday night, you still have some time on Tuesday morning to knock them out . At least it’s all random. Here is the schedule as it currently stands:
- The first week runs from May 24 to May 31.
- The second is from June 14 to June 21.
- Third, July 5 to July 12.
- Fourth, August 16 to August 23.
The previous fracture incident ran through six times Halo infinitefirst season. This second will also happen six times, the developer say, but it is unclear when exactly after the scheduled dates in August. When reached for comment, representatives of 343 Industries did not immediately have this information at hand.
For what it’s worth: Land Grab, at least from the matches I’ve played so far, is pretty fun. It’s a bit of a twist on that Halo infinites zone capture modes, such as King of the Hill. Two teams of four meet each other on Arena cards. (Land Grab is available on four levels: Aquarius, Bazaar, the delicious old-school Catalystand Behemoth, the card fucked so irrevocably 343 Industries beat it from the ranked playlist.) At the beginning of each match, there are three zones on the map. However, unlike other zone capture modes, a zone is first secured in Land Grab, it is locked and cannot be recaptured by the other team. Once all three zones are captured, three more appear. First team to 11 points wins. I’m sure my thoughts will calcify as I end up playing more, but so far I’m enjoying how tense these matches can get.
There is also a low-stakes debate about breaking armor sets popping up every now and then Halo infinite. Purists say it is a rejection of glory‘s long-standing aesthetic. Others embrace how strange it is. Personally, I think these sets are cool in theory if they are a little short with customization options. (I love Yoroi, but wish the colors available were not gray, light gray, a little lighter gray, and a little pink.) Plus, the prospect of fracture events – folding in design from anywhere or, uh, anytime – means, that there is a whole variety of options out there for future seasons. Hi, who knows: Maybe this this is how we get playable elites.