Infinite Possibilities
Halo Infinite is going to mean something different to a lot of people. It’s also the first of the series to release on a subscription service, let alone having the entirety of its multiplayer available free to play. The long-awaited return of the Master Chief is also structured in an open world, giving you a vastness that the series has only hinted at before. Still, Halo Infinite succeeds in creating a wondrous playground for its iconic gameplay, and a story that dives into the heart of the Master Chief, and the dynamics surrounding his relationship with his once AI counterpart, Cortana.
During an interview with IGN last year, then Studio Head Chris Lee stated that Halo Infinite was set to become a platform for the future of Halo. While the franchise isn’t set to dive into the live-service waters of something like Destiny or Warframe, it does seem to sit on the border of being both a standard Halo experience and something that will grow with time. Halo Infinite isn’t the first to do this, and honestly, it won’t be the last. Still, what Halo Infinite does offer is a full complete campaign that still grants a deeper mystery that is set to be explored in future content rollouts; in whatever form that ends up taking. Accompanying the campaign is also its free-to-play multiplayer suite that is joined alongside a battle pass that rewards cosmetic features to change up the appearance of your Spartan, and a paid store that has its own share of cosmetics as well, even if they are far too overpriced to really be worth it.
Halo Infinite can often feel like a trip down memory lane, invoking a lot of the same feelings and memories I had back when I first booted up Halo: Combat Evolved. When you stepped out of that crashed shuttle and took in its large open environment, there was a greater sense of freedom there than we typically had in shooters or games at the time. As the series progressed, those environments got bigger, more detailed, but the formula of how you took on its exploration and combat encounters remained the same. Halo Infinite changes the typical outdoor environments of the series’ past by making Zeta Halo a massive open-world and bringing that same spacious freedom to every one of its encounters. It’s not perfect, as there are some oddly implemented restrictions, but the open-world that is here suits Halo’s gameplay in a way where it feels both fresh and yet instantly familiar.
One element that changes up how Halo Infinite plays is the Grappleshot. It's given to you right from the start and changes how traversal and combat play out in significant ways, opening you up to a variety of encounter approaches as you zip up top to take the high ground, pull weapons to you when you're ducked behind cover, or latch onto an enemy and fly towards them, holding down the melee button to perform a devastating surge attack. Now, some of its more enticing benefits come from leveling it up, a first for series as each piece of equipment; Drop Wall, Dash Thruster, Threat Sensor, and even your Sheild, can be upgraded with Spartan Cores that you'll find all over the map. One opinion I had seen in another review was that the Grappleshot is so overpowered that it lessens the impact of the other equipment, and while that is partially true, I still came to rely on the Threat Sensor and Drop Wall when things got dicey on harder difficulties. Though, if I do have one complaint about it, it’s when I accidentally shoot for the ground to make a speedy getaway and latch onto a weapon instead, swapping out what I had for something less desirable and then having to look around on the ground for my dropped rifle or Energy Sword.
Still, the Grappleshot often trivialized most encounters and did replace my need for vehicle travel, unless I spotted a Ghost, of course. Zipping up cliff sides became my go-to method for travel, especially once I unlocked the shorter cooldown. Using it to climb vertical cliffsides became an addiction, especially when you start playing around with how it can move based on your momentum, and if you are lucky, you'll find little Easter Eggs or a Skull to reward you for that explorative curiosity. Halo Infinite's map is filled with a variety of collectibles and events to track down, and engaging audio logs that detail events for both the UNSC and the Banished. The events consist of Foward Operating Bases to recapture, granting you the ability to restock your arsenal, a vehicle or two, as well as serve as fast travel points. There are UNSC soldiers to free from captivity, Banished Propaganda towers to destroy, and more, all offering Valor, a currency you’ll build up to unlock more weapons and vehicles that can be summoned at your FOB locations.
There are also High Profile Targets to take on, which include some challenging fights with Brutes, to some comical ones where your target is a decorative Grunt. While some of these battles can be quite tough, the freedom to take on these encounters with a variety of vehicles at your disposal meant that yes, I could track down a Chopper and one-shot that cackling Grunt in a single pass turning him into a fine red mist, or plunk down on a nearby cliff and snipe his head clean off. The addition of these events allows you to take in the wide-open space Zeta Halo gives you on your path to your next mission, or just to freely explore and take in the gameplay loop of its combat as you encounter small patrols or Banished encampments. And, once the campaign is done, you can freely return to Zeta Halo’s open world in order to complete any remaining activities that you have left unfinished.
The freedom you have in the open world is teeming with possibilities, but there are some odd restrictions that do hold back the idea of being able to do anything and go anywhere. While there are some moments where you’ll want to trek all over the map, some locations are initially blocked off, killing you should you find some way to get over there. One location, in particular, the Repository, is one of the cooler environments given its purpose and what occurs there. Now, you can see this area on the map once you’ve beaten the game, but there is no way to go back to it, despite it being in flying range. My theory is that while it is visually there across a pretty substantial divide in the map, that we are only seeing a placeholder location and not the instanced location itself. And since you cannot replay story missions as of yet, you can only experience that area once during the final leg of the journey.
Now, the outdoor environments are only part of what makes a Halo experience, and the bulk of the campaign is exploring deep within Zeta Halo and the variety of indoor locations that come with the vastness of what the Forerunners have built and the infestation of what the Banished have brought to the surface. While the Grappleshot can be used to the same effect here, the levels that take place indoors are far more tightly controlled than what we get on the surface. Having this split in gameplay can work or work against what Halo Infinite is doing depending on your own wants and needs from the game. Personally, I love both aspects of this design as it gives me the new and open Halo experience outdoors, and the classic indoor fights and exploration of the past.
Most of the story Halo Infinite tells you takes place indoors as you explore the depths of this mysterious Ring, and why you’re there. The game starts with Master Chief trying to stop the Banished forces aboard the UNSC Infinity and then encounters Atriox, the leader of the Banished. And, after our favorite Spartan is brutally defeated in combat, he is then tossed out of the ship only to spend months floating around in space. Chief is then found by a pilot who is equally stranded and together they both make it down to the surface to track down an AI known as The Weapon. While some aspects of the story do take a course correction from Halo 5: Guardians, the plot regarding Cortana that began in that game is largely the focus of why Master Chief is on the Zeta Ring in the first place and how his new AI, The Weapon, is factored into the mix.
It’s not long before Chief and crew encounter Escharum, the current leader of the Banished, and a soldier that served under his mentor, Atriox. While Escharum does have the appeal of simply being a generic bad guy here, he has a lot more depth to him than I think a lot of people realize. As you progress through the game, Escharum will communicate with Chief through a variety of Banished telecoms, and he does a lot to hype you up for his and Chief’s eventual encounter. As you discover many of the Banished audio logs, you’ll hear a lot of the history with him taking over the Banished forces after the disappearance of Atriox, who many assume dead. Escharum, like Chief, is a solider, and one key scene between the two really sold that in a way we don’t see too often when it comes to conflicts between a protagonist and their rival. I don’t think he’s the best Halo villain we have had by any means, but I don’t see him as just a throwaway generic bad guy for bad guys’ sake that I’ve seen tossed out there.
Knowing where this story was going to go with following the events of Halo 5, I knew Cortana was going to have at least some focus here, and especially Chief, given what his mission is and his connection to his once equipped AI counterpart. The care and attention given to both characters are leagues above what we’ve had before, especially with Chief as you get to see a whole new side to him, granting him more depth and humanity than what has previously been explored in the games. While Chief is only really conversing with The Weapon and the pilot, it is those interactions that are largely new to him. There are no authoritative figures barking down orders, just a pilot who desperately wants to return home, and an AI that is unsure of her new-found purpose alongside Chief. While some aspects of the story are course-corrected from the events of Halo 5, 343 smartly pushes the timeline ahead just enough to have some events play out in the background and allows the series to return to its roots and begin another dive into some new mysterious forces at play.
All of this comes together to create a very different feeling Halo in the narrative department, but not different enough where it feels alien to what has come before. Chief is still the soldier, and while he isn’t getting orders from the UNSC, he still understands the mission and what is at cost if he fails. He is certainly more chatty than before, but given he is interacting with two entirely new characters, it certainly makes sense for him to be far more involved in the communication department. The Pilot and The Weapon are really engaging supporting characters, and offer up their own spin on how they see Chief and what he represents to humanity. There are some really great moments between the lot of them, and while some aspects of certain character arcs are a bit predictable, they were events that played out how I would have wanted them to anyway. Knowing what is coming ahead doesn’t lessen the impact of a good story if done well, and 343 delivers on some solid storytelling from start to finish.
Releasing some time before the Campaign is Halo Infinite’s Free-to-Play Multiplayer, a first for the series. While the campaign is its own separate purchase or accessible through Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate, its entire multiplayer experience is a whole separate beast entirely. While you’ll unlock some cosmetics throughout the campaign, your entire progression system here is via a Battle Pass structure we’ve seen time and time again. However; 343 has chosen to allow Battle Passes to always be active, meaning they won’t expire at the end of the current season. While that is a very thoughtful and engaging idea, the Battle Pass itself is not without its problems.
At its base core, Halo Infinite’s customization is lacking, and I think had 343 granted us at least a few different looks to shake up our default Spartan from the moment we first logged in, we likely wouldn’t have seen as much of a backlash against what is present in the game right now. For free players who do not care about how their Spartan looks, they can freely jump into a match at no cost. However, for those that want their multiplayer avatar to look the part, you can only do so through a paid Battle Pass. For a free-to-play game, this isn’t anything new. But, even some 40 levels into the pass at the time of this writing, I don’t feel I have a lot of options unless I want to venture into the paid store, and even then, the best skins available can’t have their components changed, which is oddly limiting. Again, had we had some options available from the start and more variety within those options, I think the early game for players would have been much better received.
The Battle Pass itself is currently in flux as 343 is working on ways to better progress through its 100 levels as it’s currently a point of contention for players who are frustrated with how slow it can feel to earn anything of value. Currently, there is no way for skill to factor into those XP earns as all experience is earned by simply completing matches and hitting certain objectives like pistol kills or playing five rounds of Fiesta. The worst challenges are those are dependant on a mode that doesn’t have a playlist, meaning that if you have to capture a zone in Big Team Battle, you’ll have to keep playing matches until that mode is finally the one up on deck. I think with some more playlists and some refinement, the Battle Pass could be something interesting, as it avoids the typical Rich getting Richer type of XP earnings based on skill, but honestly, for all the shit that Fortnite gets, it has the currently superior Battle Pass with how you go about earning XP throughout its matches by having both skill and objectives contribute to your XP earnings for nearly everything you do.
Halo Infinite divides its multiplayer into both large-scale and small-scale skirmishes, which has largely been the tale the series has told for a very long time now. Big Team Battle, which sees two teams of twelve squaring off, grants you access to a rotating playlist of Slayer, Capture the Flag, Total Control, and Stockpile via three maps; Fragmentation, Deadlock, and Highpower. Fragmentation, which is clearly the map 343 spent the most time on, is a lush green location that invokes a bit of old Blood Gulch memories while still having a few tricks up its sleeve to make it stand apart from the beloved classic. Deadlock is a more war-torn night-based map that is surprisingly well designed to offer tons of shootouts in numerous places, always making it feel like you are moving around the map. Lastly, there is Highpower which is a bit too similar to Fragmentation to really stand out, despite the variation in its more compact design. It’s a shame Highpower wasn’t swapped aesthetically to something more akin to the Bazaar map to tonally be something very different.
As for the smaller matches, granting you four on four, you’ll have CTF, Strongholds, Oddball, Slayer, as well as the one flag CTF to contend with, with Oddball being easily the most fun I’ve had in this smaller more intimate setting. Unlike Big Team Battle, there are far more maps here with Launch Site, Behemoth, Bazaar, Aquarius, Streets, Recharge, and Live Fire, all of which expertly offer an engaging map to explore and find the paths needed to achieve victory. While Aquarius and Bazaar are my clear favorites, mainly because I can usually rack up the kills in them, I never find myself groaning or sighing whenever I spawn into a single other map, instead, I save those groans for some of the modes I don’t always get on with, such as Strongholds, which is a zone control mode that I’m a bit tired of when it comes to online shooters, and Stockpile, which I am not always a fan of.
As the game has been out for a few weeks now and being as busy as I have been with the holidays, this review comes out after several playlists and updates have been added to the game, offering you more variety in your match queue. First, we have Fiesta, a mode where weapons will randomly be equipped to you upon each death, as well as FFA Slayer, Tactical Slayer, and Team Slayer, which have all been added. Ranked matches are also an option in case you’re wanting a greater challenge with players of the same mindset. These additional playlists are extremely welcome for those that simply want your standard matches without the gimmicks of running around with the Oddball or worrying about the distanced sprints of returning a flag to your base. As Halo Infinite is a platform for the future of Halo and its multiplayer, these lists will continue to grow, and modes will likely continue to expand and evolve with the inclusion of more weapons as well, especially since a few key mainstays are oddly absent.
Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer, across all modes, maps, and whatever custom game you can put together, offers a playground that feels absolutely amazing to take part in. There are numerous equipment items to track down such as the Overshield, Drop Wall, or the Grappleshot, which I sort of wish was standard all the time, especially after using it constantly throughout the main campaign. There is also the Repulsor, which allows you to either time it perfectly for a boosted jump, or have an opponent’s Hammer bounce off it and send them flying. Simply put, this is probably the best feeling Halo in regards to just how fluid and fast pace it can be when compared to its past and not that of other competitive shooters such as Apex Legends, for example. Halo has always been a different beast, and its contemporaries are suitably different, and that’s a good thing. Having such variety is always healthy and usually breeds competition to strive deeper into making the games more innovative. Much like games like Apex or Rainbow Six: Siege, Halo Infinite will look far different as time goes on, adding more to it to make it as in-depth as its comparisons.
The new Slipspace engine is a solid upgrade from the previous games as Halo has never looked better. As development for the title ran a whole 6+ years, Halo Infinite has a scaling system in place as it was fundamentally designed with the Xbox One as the base model. That said, Halo Infinite easily takes advantage of the new consoles with faster loading times and much higher framerates and resolution modes, such as running the game at 120fps on compatible TVs. While the older systems do suffer from a lower resolution, pop-in, and some shadow cascading, both the Xbox One and One X still run the game surprisingly well, even if the newer Series X outperforms it at every step. That said, the Series S is in need of some work as it doesn’t run it much better than the One X, which is a rather odd occurrence given the vastly better specs.
Halo Infinite is an interesting release for Microsoft given that while its multiplayer is completely free to play, its entire campaign is also accessible on Game Pass, making it the most accessible entry in the series. You can play it on an Xbox, a SmartPhone, a Tablet, or a PC, and carry your progress with you wherever you go, which is remarkable as it just simply works. This method also dilutes a lot of the discussion around its full-priced campaign when Game Pass is easily the best way to get into it, given just how cheap the subscription service is and the other hundreds of games that come along for the ride. This is where it becomes tricky for reviews to really stand out, given that it’s so easy and affordable to just try the game out than read a review, let alone my rambling for the past 20 minutes.
Halo Infinite is in a good space despite clearly missing some mainstay features like co-op and forge, and when those features are both added next year, I’ll revisit this review and score appropriately, as it feels weird to have those missing features reflect my review at this time. While the campaign is certainly going to divide those on how the open-world feels to them, or its story, the gameplay hook that Halo has had for decades is here in all its glory and it’s never felt better, especially with that Grappleshot being part of the entire campaign. Its multiplayer can feel fairly simple in its offerings, but I still never tire of jumping into a few matches each day. Pushing through the Battlepass and Seasonal Events can still feel a bit stingy, but 343 is making solid strides to improve that. Again, Halo Infinite is going to be something different to each and every player that jumps into their Spartan boots, and that is as expected. Regardless, Halo Infinite is a damn impressive release for Microsoft and an even better one for Game Pass.
Developer - 343 Industries. Publisher - Xbox Game Studios. Released - (MP) November 15th, 2021 - (Campaign) December 8th, 2021. Available On - Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows. Rated - (T) Blood, Mild Language, Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X/S. Review Access - Halo Infinite was downloaded off of Game Pass by the reviewer, as well as purchased and digitally downloaded on the Halo Series X Console.