343 Industries have unveiled their Winter Contingency Event in Halo Infinite, but what are the challenges and how do you complete them?
Halo Infinite's brand new Winter Contingency Event is a little bit of a disappointment, especially as a Christmas-time event. In reality, this event is 343 Industries pretending to be Santa Clause, delivering presents which require you to be naughty, not nice. We can almost hear you asking "but guys, what do you mean by naughty"? Well, guys, we truly believe that Santa Clause would frown upon murdering, and in Halo Infinite, you do a lot of murdering...
When it comes to this particular event, though, it is good to see 343 Industries learn from the mistakes of the game's first event, Tenrai. In Tenrai, players had very little chance to actually grind out the items, completing the various challenges as they go. This was further influenced by the fact that, at the time, the Battle Pass was pretty darn broken. All of this being said, that doesn't make Winter Contingency a good event. In fact, the developers have way over corrected here.
I want to be totally clear to you here: whilst I might be complaining about Halo Infinite in this article, this means nothing about the quality of this fantastic experience. After all, Halo Infinite is actually a fantastic game, and should absolutely be celebrated for its quality. Unlike games such as a Call of Duty: Vanguard and Battlefield 2042, Halo Infinite actually delivers a high-quality product. Thus, despite the Winter Contingency's challenges being suboptimal, it's still worth checking out purely based on the fact that it's Halo Infinite.
All Challenges in Halo Infinite's Winter Contingency Event
To complete the Winter Contingency Event and earn all of the rewards in Halo Infinite, players must play at least one match per day for 10 out of the next 14 days. This means that between now and January 3, when the event ends, Halo Infinite players must jump into multiplayer almost every day for the next two weeks, a fortnight which includes not only Christmas, but Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. That's actually a pretty big commitment, but it also isn't the principle problem with this particular challenge.
This is where we get to the issue of "over-correction". The Tenrai Event featured an unbelievable number of different challenges, that were more-or-less impossible to work your way through in the time required. There was an Event Pass and everything, providing you with a plethora of fantastic rewards, and it wasn't until the Battle Pass was fixed that it was realistic to get the Ultimate Reward at all. We all have to remember that these were not your standard Weekly Challenges.
Instead of being standardized Weekly Challenges, the tasks assigned during the Tenrai Event were actually quite complicated, despite being integrated into the overall upgrade and Battle Pass system. The rewards here are pretty fabulous though, a real Christmas Treat. That's why we wrote about them so passionately, and that's why we got right into the nitty-gritty details in our announcement article. It might be a commitment, but these rewards are worth that commitment.
We're making a list and Skewering it twice! Today, it's time to find out who's naughty and can slice. Winter Contingency has officially arrived - with a new, free event pass up for grabs. https://t.co/6LXv6jqzDW pic.twitter.com/8naCj38ENG
— Halo (@Halo) December 21, 2021
Going back to the point, though, 343 Industries overcorrected here because they went from this absurdly complicated and difficult to obtain Event system in Tenrai, and shifted to this overly simplified version in the Winter Contingency Event. Yes, it requires some decent time dedication to complete, but not that much skill. In the end all you need to do is simply play the game. Nothing more, and nothing less. Simple, right? Boring? Yes.