REDMOND, Wash. — Halo Studios has announced their plan to convert Halo Infinite multiplayer map ‘Launch Site’ into a pickleball court as part of a new initiative to help with player retention.
“We polled lapsed players on what would get them back into the Halo Infinite ecosystem,” said John Colins, Head of Multiplayer and Pickleball Initiatives at Halo Studios, said in a recent YouTube video. “The second most popular answer was adding in some elements of pickleball to the game. The most popular answer was fixing bugs and balancing the game, so we decided to go with a pickleball court.”
Halo Infinite’s popularity has waned over the years with players opting out of its numerous multiplayer options and instead focusing on pickleball whenever they’re not obsessing and complaining about the game’s dipping Steam Chart number, a trend that Colins said he finds relatable.
“There are many times I find myself on the pickleball court, when I could be fixing a bug or balancing the Gravity Hammer,” Colins admitted in the video, as he tossed a paddle from hand-to-hand. “I get the obsession. That’s why we’re converting Launch Site to a pickleball court. It’s where most players first played Halo Infinite back at launch and it’s where we hope to combine the multiple passions of the player base. There’s also the added benefit of all the noise. Players’ complaints and constant whining will now be drowned out by the hypnotic and comforting tune of paddles passing pickleballs back and forth across the court.”
Outspoken Halo Infinite YouTuber, H4L0GUY343, took to his channel to complain about the planned pickleball courses.
“You can’t just up and change Launch Site. Like yeah, it’s my least favorite map and I don’t play it anymore, but you can’t do that,” H4L0GUY343 said, before the rest of his dumb complaining was drowned out by a nearby game of pickleball.
At press time, Halo Studios confirmed the early success of converting Launch Site to a pickleball court, and committed to converting ten-percent of existing Halo Infinite maps.
