When starting up Halo Infinite's multiplayer for the first time, many players looked towards the armor hall to see what customization options were available. What they found was good news and bad news: a fairly extensive amount of customization options, with most of them locked behind a battle pass.
Bad news then turned to worse as players realized mixing and matching armor from different armor cores was impossible. This meant that armor from the Mark VII armor core could never be mixed with armor from the Mark V core, extremely limiting creative customization.
Recently, Halo Infinite modders figured out that the game could easily support cross-customization of armor cores. Reddit user hantar7788 posted screenshots of armor sets created with cross-customization of armor cores, saying modders unlocked the customization with "minimal effort." This meant that not only was the lack of cross-customization limiting, but also that there was no reason for the limiting in the first place.
Cross core customisation is possible. Modders achieved this with minimum effort apparently from halo
Other users in the thread claimed there were multiple reasons for the limiting of Halo Infinite customization. Some said it may have to do with lore elements or immersion. Others thought that the different armor cores may be teasing a class system in the future, where each core would play differently. However, the most stated conclusion by users was that the lack of cross-customization made it easier to monetize customization. Limiting armor so that it only works on a specific core means that, if players want full customization of each core, they have to buy each piece for it. Since pieces vary between cores, buying one piece of armor nets players nothing for their other cores.
The irony of this limiting monetization is that 343 Industries could have probably made more money and kept players happier by fully unlocking Halo Infinite's amor customization. If players were able to mix and match armor wherever they wanted, they would buy more pieces knowing those pieces could be used universally. With the current system, nothing incentivizes players to buy pieces across different armor sets, forcing players to either choose their favorite set and ignore others, or spend a lot of money to unlock everything.
With modders confirming better customization options are not only easy to unlock but also supported, only time will tell whether 343 decides to give players the full customization they desire.
Halo Infinite is out now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.