By the time I began following Halo Infinite’s development, there were already indications of significant issues at 343 Industries that all but extinguished hopes that many of its more intriguing rumored features would ever materialize. That big, ugly delay didn’t exactly instill confidence either. However, three weeks before the game’s official launch date, its multiplayer was unexpectedly released early, and at its core was a game that somehow felt like Halo again. While the community’s frustrations have come to overshadow this, when the full game launched few weeks later, reviews of its campaign were overwhelmingly positive too. Although I dove right into its multiplayer, it’s been a real test of my willpower to wait this long to finally play the campaign.
“There will be consequences…”
Aesthetically, Halo Infinite feels like a bit of a throwback. While the game can look amazing at times, on a technical level, it’s not as ambitious as I think many fans expected. Coupled with 343’s return to the Bungie days of Halo stylistically, which, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love, the whole thing looks just a little… stale? While there are countless articles and videos you can dig into to understand its technical issues, one of the game’s biggest visual shortcomings is simply its lack of diverse environments. While Halo campaigns have always featured a rich variety of distinct maps, apart from Banished and Forerunner areas, Infinite mostly takes place in a single biome. Hell, a dynamic weather system or even just a more aggressive day/night cycle could have helped. It’s a shame, as overall, I like the game’s look and I really like the vast majority of its new designs, but it falls short of the home run Halo deserved.
With no technical issues to wrestle with, Infinite’s similarly Bungie inspired soundtrack fares far better. Incorporating elements of and otherwise influenced by the series defining work of Marty O’donnell and Michael Salvatori, including some full remakes of classic tracks, I have zero complaints. Again, 343 played it fairly safe here, but after the more experimental soundtracks of Halo 4 and Halo 5, I think returning to its roots was a good move. Specific nitpicks aside, the rest of the audio work, from the way weapons sound to the voice acting, is similarly top-notch.
“Hey, I can see my house from here!”
Not surprisingly, the majority of my notes are on gameplay, as that’s where 343 took the most risks. Borrowing heavily from the open-world genre, while Infinite’s campaign still consists of a series of linearly progressed levels, there’s now a huge map that you can explore between missions. Oftentimes these more classic-style missions are triggered by reaching specific locations on the map, while others actually take place in the open world itself. Combat-wise, these open world segments don’t feel dissimilar from the larger areas in previous Halo levels, but having such a vast map, so untethered from the campaign’s mission structure is a new concept for the series. Personally, I think it works, though it’s a bit rough around the edges.
First it has to be said, combat in Infinite really feels like Halo in a way that, while hard to describe, is damn satisfying. The weapon balance is just about perfect, and many favorites return in one form or another. There are some new additions, like the Commando, something of a peculiar blend of a DMR and a SAW, though I was particularly attached to Infinite’s take on the good old, versatile Battle Rifle. On the Banished side, the new shock weapons like the Disruptor pistol and the Dynamo grenades are surprisingly effective, as are the long-range Stalker Rifle and Skewer. The two new Forerunner weapons, the Heatwave and the Cindershot, seem practically designed to promote battlefield chaos with their multiple ricocheting projectiles and bouncing explosions, respectively. As for difficulty, playing on Heroic, I felt fairly challenged by fights, especially when I was overmatched yet too careless with my approach, though I admit, most of my deaths early on were probably from falling off of the edge of the map. Well, that, and bosses. There are a number of missions that include scripted boss battles. These don’t play out too differently from similar fights in previous Halo games, but some of these fights were really fun. Overall, big thumbs up!
“Not a great time to run out of charges.”
This means that moving through the open world, encountering Banished patrols and camps, and tactically taking them out in any way you want, is fantastic too. Naturally, 343 also made some half-hearted attempts to pepper the map with other diversions. You can rescue captured marines, destroy Banished propaganda towers, and take down “high value target” mini-bosses, all of which are just minor spins on the typical fights you’ll have in the world. You can re-take overrun UNSC bases which function similarly to the “tower” mechanic popularized by Ubisoft open world games, revealing notable locations on your map, as well as serving as fast travel and resupply points. You can, of course, also hunt down various collectibles from skulls and audio logs to multiplayer cosmetics. Then there are the Banished outposts, which are open world missions involving taking over much larger Banished bases. Again, at their core, they’re just more opportunities for combat, but they verge on feeling like actual scripted campaign missions. Probably the biggest issue with all of these side activities is how much of a pace-destroying, repetitive slog the campaign can turn into if you’re prioritizing completing/collecting everything, as I did, but that’s not exactly a new problem for the genre.
Adding more types of enemies, weapons, and vehicles could have gone a long way in keeping the open world exciting. Again, 343 were a bit conservative here. The lack of vehicles is particularly egregious with such an expansive open world available for the first time. There are vehicles, certainly, but they show up in the world surprisingly infrequently. Worse yet, when they do show up, the enemy AI’s use of them is bizarrely restrained, while friendly AI doesn’t even bother using vehicles at all. I can imagine patrols of marine Warthogs flying over the hills out of nowhere, massive tank battles in the distance, and air to air skirmishes unfolding overhead as Banshees chase down Pelicans. Come to think of it, we got far more of that kind of stuff in the older games. A real missed opportunity.
“Taking the boys out on a Sunday drive.”
That doesn’t stop you from using vehicles, of course. Along with the staples of the series and some returning favorites from Halo 5, we have access to the new UNSC Razorback troop transport. That might sound boring, but loading a Razorback up with marines armed to the teeth is far more effective than the developers probably intended, even if the wonky physics of the Warthog-like vehicles sometimes conspire to ruin the fun. Seriously, who doesn’t love spending several minutes equipping and loading up your marines only to flip over 10 seconds after leaving your FOB?! The Banished’s selection of vehicles is a bit worse, especially since we know they have a lot more in their arsenal from their appearance in Halo Wars 2. More vehicles are added to the sandbox as you upgrade your FOBs from completing activities and unlock more of the map by progressing the campaign, and by the time you’ve made it to the last major section of the map, you’ll probably be spending much of your time exploiting the Wasp to simply fly everywhere. It’s a game changer for sure, and despite the sudden appearance of Banshees and Banished troops armed with Shock Rifles in hopes of countering you, almost the funnest way to travel.
Yes, by far the most unique new addition to the Chief’s tool belt is the Grappleshot, a launchable and retractable grappling hook. We’ve never seen anything like this in Halo before, and oh man, is it satisfying. I’d go as far as to say that the addition of the Grappleshot single-handedly saves Infinite’s new open world from mediocrity. How fun would exploring be without being able to easily scale huge structures and even mountains, and save yourself from the inevitable deadly falls that follow? Oh, and zipping directly onto an enemy, perfectly timing meeting their face with the butt of your rifle (or better yet, an Energy Sword or a Gravity Hammer) is just… *chef’s kiss*
“The upgraded Grappleshot also electrocutes your enemies! *grin*”
Finally, we have the story. As this is the last game of this series, and I’ll want to talk about it a bit, let’s go ahead and summarize the plot right here. As usual I’ll keep it reasonably vague, but this, as well as the two paragraphs after it, contain spoilers. Skip the next three paragraphs if you’ve not played Infinite yet and care about the sort of thing!
The Story: Having spent a year evading the Created, the UNSC flagship Infinity is dispatched to Installation 07 to execute a plan to defeat Cortana. Mere moments after their arrival, the Infinity and her escorts are ambushed by a massive Banished force. The Infinity is abandoned, with its surviving crew scattering to the ring’s surface. During the chaos, the Master Chief comes face to face with Atriox, the leader of the Banished. In the ensuing melee, the Chief is thrown from the Infinity and left for dead. Six months later, he is discovered amongst the debris and revived by a lone UNSC Pelican pilot. Together they discover an encoded message being sent from the Halo and head to its surface to investigate. The Chief finds the Weapon, a copy of the Cortana AI that was the linchpin in UNSC’s now evidently successful plan. The Chief and the Weapon unite and attempt to rally the scant surviving UNSC forces against the ring’s Banished occupiers, now led by Atriox’s lieutenant Escharum after Atriox’s apparent death. During their mission, they encounter the installation’s monitor, 117649 Despondent Pyre, who hysterically warns them of the Harbinger, a dangerous entity that the Banished have released. Later the pair encounter the Harbinger herself, who divulges her plan to repair the ring and free the rest of the Endless, an ancient race imprisoned there by the Forerunners. After being taunted by a hologram of Escharum, who imparts that the Banished and the Harbinger share the same goal, Master Chief and the Weapon hatch a plan to disrupt the Harbinger’s attempts to accelerate the ring’s repair systems. In the process, they discover that these repair efforts are being focused on a specific mysterious part of the ring known as the Silent Auditorium. Escharum again taunts the Chief, baiting him with the coordinates to where he is holding the Pilot captive. Soundly defeating the Banished warlord, the Chief and the Weapon continue on to the Silent Auditorium. While searching the facility, they encounter numerous corrupted fragments of Cortana’s memories. Ultimately, these visions reveal that Cortana sacrificed herself to stop Atriox from releasing the Endless and ensure that the Weapon remained active to guide the Chief. The Chief locates and defeats the Harbinger, but too late as Atriox, in an unknown location, is already freeing the Endless himself.
Before playing it, I was under the impression that Halo Infinite more or less ignored the plot of Halo 5. It doesn’t. In fact, despite leaving out a lot of those details above, it’s actually quite important to Infinite’s plot. Regardless, this was still an incredibly unsatisfying way of following up the semi-cliffhanger ending of Halo 5, skipping ahead and barely even referencing much of the preceding drama outside of audio logs. Playing these games back to back, one moment the fate of the entire galaxy hangs in peril thanks to Cortana’s Created and their Guardian enforcers, the next you’re just facing off against the newest batch of wanna-be Covenant goons, and you completely miss most of that action to boot! Like a good Noir story, there can be something compelling about putting the pieces together after the fact, but I’d argue that Infinite doesn’t lean far enough into it to make it interesting. Instead, it just feels like a flimsy excuse to go a different direction with the story without having to worry too much about the details.
“Sign up now for Escharum’s officer morale improvement seminar!”
That wanna-be Covenant comment aside, I do really like the way the Banished are portrayed here, being my favorite depiction of the Brutes by far, and they’re about as fun of an enemy as I could imagine facing while rehashing the Covenant yet again. I also enjoyed the dynamic between Master Chief and his naive new AI companion “the Weapon”, and running around solo with just her at your side (err, in your head) feels like a welcome return to form after Halo 5. I also kind of appreciate Infinite’s attempt to deliver a more grounded, less epic “hero saves the entire universe” kind of story this time around, even though, if we ever get it, I expect the DLC (or standalone sequel) that has us dealing with the Endless to be more along those lines.
That uncertainty is the saddest thing about Infinite. I’d imagine that most of my complaints were due to that aforementioned rocky development, resulting from compromises to get the game shipped, but Infinite was supposedly going to live up to its name by being something of a “live service” game. Yet, it’s obvious that 343 has utterly failed to make that happen, even struggling to put out fixes and new maps for multiplayer with any sort of expediency. With recent news of more departures and layoffs, this could even end up being the last 343 Industries developed Halo game. It’s a shame because the core gameplay and a lot of the ideas here are great, and if fully realized, I think Infinite could have finally been the game to prove that 343 was worthy of carrying the torch. In the end, it is definitely worth playing, but it’s definitely not that.
Well, after that gut punch, I’ll cover the live-action stuff quickly. A pair of teasers, Forever We Fight and Carry On are kind of neat, with the latter showing the Chief squaring off against a Banished Brute. Less neat, the UNSC Archive trailers Unspoken, Project Magnes, and Lightbringers may also be of some interest too. Much more on this subject next!
