Halo Infinite (2021)

I've enjoyed Infinite though it is not particularly great. Too much of it just feels lower quality than you expect from Halo. The story can not be followed anymore, no matter how hard you try. It now ties into a sequel of a spin-off (Halo Wars 2) which is just bizarre. The sandbox works and that's the main point when it comes to Halo, so it's definitely worth a try. Here are some cool moments I captured while playing:

https://vimeo.com/1021120841

https://vimeo.com/1021121213

This marks the end of my back-to-back Halo dive. And in many ways, that adventure ended really well.

The main standout to me in Infinite, far and away, is how it feels. Both gunplay and movement are incredibly fluid and fun to engage with. In fact, when it comes to it, I think this is the best the series has ever been. For all the qualms I have with this last entry, it is undeniable in my opinion that this is, at its core, a very fun and highly competent first person shooter, and thus very easy to recommend on the back of that premise alone. This is, however, greatly highlighted by related mechanics and design choices that make it all the more enjoyable: things like the grapple shot - a literal game changer for traversal and verticality -, the slick UI design, the best damage indicators in the series or the automatic plasma weapon swap (for ones with higher charge) make the whole experience feel even better, and turn Infinite into one of the most enjoyable shooters I’ve played in recent memory from a pure mechanical standpoint.

Another thing that truly stood out were the interiors. Corridors look stunning, showcasing areas with vivid chrome-like blues and silvery greys with golden inlays that never ceased to impress me, even though some might find it a bit repetitive as they progress through the game. These corridors and arenas were almost always of a near-perfect size, and gave rise to some pretty intense mob fights that kept me immersed in a campaign that was longer than any other in the series. Some missions, I felt, were more stretched out than they needed to be, but fortunately most of these took place indoors. Finally, to wrap up this mention on visuals, Master Chief has also never looked better in my eyes.

Now come the things I had a problem with, and there are quite a few of those. For starters, the choice for an open world. This did not resonate with me at all. There’s zero reason for a Halo game to have these many open world segments, side missions, unlockables, and a bunch of other stuff that often gave it this undesirable Ubisoftish coat of paint. It moved too further away from the original Halo formula, and it really made it feel like a generic open world box ticking exercise - give me the no-frills, contained, full high octane Halo FPS any day.

Story and character wise, I also thought a lot of things fell off here. There seems to be a chunk between Guardians and Infinite missing, and although it is mentioned throughout the game, it seemed a bit weird for it to be told to you rather than shown to you. There were a couple of interesting, somewhat surprising moments along the campaign, but overall I had a hard time connecting to the narrative (I’ve read that apparently a big part of the antagonist’s origins ties back to the Halo Wars spinoffs which I haven’t played yet). I also felt that, aside from Master Chief, characters weren’t exactly well thought out. 216’s presence was hit and miss for me since I appreciate his character in a vacuum, but also think he was somewhat shoehorned into the narrative for the sake of an emotional hook that doesn’t fully land considering the dialogue and delivery are mostly subpar (and he’s not the only one suffering from this).

Some other aspects, such as the difficulty balancing issues in some of the boss fights (the last one is absolutely ridiculous) or the frustrating checkpoint save system, add up to my overall frustration with this game, which makes me not look at it as fondly as most past entries. Nevertheless, I’ll go back to what I said in the beginning: Halo Infinite’s gameplay is fantastic. I love what it offers in terms of shooting, movement and traversal, so much so that I’ve kept the game installed on my hard drive after beating it, which is something I almost never do these days. Fumbles aside, it was a highly enjoyable end to my maiden Halo journey. I’m really happy I finally gave this series a chance after all these years, and I have now become a franchise fan. 8/10

Gameplay: 8.5/10

Presentation: 8/10

Story: 6.5/10

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Story= plot, engagement, characters, world-building

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

The game added some features that really enhance the feeling of being the true Master Chief you were meant to be. A few abilities I found myself not using, but others made the game so much more awesome. The semi-open world design was a change of pace from the very strictly linear gameplay of the titles before it. The story was a bit rough as most of it consisted of looking at a newly introduced AI character's face which was a bit uncanny or just clearly used the more common facial animation capturing technology which makes the character's movements feel like the actors clearly had head gear on to capture their performances. If there was a bit more happening during the in-game cutscenes and more happening overall through the story it would have been much stronger. There are some great cutscenes as well but they are few and far between. By the end of it all, it feels like you just turned off a bunch of machines and killed some bosses. Just exploring oftentimes felt more fulfilling than following the main story of the campaign.

The online mode is okay, certainly not perfect but entertaining enough.

The campaign is mainly where this Halo disappointed me. I only managed to last about 8 hours before it became a burden to start up.

Not every game necessarily has to be open world and this one proves that all the more. The various bases to liberate or legions of troops to liberate quickly become boring and repetitive. On top of that, there is the fact that once something is cleared, it does not stay cleared. If you return to the same point a bit later, it is just filled with the same enemies again.

Gameplay is all in all okay. The grappling hook is a nice addition. The text lines of the different types of enemies are also very repetitious.

Currently having completed the campaign on normal to highest percentage (not including skulls you can't go back and get), and having started but not finished a playthrough on Heroic while also cleaning up those missing collectables.

I have put an absurd number of hours into multiplayer as well, however the game just doesn't have the content or additions that make me want to come back since I've completed the battle pass and every event that has come out. I'm looking forward to Season 2, however, I only play one or two matches a week now when I did complete every single weekly challenge for the first 3 months the game was out.

That feeling when when you finish the first couple hours of linear content, and a huge open world suddenly opens up....

...I don't like it. I like a well-orchestrated linear game.

EDIT: After beating the game, it's pretty easy to avoid the open world stuff.

When Horizon Zero Dawn said, "You're a warrior now! Go do open world shit!", I said, "Nah... I don't really want to spend 60 hours doing chores," and bailed shortly after that.

At least Halo Infinite's campaign appears to keep the amount of open world content in check. I'm seeing 10-12hr estimated completion times on HLTB, so I'll likely see it through.

Halo Infinite oli yksi loppuvuoden isoimmista pelijulkaisuista. Kovan kriittisen ylistyksen saaneena pelinä odotin siltä ehkä enemmän. Se, mitä peli minulle antoi, oli sekä hyvää räiskintää että naurettavaa tarinankerrontaa ja laiskaa tehtäväsuunnittelua.

Kuten sanottu, räiskintä on pelissä monesti hauskaa. Tai ainakin aseita, ajoneuvoja ja Master Chiefin grapple shot -kykyä on hauska käyttää. Nämä tarjoavat mukavasti kikkailuvaraa ja erilaista tussaria tuhon kylvämiseen. Itse vihollisten kohtaaminen ja ampuminen ei taas aina ole niin hauskaa. Vihollisilla (etenkin Jackal snipereillä) on tajuton tähtäyskyky, osalla vihollisista on tajuton luodinimukyky (Hunterit tästä pahin esimerkki) ja pelillä on tajuton kyky tallentaa kymmenen sekunnin välein, jolloin jatkuvasti puskista tulevien äkkikuolemien jälkeen saavutettu voitto ei tunnu kovin makealta. Lisäksi niin vihollisilla kuin pelin tarjoamilla tehtävillä on todella vähän vaihtelua keskenään. Joka paikassa on samat vihut ja joka tehtävä on pitkälti paikasta toiseen siirtymistä tai tavaroiden noutamista ennen seuraavan lukitun oven aukeamista. Tämä alkoi kalvaa itseä etenkin pelin loppupuolella: on naurettavaa kuinka monta kertaa peli kehtaa laittaa pelaajan etsimään akkuja hissien aktivoimiseksi. Pelin vapaaehtoisissa jutuissa avoimessa maailmassa tämä oli pienempi ärsyke. Omasta mielestä hauskinta pelissä olikin painella omaan tahtiin avoimessa maailamssa etsimässä paranneltuja aseita ja valtaamassa vihollisten pesäkkeitä,

Mitä tarinaan tulee, Halo Infinite lienee Master Chief -saagan viimeinen osa. Se on lähtökohtaisesti varmaankin huono aloituskohta, mutta peli ei oikein edes yritä tuoda tulokkaita ajan tasalle. Tämän pelin pohjalta en tiedä onko minulla tarvettakaan päästä saagan koukeroista perille. Tarina on vaivaannuttavaa paskaa, joka sentään loppupuolella alkoi jo naurattaa typeryydellään. Jostain syystä elin uskossa, että Halo-sarja olisi ajatuksella tehtyä scifiä, mutta tämä on selkeästi kaukana totuudesta. Isoimmat tuskanhuokailut aiheutti Master Cheiefin tekoälytyttöystävä ja pelin Banished-pahikset. Näistä löytyisi enemmänkin räntättävää, mutta sanottakoon nyt, että luolamiesmäiset hitaasti örisevät Banished-jehut tuntuivat ala-arvoisen helpolta vedolta ja maagillisesti kaiken sormien napsautuksella ratkaiseva sukupuolistereotyyppien mukaisesti tunteikkuutta tuova tekoälynainen oli ehkä typerin representaatio tekoälystä pitkään aikaan.

Grafiikat on sentään hoidettu pelissä tarinaa paremmin. Peli näyttää hyvältä, paikoin todella hyvältä, mutta kaikki pelin ympäristöt ovat niin samanlaisia keskenään (verheitä ulkoympäristöjä tai sinisiä ja metallisia scifi-luolia), että kovin montaa vau-efektiä pelin aikana en päässyt kokemaan. Äänisuunnittelukin on räiskinnän ja toiminnan äänien suhteen tyydyttävää ja toimivaa. Ääninäyttelyn isoimmasta sudenkuopasta mainitsinkin, mutta sitä lukuunottamatta suoritukset ovat kelpoja.

Heikon tarinan vastapainoksi, iso vetonaula pelissä on moninpeli. Se onkin ihan hauskaa retrohenkistä räiskintää. Vielä kyllä matsien löytyminen, unlockattavien käsittämättömän hidas avautumistahti ja valikkojen sekavuus heikentävät kokemusta, mutta itse pelaaminen on nopeatempoista ja hauskaa. Sen pariin tuleekin varmaan vielä palattua, etenkin progression ongelmien korjausten jälkeen.

Kokonaisuutena Halo Infinite oli paikoin yllättävänkin keskinkertainen ja typerä peli. Ehken kuulu vain pelin kohdeyleisöön tai katson peliä liian kriittisten kiikareiden läpi, mutta yhtä kaikki, peli ei tule kyllä menemään suosikkieni joukkoon. Jotain hölmöä vetoa pelissä silti on, kun se oli pakko pelata läpi. Ja onhan se räiskintä ajoittain todella viihdyttävää.

Felt like updating this, since I haven't touched Halo Infinite in weeks. I think this game lacks the gamemodes and progression systems to give it longevity.

It's sad to see another beloved videogame franchise succumb to the live service model. Halo Infinite plays incredibly well and can be loads of fun. But like many other games these days, Halo Infinite is mostly a storefront.

A storefront for cosmetics, passes, challenges, shortcuts, etc. It's sad.

This review is spoiler-free, apart from a small section about the story (which I've blurred with spoiler tags).

Apart from the original Halo (due to its groundbreaking nature), this is my favourite in the series by a large margin. I loved the mix of story missions and open world, I loved the sandbox full of sidequests and collectibles, and I loved the huge variety of guns and how they handled... right up until I got bored.

I realised pretty early that the VK78 Commando rifle was best-suited to my playstyle, and that popping headshots from across the map quickly became second-nature to me. Having a back-up Hydra to take down shields or strong opponents was handy, and on those rare occasions where I remembered to use it, I refilled it easily from the plentiful ammo boxes scattered throughout the game. Unfortunately this pattern got pretty old pretty quickly: fighting the same enemies with the same weapons for dozens of hours while I greyed out every icon on the map... Eventually I realised I had stopped having fun and was just playing for the sake of completionism.

I ended up having the most fun right towards the end of the game where there were limited ammo boxes and I had to keep switching between some pretty powerful weapons. I wish the game had been designed with far fewer ammo boxes to force the player to keep adapting strategies and playstyles on the fly.

Movement around the pretty sizeable map turned out to be a bit of a pain as well. I quickly realised that the grappling line was the fastest way to get around, but this left any soldiers I took with me in the dirt. For tough battles, I tried to prepare by loading up a Razorback warthog with five warriors armed to the teeth with customised sniper rifles and rocket launchers, only to have to abandon them halfway towards the target because the terrain was unexpectedly rocky or whatever. Or they'd just stand there stupidly while a jeep landed on top of them, that was a bit annoying too.

The story itself was not bad, but... I have to say I did noooot like the ending. I'll spoilerise my thoughts here. Having Cortana go from heartless corrupted genocidal space queen to "Oh, I should help John, he's the nicest guy I know and has brought me so much happiness. I'll set him up with a new Cortana model and hope that they can stop the Banished because apparently I cannot for some reason" was clumsy and ridiculous.

Overall it was a great shooter, but the "more of the same greatness" model did not have enough staying power to keep me interested the whole way through.

I would highly recommend this game to any lapsed Halo fans. This is the best feeling Halo has likely ever been. And they did this by making the golden triangle (melee, grenades and your weapon) a golden square. The gimmicky grappling hook actually opens the game up to so many fun interactions and I had a blast playing every encounter, and makes exploration and traversal fun.

While they breathed some new light into the combat loop, they also tried to make good on the implicit promise of Halo: Combat Evolved's infamous Silent Cartographer level - you see that other side of the ring? You can go there! It turns out simply making Halo open world in the modern mold markers on a map that represent one of four possible enocunter or collectible types doesn't fulfill that initial promise. I still couldn't get to the other side of the ring, peeps.

The story is serviceable in that it propelled me along enough, with the highlight being a soft exploration into what makes Master Chief tick. Maybe I need to read one of the bajillion extended universe novels to further understand John 117, and that's fine. The cutscene designers and animators deserve some praise as well. Lastly, I don't see mention of it much, but this is the best the music has been since the series since 343 took over. I had a few tracks burrow into my ears and wanted to listen to the OST outside of playing the game.

Open world fumbles aside, this is a great entry in the series, and probably the best it's been in years. This feels like a solid foundation for another campaign exploring other parts of the ring, or expanding on the campaign somehow. I will likely revisit this if or when they ever get co-op working.

Ok game where combat and weapons feels good but the open world part gets kind of tedious after 5-6 hours into the game and the game lacks alot of variation in environment in the 12+ hours it takes to complete approx.

The overworld is pretty much a grassland and mountains for the entire game and the linear interior levels are either on a ship or some kind of futuristic setting. It lacks great moments and the dialogue is hit/miss this is the game with the best lines for Master Chief Though.

Boss encounters feels like playing against MP bots behavior and AI wise which is pretty unacceptable for a Single player experience in this day and age and overall the game feels a bit like a remnant from the Xbox 360/PS3 years. I honestly think even though the Halo games SP always had this sort of AI that its kind of unforgiveable to have it on what is considered a flagship title for one of the biggest studios/companies. It works with the normal enemies you encounter but feels really underwhelming and outdated against the few bosses it has.

Story is pretty uninteresting and it gets tedious as hell that its mostly conveyed through talking to the Cortana AI for the 50th time you put her on a pedestal where she snaps her fingers each time to solve the problem an equal amount of times she is put on there.

Graphics are really good and the game runs well on even older hardware like the 1080gtx i used with very little stuttering unless alot of enemies are in the overworld area but even that didnt bother me.

Sound is alright with voices/dialogue but the game lacks memorable tunes on par with those from Halo 2 and 3 imo and maybe even 4 that gave you goosebumps theres not really any of that sort here it fits and does its job but is forgotten as soon as you uninstall.

Upgrading skills in this game also feels like its tacked on i must say, theres 5 areas of skill you can upgrade but tbh besides for health and the grappling hook which gives you some quality of life improvements for combat and ease of travelling the other 3 like the thruster pack are pretty useless in the SP experience giving it a jarring feeling of that it was meant for the MP aspect of the game as it barely is useful aside from the shield in some heated moments.

Not the best Halo game i have played but i overall enjoyed it even though it outstayed its welcome around the 6-7 hour mark i must say as i didnt give a damn about the story at this point.

Overall : 8/10

I dont think its a boring game due to it being a fps so it kinda quenches your fps fix craving playing it for a coup hours each day due to the weapons being pretty satisfying to use and the grappling hook stuff is pretty neat too but the overall experience is just not so wholesome overall.

This game feels so fun to play! It truly feels like a true successor to both Bungie's Halo along with 343 Industries in terms of gameplay. I like the return of armor abilities and what not, and the Grappling Hook is a massive game changer in terms of traversing the world presented in the campaign. It is very fun to play! The world as a whole, is okay and makes sense from a story stand point, but the missions themselves are a bit repetitive and while I enjoy the new direction of the story, it still feels like its more of a set up. I think the open world idea is nice, but I think they needed to do more with improving the story based set piece missions as well.

Multiplayer is very fun, but unfortunately very limited in that there are only a handful of gametypes and playlists. It is lacking in this department for sure, but I am looking forward to the future of multiplayer here because it feels and plays very well! I enjoy some of the new game types, but I would like to see more playlists and bring back more of the classic ones as well!

I didn't think HALO Infinite would end up being one of my favorite games of 2021. The series had kinda died for me since HALO 4, but with this one, the future is bright for Master Chief once again.

If I could use one word to summarize Infinite, it would be FUN.

I've played this game for a bit over 15 hours and I felt nothing but joy from beginning to end. The gameplay is just peak HALO! From multiplayer to the campaign. The environments are beautiful and feel great to explore, the level of verticality in the open world and interior stages is amazing, sidequests are fast paced and important to the main story, every gun is useful and impactful, multiplayer feels fresh... Everything just works and its execution is highly addicting. I almost 100% the map, even after finishing the story.

The reason why I think Infinite's gameplay loop works so well is due to its greatest addition. And no, it's not the new sandbox-style map. It's something simpler: the grappling hook.

Grappling hooks usually transforms the game and it wasn't different for HALO. It makes traversal fun and quick, opens new doors to improvise during combat, makes platforming a charm and it changes the game. It's so good that I didn't even care for the other equipments. In fact, changing equipments in this game is a hassle. I just stuck with the hook.

But the cracks in this near perfect HALO game starts to show up when the story becomes the focus.

Master Chief's new narrative is good. It's definitely a huge improvement over the 4th and 5th entries. The writing is good, the new Cortana is cool as hell, the Banished are threatening, Chief is better than ever and even Echo 216 gets to shine.

The problem is that it feels very incomplete. It's not well told at all. Most things happen before the game even start. Actually, almost every essential moment happens off-screen and even the cutscenes, while graphically impressive, feel a bit off. I also don't think it ties well with where 5 left off, which is absurd, since that game had universal-threats like the Guardians being thrown at you. And now they are gone. Just like that.

And as the story cracks are perceived, some of the bad leaks to the gameplay as well. Like how checkpoints happen at random. And how sometimes the challenge can be a bit too much. Or how driving any vehicle (except the Ghost) in this game is horrible. And then you notice that the final levels of the game, while still thrilling, can get very repetitive and sort of tedious.

But even after noticing these cracks, I also know that they're very small compared to how good this game is. This is the best HALO since 3. It pulled me back to a franchise that I absolutely love and that made me incredibly happy. This is definitely 343's finest work. Hell, they even made the boss fights remarkable and I don't think I can say that for past HALO games.

With a short and sweet open world, fantastic gameplay and an ok story, HALO's back, making this Microsoft's best exclusive game in years.

Overall I would probably give the game 4.5 stars if we included multiplayer but for this review I’m really focusing on the campaign. Which just like the multiplayer side of things, has its issues.

I’ll admit I don’t really remember all that much of the previous games. The lore of Halo was never the big seller for me. I enjoyed it but I was always doing co op and falling into the multiplayer hole. That said I also didn’t play Halo 5 for whatever reason. So the story does not hit me like it should.

One of the bigger issues is the story really does kinda seek paint by numbers at it’s core. Sure there are some deeper threads but the weapon storyline and even the pilot stuff(which really is the beta part tho ha) isn’t anything fresh or surprising. But it’s enjoyable ajd gets you from point A to B. That’s what really matters.

The big selling point is the open world, which like a lot of the same style of games do, you don’t get to just jump right into the world. It’s a little bit of a slow build but once you are on Zeta the fun begins.

Exploring zeta was better than I expected, it is still pretty empty but it doesn’t feel as empty to me as say Breath if the wild. I would have loved to seen a bit more but it was passable. I felt I was able to run into enemy’s and things to do at a solid pace. Some times the world felt more empty but that was towards the end when I had cleansed the halo of the banished.

None of the side mission stuff is very important but the gameplay is what hits home. Being able to grapple is a game changer for halo, it might not be a new mechanic overall but something about flinging/flying around as a spartan was just joyous. And it really does come in handy during boss fights. Same goes for adding the exploding canisters, which we have multiple types too that was fun.

My biggest issue is the game starts to feel small towards the later half of the game. The story takes you into many blue and boring corridors. Yes at first they are really pretty but after countless moments in this same area it just drags on. An it also seems as if the last area is pretty empty. I just realized I never did attempt to fly over to it post game so I need to see if there is much over there but the main and side objectives have nothing for the area which is a bummer.

Some minor issues are achievements glitching and not I locking(I believe I have three that are glitched?) no replaying missions and no co op are bummers. I also think the map needs to options and the color scheme didn’t work for me map wise.

After the story I really do want more. It’s clearly left open to keep the fight going and I want more halo for sure. The story might not be totally for me but the gameplay will bring me back again and again.

Campaign review

halo infinite is one of rare AAA games that changes old formula into something better...something halo fans always deserved. instead of becoming a walking simulator with rare glimpse of it's old formula or dramatically changing what has always worked, halo infinite embraces the core halo gameplay and elevates it to 11 halo at it's core is a sandbox shooter and what always baffled me was the fact that previous halo campaigns didn't use sandbox features to it's fullest. they had lots of linear levels and until halo 3, those linear levels didn't have proper level design in my opinion but halo infinite gives the player a true sandbox experience with lots of tools at it's disposal & you can approach every scenario with limitless options. movement has never been this satisfying in any halo game and I enjoyed every second of it. grappling hook was so satisfying to use that I used it almost every second of my playtime. it reminded me of web swinging in marvel's spiderman in both practicality and enjoyment. gunplay was impressive and i liked new roster of guns but their practicality in multiplayer is for halo veterans to decide. as a casual player i loved ravager alot! the open_world aspect of halo infinite is debatable. It's basically a ubisoftish open world but way less detailed and by having only one type of biom it's kinda boring by itself. map markers are everywhere and sense of exploration does not exist however halo infinite somewhat compensate it's open world issues by having various enemy camps which are way more satisfying to beat than usual enemy camps in other open_world titles and the best thing about these enemy camps and encounters is the fact that they are so varied and fortresses in particular have great level design for a sandbox fps game. by beating one of these fortresses, you can actually feel that devs truly pushed themselves while designing them. so open_worldish aspects of halo infinite are Mediocre but actually playing those encounters is enjoyable and i enjoyed playing it way more than your typical open_world game.

Story

i enjoyed dialogues between the new A.i (which i still don't know her name ) and masterchief. i loved the way vulnerable masterchief was in this game and overall as a person i relate to him now. masterchief feels like a human, not a super machine. you can argue that masterchief was always this way but i feel halo infinite focused more on his human_side aspects. however halo infinite is not perfect by any means: unfortunately escharum is a terrible character and a terrible villain. he is so one note, cliche & despite all his hype and empowering dialogues, he poses no treat to masterchief and since he is not intimidating, the story doesn't have agency or tension at all. Another character that i didn’t care about was echo 216 Fernando esparza He is basically a plot device but an annoying one at that. He adds nothing to the story and he seems out of place. Story by itself relies on too much exposition and completely denies the important rule of “show, don’t tell” and as i previously mentioned it has no agency at all. In fact story is so out of place that i hated every time that the game took me out of the amazing sandbox and made me walk through boring linear levels just to hear exposition and fight some mobs here & there.

Enemies & bosses

The other thing I'm indifferent about are bosses. let's admit it: other than halo 3's scarabs, halo never had any good boss fights. halo infinite improves this aspect alot! by adding 14 minibosses (not sure about the number) and main story bosses. but none and i mean none of these bosses feels like a proper boss fight. most of them feel like simple enemies usually brutes, with more HP and a health bar It isn't bad by itself but halo infinite suffers from terrible hit boxes in melee combat.so while fighting enemies that equip melee weapons, no matter where they swing their weapon, you Will take damage! and since alot of important bosses have melee weapons, fighting them isn't satisfying at all.i was particularly frustrated with final bosses because of terrible hit boxes specially the final boss. Enemies on the other hand are varied and enjoyable to fight since they have good A.i. Enemy variety could be better but as a halo game, halo infinite has enough enemy variety for it’s 16-25 hour campaign. i will end my review on a positive note: grunts in halo infinite are hilarious and i mean it. they are so funny and cute that I don't enjoy killing them! good job 343 :)

Well that was an abrupt ending to an average game. I’m genuinely surprised this made media outlets’ top ten lists as frequently as it seems to have. It’s a perfectly playable game and an ok way to spend a few days, but nothing really wowed me in Halo Infinite. Frankly there’s far more that’s frustrating, repetitive and tedious that actually enjoyable. But it built on a fairly well established foundation that can still be fun for a couple hours each day. The story can be effectively summed up as “who cares?” There’s not a lot of substance to the story aside from what I can determine is a pile of fan service for longtime fans. Much like Metroid Prime I think this is an example of another perfectly adequate game released in 2021 that rests on the laurels of nostalgia and a robust legacy, games propelled to accolades simply because people long for something, anything, new set in these worlds.

I’m glad I played Halo Infinite, glad Game Pass lets us play these games without any risks, and glad I got to revisit the world of Halo since first playing Halo Combat Evolved. But I’m also glad I can move on, check this one off my list and never look back.

NB. This is a review of the single player campaign. I haven’t touched Halo multiplayer since Halo 3.

To say Halo 5 was massively divisive was to overstate the problems that game had; it really wasn’t a good sign that 343 Studios knew what they were doing or what direction that the franchise was going in (I’m a big Halo fan and I had to go read up on what happened to refresh my memory; and I can say that I too forgot just how much that game really was all over the place). Upon finishing the Halo Infinite campaign it feels like 343 have taken six years out to course correct and turn the ship around. We’re immediately thrown into the aftermath of a great battle and Chief is rescued by a Pelican Pilot, the opening is excellent and reminds me of the 2003 E3 Halo 2 teaser (the first of many call-backs Infinite will pull) and we have a few traditional Halo levels before dropped into the “open-world” that 343 have built for the Master Chief. The closest thing I can compare to the world of Infinite is that of the first Crysis; I get a lot of Crysis vibes when traversing the jungle 343 have built on the Halo here, which isn’t a bad thing. The gameplay does translate very well to the newfound freedom that the Chief has, and it’s helped by his new grappling hook which you can fire at scenery, enemies and even their vehicles for a quick take over. There are some teething issues most notably (for me) are the sniper enemies you will bump into time and time again. In other campaigns when the environment is much smaller and restricted they aren’t a great problem whoever in the new open world environment it’s easy to lose track of how many areas I cleared before being sniped and before I worked what direction the shot came from for a second shot to kill me forcing a respawn (not helping are the checkpoints which feel sporadic in Infinite, I couldn’t quite work out what triggers them, at times I had two or three checkpoints in very quick succession yet at times I was shouting at the game for a checkpoint that never came). I played the game on Normal setting so can only imagine what the frustration would be like on the legendary difficulty setting (at time of writing 343 haven’t implemented co-op so any legendary runs are purely solo players at the moment, they also haven’t got the mission select working either). Other than that, it’s the Halo you know and love in a larger world. On the subject of ‘the Halo you know’ 343 appear to have taken every opportunity to give players call-backs to the Halo of old such as we have endless musical shout outs and score reprises to the wonderful work of Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori (which makes this game the best sounding game since their departure). Which leads me on to the story, minor spoilers ahead though I’ll just cover some plot beats.

After finishing the campaign, it felt evident that there was another campaign-sized chunk of story missing between Halo 5 Guardians and this game. We left the world with Cortana recruiting AI’s for her, insane cause, and she was struggling with terminal rampancy, in which AI’s come to the end of their shelf life when the AI’s naturally break down. It appeared that the Chief was going to have come up with a way to fight his partner to save the human race. None of that is really explored in-depth and instead we have a new AI along for the ride who is referred as “weapon” throughout the game, also voiced by Jen Taylor (the cynic in me feels like this simply a way of making Cortana wear clothes) who helps the Chief fight a new enemy called Atriox who’s alien forces are called the ‘Banished’ here. I kept waiting for Cortana to reappear however her arc really went down in this other story that happened offscreen before the events of Infinite. So, guess watch out for that coming to a bookstore near us very soon to fill us in just how the Chief got his Hookshot (in my fan fiction it was a Xmas present from the Arbiter – beat that Joseph Staten).

I do like narratives with a central theme, and fitting for a game that has both Halo and Infinite in the title, the theme that 343 have doubled down on is the loop that the Chief, and therefore the player, is trapped in, with various bits of dialogue from multiple characters reference repetition, loops and the decisions we make. That theme plays out in the end with the true revelation of “Weapon” and the choices that original Cortana made (in opposition to the path she was going in Guardians; you can see this as either redemption or a course correction on 343’s part).

It’s nothing revelatory, however it’s nice that Halo had the redemption of a course correction and 343 managed to release this as an enjoyable swan-song at the end of the Xbox One’s life – comparisons be made with the story arc of the campaign. That it can be played “free” with Xbox Gamepass softens the blow of a £50 charge for those invested in the story only. That the game is also available as an xCloud offering for players that don’t have an Xbox also lowers the barrier for entry.

Recommended.