It might cost over $1,000 to buy all cosmetics in Halo Infinite

This story about paying more for customization, boiled down, in 1:56 minutes.

What's the fuss?

Halo Infinite's multiplayer launch is off to a wonderful start - for the most part. Fans are blasting the game for some of its anti-consumer-like practices that were revealed in a leak.

The situation

Players have been raving about Halo Infinite's multiplayer mode ever since its surprise launch last week. 

• Many consider the game to be a return to form for the series, especially since Halo's last couple of sequels did not quite meet fan expectations.
• Halo's esports scene has also recently kicked off with qualifying matches, so far pulling in hundreds of thousands of spectators.
  

All of this attention hasn't come without criticisms however, with the game being lambasted for its slow player progression and aggressive monetization.

• Dataminers leaked the entire contents of Halo Infinite's item shop, which usually features only select items that are changed through daily rotation.
• Players took to the Internet to vent their frustrations when one Reddit post approximated it would take $1,035 USD to purchase everything using past prices as reference points.

Boiling it down

The cherry on top is that it seems like this is exactly what the developer said they weren't going to do.

• Last year before the game came out, the developer published a blog post stating how they purposefully wouldn't make the game a "grind" and that there would be a "ton of of customization content" earnable through merely playing the game.
• So far, this has not been the case with a grand majority of cosmetic items only available through direct purchase or via premium battle pass.

This trend of having supplementary cosmetic items going for egregious amounts of real life money has almost become normalized in free-to-play games.

• Another popular free-to-play first person shooter, Valorant, took some heat when some of its gun skins were priced over $100 USD.
• Fully priced games cost approximately $70 USD, which is why many gamers would prefer to pay a lower upfront price but have cosmetic items be earnable through gameplay instead of having to shill out more money.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider subscribing if you enjoy stories like this delivered directly to you every Tuesday and Friday morning!

Any and all feedback is valid and welcome.