The Fix For A Very Frustrating Halo Infinite Multiplayer Bug Is On The Way

For weeks now, Halo Infinite players have been grappling with a very frustrating bug when queueing for the game's Big Team Battle mode. 343 Industries has tried to fix the problem a couple of times, but it persists to this day. Thankfully, it seems that 343 Industries has finally gotten to the root of the issue, and a fix for it should be available soon.

If you've played Halo Infinite, you're likely already familiar with this problem, particularly if you play with friends. When queuing for Big Team Battle, players can encounter all sorts of problems. The biggest is being unable to join a game with your fireteam, as sometimes matchmaking will say that a game was found, and then players will suddenly fail to join.

I've personally encountered issues where other players in my party will join the game but I won't, being shown only a black loading screen or a "waiting to join" status on the matchmaking screen. Other times, my friends and I have been caught in loops that show the same error over and over again, forcing us to quit out of the game and restart it.

In short: Big Team Battle is something of a crapshoot at the moment. Sometimes you can join a match with no problems and other times these errors and issues will prevent you from joining any Big Team Battle matches despite repeated attempts. This is particularly frustrating when you get a weekly challenge centered around Big Team Battle, but also just because Big Team Battle is a fun mode that a lot of us want to play.

343 Industries says that these issues get worse with larger fireteams, and since I often queue with three or four people in my party, I believe it. Thankfully, after repeated attempts to stamp out this issue, it seems that a fix is finally on the way.

In an update posted to the Halo Waypoint forums, Halo community director Brian Jarrard gave an encouraging update on the issue, saying that a "strike force" within 343 worked on this issue over the holiday break and may have found a solution. "This went into QA last week and so far it's looking positive – we are not seeing this issue occur internally using this build," Jarrard said.

From here, Jarrard says that the plan is to continue testing the fix and then send it off for certification. Sadly, he couldn't give us an ETA for the fix outside of saying that it won't be available this week, but he did say that the wait hopefully won't be much longer.

Jarrard also said that 343 is looking to ship a bigger update in mid-February that addresses other issues with Halo Infinite's multiplayer, including cheating. We'll have to wait for more details on that patch, but Jarrard says that 343 is "working to get as much as we can into this Feb update while still ensuring no negative impacts or regressions to other parts of the game," which is an encouraging thing to hear.

It's also nice to hear that this Big Team Battle fix isn't being held until the February update, because the sooner that mode can be fixed, the better. We'll let you know when 343 Industries shares more information, so stay tuned.