Halo Infinite (2021)

I mean i love the open-world even tho they put it in the game like "here is your open world, just collect stuff and take down some enemies".

My love-respect for the Chief is so great i don't wanna mention about how terrible pc optimization is.

Anyway i enjoyed it.

Best 343 Halo i can say.

But you know. "Best 343" carries no weight.

Real fun to play this with my friend online through cross play, he's on Xbox and I'm on PC.

I haven't touched the campaign but the online is pretty darn good. It's a shame the Battle Pass and progression system is so darn slow, tedious.

They're tweaking it and I believe they'll manage to turn it into something more fun and worthwile. Less predatory. Either way, Halo is back and I love it. I don't feel the same intensity and addiction as I felt playing Apex for hundreds of hours, but I guess that's a good thing. It's casual, easy fun. Perfect for short bursts.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it plays, feels and looks, incredibly good.

Think I’m done with this for now. I have played several hours of campaign, and I just don’t really like it. Couldn’t care less about the story and boring missions, and the samey open world map. It feels like a less fun and less visually interesting version of Destiny at times with how the missions resolve with just killing stuff then holding X on some terminal until an uninteresting cutscene plays. I just replayed a couple of the other games about a year ago in co-op and had a fine time, so I don’t get what’s not clicking for this one. I also find the amount of near-instant deaths from snipers, suicide bombing, and other big dudes and bosses pretty annoying. None of this would matter as much if I was having great fun with the main gameplay, and I just am not quite there.

Most of what’s fun to me about this game was fun in the 6 prior Halo games I already played, and nothing they’ve added appeals to me on a notable level to keep me engaged for another one. Sure, grappling is a decent addition, but movement in this game still is not as fun and fluid as Titanfall, for example, which came out over 7 years ago. I’m not asking Halo to become Titanfall, but rather finding my taste has just moved away from Halo, at least in campaign when you lose co-op and nostalgia. I think the game’s open world structure actively hurts my experience with so much empty area, unappealing Ubisoft-esque side activities, and core abilities being hamstrung by needing to find upgrade points now. Even swapping between equipment and abilities feels so clunky because so much is going on.

I could give this a proper review more focused on multiplayer, but this game’s multiplayer isn’t even… complete… so I don’t see any value in putting a formal star rating on this package when it will look a lot different in a year. I enjoy the gameplay but do not enjoy the overall multiplayer experience at this time. It is currently for me (maybe not for you) a straight-up step down from the current state of Halo 5 and The Master Chief Collection. I’m sure I will enjoy it more when more content and options are available, but for now I’d rather play the MCC, Apex Legends, CoD: Vanguard, whatever. [Edit: apparently some new playlists are getting added ahead of schedule on Tuesday which is great news. I’d still like more maps and co-op stuff but this is a very necessary change that should have been here all along.]

I can understand why some players are loving this, particularly if they’ve tuned out of the last couple Halo games, but for my taste, I am quite disappointed in this package and would consider it likely my least favorite in the series from what I have experienced in its current state.

I'm enjoying the open world so far but one nitpicky thing that really bugs me is the map icon / UI colouring. Generally speaking new locations are coloured either blue, red, purple etc and once discovered they turn grey to show you've completed them... well all except FOB locations, they turn blue. So now you have blue icons that need exploring but also blue FOBs that have already been explored?

It's a minor thing but when you're glancing at the map you think it's a location that stil needs discovering. Could it be green perhaps or look a different way to make it more obvious that it's a conqurered base?

The core shooting and pace are great, and the grapple shot is a ton of fun, but the weapons are bland. The pistol and rifle are so good that most of the other weapons feel like less efficient things you just use for variation. Previously I had to switch to other weapons when I eventually ran out of ammo but the new ammo refill terminals are so plentiful they make that unnecessary.

For multiplayer I appreciate carefully balanced weapons and limited power weapons. I am really enjoying that part of the game. But for a campaign I want much more overpowered, big explosion, this-thing-is-awesome weapon drops so I can live the Master Chief power fantasy. None of that yet…