The long-awaited Season 3 of Halo Infinite has finally arrived, bringing with it new maps and modes along with a new weapon and equipment that fans of ranked and competitive play might appreciate. While the Bungie era of the Halo franchise was largely popular for its mix of competitive and social features, the 343 Industries era has placed a larger focus on its competitive aspects. Now, the new Shroud Screen equipment opens the door for tactics seen in other prominent competitive shooters, which may perfectly complement Halo Infinite's competitive scene.
Halo Infinite has notoriously struggled as a free-to-play live service game, owing to a serious lack of content at launch, poor customization and progression systems, and updates rolling out at a snail's pace. Admittedly, many problems have been addressed by now, and the overall consensus within the community seems to be that Halo Infinite Season 3 serves as the first real look at seasonality that 343 Industries has been aiming to achieve since Halo Infinite launched. Though many felt the new Shroud Screen equipment looked a bit underwhelming in pre-release footage, in practice it provides much more utility and outplay potential than expected.
How the Shroud Screen Impacts Halo Infinite's Gameplay
For nearly two decades, power items have played an essential role in Halo competitive play, meaning the difference between winning and losing could come down to who better controlled and utilized these items. With Halo Infinite going back to a similar sandbox approach to its multiplayer as in Halo 3, there are plenty of opportunities for players to use equipment to take enemies off guard. Power items still play a major role, but equipment like the Grappleshot or Repulsor adds a whole new layer of potential for individual players to make game-changing plays.
The new Shroud Screen acts as the Halo version of a smoke grenade, creating a vision-blocking sphere that lasts several seconds and still allows players to deal or receive damage through its walls. Whereas Halo 3’s Bubble Shield allowed those inside to stay protected and maintain awareness of their surroundings, the Shroud Screen affects the players’ vision and radar, meaning they have no idea what they’re getting into when they enter or exit. This makes it a great tool for quickly getting out of a sticky situation while confusing the enemy at the same time.
Halo Infinite’s Shroud Screen Adds a Competitive Staple to the Franchise
In other prominent competitive shooters like Counter-Strike and Valorant, smoke grenades or smoke-like abilities have a profound impact on gameplay and the execution of various strategies. In these games where the objective is for one team to defend bomb sites while the other attempts to infiltrate those sites to plant a bomb, smokes allow players to obstruct vision within an area and block key choke points. While not the most complex idea on the surface, many competitive players would argue that the level of map control this grants is equally important as having good aim.
The first two Halo games featured power-ups like Active Camouflage and Overshield, but Halo 3 introduced equipment to the franchise that offered different use cases depending on the situation. Halo: Reach and Halo 4 implemented armor abilities that functioned a bit differently than equipment, and players would choose which abilities they’d want in their loadout prior to the match. In an attempt to further push the competitive side of the game, these features were removed in Halo 5, and 343 Industries leveled the playing field by giving all players the same movement-enhancing abilities that they could use at any given time.
The Halo franchise has implemented several variations of its equipment and armor abilities over the years, but none have ever fully blocked the vision of players. Equipment and armor abilities like the Bubble Shield from Halo 3 or the Drop Shield from Halo: Reach created a sphere that blocked damage within an area, but they didn’t obscure players’ vision. With the Shroud Screen in Halo Infinite doing the opposite and blocking vision while allowing players, bullets, grenades, and more to pass through, this totally changes the way players can approach encounters and may even lead to professional teams adapting their strategies.
Halo Infinite is available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.