Update 12 (Oct 28, 2021): Added the Weapons article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 11 (Oct 26, 2021): Added the Vehicles article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 10 (Oct 22, 2021): Added the Settings article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 9 (Oct 19, 2021): Added the Modes article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 8 (Oct 17, 2021): Added the Medals article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 7 (Oct 16, 2021): Added the Item Spawners article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 6 (Oct 15, 2021): Added the General UI article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 5 (Oct 13, 2021): Added the Equipment and Grenades article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 4 (Oct 11, 2021): Added the Customization article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 3 (Oct 9, 2021): Added the Battle Pass article to the In-Depth Feature Dive section.
Update 2 (Sep 30, 2021): Added details on how to get the Ice Unicorn Emblem in the October 1, 2021 343 Community Playdate starting at 12 P.M. PDT.
Update 1 (Sep 30, 2021): Added an image of the Sol Testing Grounds Armor Emblem and added details on how to participate in the second weekend of the Flight, even if you are not in Halo Insider.
The second Halo Infinite Technical Preview is currently underway with more players invited than ever before! The launch of the Tech Preview went far more smoothly than the first one, although there were still some issues with invites not being sent out to eligible Halo Insiders. Most of these issues should be resolved by now, though, so be sure to check your Halo Insider profile on Halo Waypoint to see if you got invited!
If you did not get invited to this Tech Preview, there will be additional opportunities to join next weekend, even if you have never signed up for Halo Insider (though you really should). There will be an in-game reward available that weekend, so you'll want to jump in if possible. I'll be working to update this article with that information as soon as becomes available, so stay tuned.
Table of Contents
In-Depth Feature Dive (WIP, will not be completed until after Tech Preview has finished)
Flight Content
For now, the purpose of this Tech Preview is to stress test the Halo Infinite servers prior to launch in an effort to reduce the friction and challenges that tend to occur with the high player concurrency at that time. Thus, Matchmaking times are limited to two 4-hour windows each day the Tech Preview is available (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday PDT). The Academy, which includes Training Mode and Weapon Drills, will be available anytime the Flight itself can be accessed. Here is an image from the Tech Preview article on Halo Waypoint showing the schedule for the Flight:
For a more detailed schedule, take a look at the below list, also copied directly from the Tech Preview article on Halo Waypoint. As with that list, items in bold will be added to the existing offerings each day:
Arena
Weekend 1 (September 24-26)
Friday, September 24 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Slayer on Bazaar, Live Fire, and Recharge
Saturday, September 25 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Slayer on Bazaar, Live Fire, and Recharge
Capture The Flag on Bazaar
Strongholds on Live Fire and Recharge
Sunday, September 26 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Slayer on Bazaar, Behemoth, Live Fire, and Recharge
Capture The Flag on Bazaar and Behemoth
Strongholds on Live Fire and Recharge
Weekend 2 (October 1-3)
Friday, October 1 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Saturday, October 2 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Sunday, October 3 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
BTB
Weekend 2 (October 1-3)
Friday, October 1 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Capture The Flag on Fragmentation
Saturday, October 2 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Capture The Flag on Fragmentation
Total Control on Fragmentation
Sunday, October 3 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT
Capture The Flag on Fragmentation
Total Control on Fragmentation
Slayer on Fragmentation
Beyond Social Arena and BTB, there will also be a Bot Arena playlist featuring Saturday's content at all times, with Behemoth rotating in alongside Social Arena on Sunday. Bot Arena is live only when matchmaking is available. The following maps and modes will be available in Bot Arena both weekends, with the exception of Behemoth (which is only available starting Sunday of Weekend 1)
Slayer on Bazaar, Behemoth, Live Fire, and Recharge
Capture The Flag on Bazaar and Behemoth
Strongholds on Live Fire and Recharge
Players can also take part in Training Mode on all Arena maps available in the Tech Preview, even when matchmaking is disabled. Note that Behemoth will be added to this map set on Sunday. Training Mode will offer the following in-game options to all players, and each option can be adjusted while playing the mode from the Pause Menu.
Bot Difficulty
Number of Friendly Bots
Number of Enemy Bots
Weapons (Primary & Secondary)
Grenades (Primary & Secondary)
Equipment
Reveal Enemy Location
Playfighting
Infinite Ammo
Deathless
Finally, Weapon Drills from the first Tech Preview are returning with some significant upgrades and higher difficulty to obtain 3 stars. The following Weapon Drills are available at all times while the Tech Preview is live each weekend.
MA40 AR
BR75
MK50 Sidekick
CQS48 Bulldog
Needler
VK78 Commando
S7 Sniper
Plasma Pistol
Pulse Carbine
Ravager
Heatwave
Skewer
Shock Rifle (new)
The Battle Pass has been updated since the last Tech Preview. The Battle Pass has been restructured and contains 30 tiers of content now. However, any content you didn't already have in tiers you unlocked in the last Tech Preview cannot be unlocked since your progress in the Pass was not reset.
The Challenge system has been refined to more closely match the system intended for launch, with many more available Daily Challenges that ramp up in difficulty and time commitment much more slowly than before. Fewer Weekly Challenges are available this time, but multiple tiers of Challenges are included this time (three, to be precise).
Also, if you've gotten this far in the article, please ask me about my method to get consistent Pancake medals! It's easier than you think (and may help you with one of your Weekly Challenges in the future).
In-Game Rewards
You'll want to jump in and play a bunch during Weekend 2 of the Flight because there will be an exclusive in-game reward available:
"Additionally, as a thank you for helping test our services, players who complete 10 matches during the second weekend (October 1-3) will be granted a special emblem for their Spartans when the game launches this December."
Update: Today, 343 showed the actual Armor Emblem that will be granted to players who play 10 matchmade matches this coming weekend, the Sol Testing Grounds Armor Emblem.
Make sure you play 10 matchmade matches the weekend of October 1 - October 3 to secure your emblem for the launch game.
Update 2: Additionally, on October 1, 2021, players who match up with or against the official 343 team in Friday's Community Playdate starting at 12 P.M. PDT will earn the new Ice Unicorn Emblem when the game launches later this year. It is unclear how long this playdate will last, but the matchmaking window closes at 2 P.M. PDT on Friday, October 1, so it will be at most 2 hours.
Feedback
If you have thoughts on any aspect of the Tech Preview that you would like 343 to review, make sure to post it on Halo Waypoint to ensure it is seen. The following list, pulled from their Halo Waypoint Tech Preview article, provides links to each of their dedicated feedback threads on the Halo Waypoint forums. All you need to participate is your Microsoft account. Let your voice be heard!
Support and Bug Reports
Finally, it is extremely important to submit bug reports to 343 through the Insider Support site. These reports help them track down critical issues that may only affect specific PC configurations or a small subset of players that may not have otherwise been found through internal playtests.
If you see something wrong and think it isn't by design, you should report it. The only exception is anything on the Known Issues list, unless they explicitly call it out as an issue they need additional reports to solve.
To report a bug, first review the Known Issues list. If you don't see the issue listed, scroll to the bottom of the article and click the "click here to submit a ticket" button under the Submit a Ticket header.
There are plenty of other useful articles available to Insiders that explain how various Halo Infinite systems work. You can view them here.
Weekend 2 Access
In the second weekend of the Tech Preview, players from outside the Halo Insider program will have the chance to play with everyone who was invited to the first weekend. Here's how to participate:
Xbox
All Xbox players can download the Tech Preview from the Xbox Insider Hub app. For details on how to do this, please read these steps. You will be unable to access the Flight itself until it goes live in the evening on Thursday, September 30, 2021.
PC
All players who were invited to the first weekend of the Tech Preview should have received a Halo Waypoint code in their email. This code is meant to be given to another PC player to grant them access to the Flight on Steam. They will redeem the code at halowaypoint.com/redeem and follow the steps provided there. For more information, read this post. The PC Flight is not open access like it is on Xbox, so you will need a code to participate on this platform. Again, you will be unable to access the Flight until it goes live on Thursday evening, September 30, 2021.
In-Depth Feature Dive
For those of you who read my previous Technical Preview articles, this section will be very familiar. Once the Tech Preview has been completed, I will be creating a ton of articles documenting what has changed, improved, or been added since the last Tech Preview. I do not envision this process taking as much time as it did in the last Tech Preview, but it will still take some time to complete. I'll update this main article over time as each focused article is published.
As a reminder, I will never include information, screenshots, or data that was not explicitly available to all players in the Tech Preview. This means you will not find any datamined information on this website, and you will not find anything accessed through exploits, workarounds, or other methods to view content not officially available to all players. As I have stated previously, I believe the best way to discover these secrets is either to wait for 343 to reveal them officially or to experience them yourself as an official feature of a Tech Preview or at launch.
As I complete focused articles for each section of the Tech Preview, I will create a list below with links to each article. I will be announcing each addition on Twitter (@HInfiniteNews) and biweekly through the email subscriptions on the main page of the site.