Halo Infinite Will Take Place On Zeta Halo, 343 Industries Confirms

In a new interview with GamesRadar, 343 Industries studio head Chris Lee confirmed that Halo Infinite will be set on the ring world of Zeta Halo now under the control of The Banished led by War Chief Escharum. Known as Halo Installation 07, this ancient Forerunner superweapon was at one point home to a race of humans in author Greg Bear’s Forerunner Trilogy of novels, and is the only surviving ring of the original 12 that were created.

"Halo Infinite will be set on Zeta Halo," Lee explained. "We want to create something that's familiar, but different. The TACMAP gives you an idea of the size and scale, and some of the objectives that you will find in Halo Infinite. It gives players a lot of choice and freedom as they play through the world. You'll be running into objectives, setting points on your map, and kind of navigating and exploring as you go."

When the threat of The Flood first began to appear within the galaxy, Master Builder Faber and the Forerunners would use the humans of Zeta Halo as test subjects in an effort to find a cure for the parasitic life form that had already laid waste to The Precursors. Zeta Halo’s existence was teased as far back as 2015 as theorised by GamesRadar, when Halo 5: Guardians provided a brief glimpse of the installation in an unknown region of the Milky Way galaxy.

In the 2018 Halo Infinite trailer, Morse code could be heard from a handheld radio that translated to "SOS ZETA HALO GRD", while the Discover Hope trailer hid another clue to the existence of the installation in a small note on the Pelican dashboard that read "Local Ref Zeta".

Shown off in deeper detail at this month's Xbox Series X Showcase, 343 Industries will build the game into a platform for the next decade of Halo that moves beyond the traditional standalone sequel structure. "Halo Infinite is the start of our platform for the future,” Lee said.

"We want Infinite to grow over time, versus going to those numbered titles and having all that segmentation that we had before. It's really about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community."

Halo Infinite will arrive is a launch title for the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC, with Microsoft confirming that the graphics will get "better and better" in the lead up to launch.