After Halo 4 and the travesty that was Halo 5, I wasn't sure what to expect of Halo Infinite; 343 Industries just didn't seem to know what they were doing, and I was sure Halo was dead, and I didn't know if Infinite could fix that.
However, Halo Infinite ended up pleasantly surprising me. While there are still plenty of flaws throughout the game, both in campaign and multiplayer alike. But even so, this is the best 343 campaign yet, and has quickly become one of my favorite games in the series, right behind Reach and 3.
The campaign is overall very solid. I was a little worried when I first heard the campaign was going to be open world, thinking that this was just Microsoft trying to jump onto the Breath of the Wild open world bandwagon. While I do think this was still partially the reason for this choice, it was still a great choice to make. Exploring the open world feels surprisingly good, I loved going from FOB to FOB and completing all the missions I could find. It was far more engaging than what I would expect from a Far Cry title (or any other Ubisoft open world game for that matter).
The gameplay is also some of the best I've ever seen in the series. The grappling hook completely changes the way I played the game, allowing me to find new ways to attack enemies and traverse the environment; it's easily one of my favorite editions to the series and I hope it stays in future installments. The gunplay also feels incredibly satisfying, every gun has the proper amount of power to it, and no matter what I'm using (aside from the pulse carbine), I feel like an unstoppable powerhouse (until I make a mistake and get eviscerated in a second).
My biggest problem with the campaign was just that I couldn't regularly achieve a stable 60 fps in the open world, but I could when I was in a small enclosed mission. I assume that the game is just trying to load the entire world at once for some reason, and that just hurts the framerate. I hope they find a way to fix this, but it wasn't too awful for me personally, though I don't know how people with lower specs will fair.
I also loved the Banished, they're what I always wanted the post Bungie Covenant to be. Reach is still my favorite Halo game and one of the big reasons for this is due to the huge enemy variety the Covenant provides. It feels like you're fighting a full army and not just some angry aliens. Infinite also achieves this, but even better than Reach in my opinion. Not only are the enemies incredibly varied, but each one feels like they fill a specific role within their army, making them feel even more real. In particular, I love the new use of the brutes. The brutes always felt out of place within the Covenant, while most other enemies had defined roles, they kept flopping around. In 2, they're some of the most threatening enemies in the game, almost rivaling the hunters. In 3 and ODST, they were nerfed to fill the role left by the missing elites, making them feel extremely less threating to both their Halo 2 counterparts and the elites themselves. In Reach, they were sort of given their own role separate from the elites and less powerful than they Halo 2 brutes, but they still felt out of place, almost like they were just there to change the pace of combat and nothing more. Finally, they were entirely removed in 4 and 5. In Infinite however, they finally have roles that suit them. They act as the main foot soldiers with a huge window of opportunity. Some brutes will be weak, while others will be complete monsters. They feel less versatile than the elites in terms of movement and health, but they put up a strong and satisfying fight, and I couldn't be more happy. The only enemies missing from the original games are the drones, but they've been replaced by a much more satisfying enemy that actually feels like a proper threat, but can still be eliminated immediately. Overall, I love everything about the gameplay in this title, easily some of the best Halo has ever been.
The narrative however, is where things get a little tricky. The game starts out with one of the most baffling introductions I've seen since The Rise of Skywalker. It seems 343 just wanted to distance themselves from the wall they set up for themselves in 5, and chose a different group of enemies for us to fight. However, instead of maneuvering around the wall, they chose to smash head first into it as hard as they possibly could. We're told that everything established at the end of 5 was just... kind of solved off screen. Cortana is gone, and now we got these new guys to worry about. It's a horrible tone setter and made me really worried for the rest of the game. But surprisingly, it kind of works. Once the game bashed through the wall, and starts its own thing, everything falls into place, and it feels right.
After that, I felt the narrative was decent. Some areas were really strong, while others were somewhat poor, but I never felt it got "bad". By the end of the game, I felt satisfied with the narrative, but I realized something: this story is just Halo 4 and 5 again, but better. The same themes and ideas present in those titles are repeated here: Chief trying to figure out if he's a human or just a machine, Chief's relationship with his AI, Chief saying goodbye to Cortana, a race from the past returning and trying to doom the galaxy, etc. Many of these same ideas are repeated, which I would call a flaw, if it wasn't for the fact they're done so well here. This is the first time in the series I've ever really connected with Chief on a level above "dude that I'm playing as". For the first time for me, I felt like he was an actual character; this largely due to how the writers found a great way to portray Chief as a human, while still making him sound and act as the Chief we know, unlike the Chief in 4 and 5, who just never felt like Chief.
The story is mostly fine, but takes a dip in the late middle of the game when the narrative just disappears, but thankfully this doesn't last for long, and the last few hours of the game are exceptionally good.
Aside from the campaign, the multiplayer is pretty fun as well. There's plenty I wish would be improved, such as the store, servers, and player count in FFA, but it's still plenty of fun.
I would love to give this game a 9 out of ten because of how much I love it, but there are far too any unforgivable flaws that really hurt the experience. For instance: levels can't be replayed, no co-op, no firefight or forge, multiplayer severs still aren't that stable, the store is a microtransaction hell hole, and too many people are still cheating online. I know that some of these are guaranteed to be added later on, and once they do, I'll be happy to boost my rating up. But until then, this game will be an extremely solid Halo game, that is unfortunately unfinished in too many areas.
However, Halo Infinite ended up pleasantly surprising me. While there are still plenty of flaws throughout the game, both in campaign and multiplayer alike. But even so, this is the best 343 campaign yet, and has quickly become one of my favorite games in the series, right behind Reach and 3.
The campaign is overall very solid. I was a little worried when I first heard the campaign was going to be open world, thinking that this was just Microsoft trying to jump onto the Breath of the Wild open world bandwagon. While I do think this was still partially the reason for this choice, it was still a great choice to make. Exploring the open world feels surprisingly good, I loved going from FOB to FOB and completing all the missions I could find. It was far more engaging than what I would expect from a Far Cry title (or any other Ubisoft open world game for that matter).
The gameplay is also some of the best I've ever seen in the series. The grappling hook completely changes the way I played the game, allowing me to find new ways to attack enemies and traverse the environment; it's easily one of my favorite editions to the series and I hope it stays in future installments. The gunplay also feels incredibly satisfying, every gun has the proper amount of power to it, and no matter what I'm using (aside from the pulse carbine), I feel like an unstoppable powerhouse (until I make a mistake and get eviscerated in a second).
My biggest problem with the campaign was just that I couldn't regularly achieve a stable 60 fps in the open world, but I could when I was in a small enclosed mission. I assume that the game is just trying to load the entire world at once for some reason, and that just hurts the framerate. I hope they find a way to fix this, but it wasn't too awful for me personally, though I don't know how people with lower specs will fair.
I also loved the Banished, they're what I always wanted the post Bungie Covenant to be. Reach is still my favorite Halo game and one of the big reasons for this is due to the huge enemy variety the Covenant provides. It feels like you're fighting a full army and not just some angry aliens. Infinite also achieves this, but even better than Reach in my opinion. Not only are the enemies incredibly varied, but each one feels like they fill a specific role within their army, making them feel even more real. In particular, I love the new use of the brutes. The brutes always felt out of place within the Covenant, while most other enemies had defined roles, they kept flopping around. In 2, they're some of the most threatening enemies in the game, almost rivaling the hunters. In 3 and ODST, they were nerfed to fill the role left by the missing elites, making them feel extremely less threating to both their Halo 2 counterparts and the elites themselves. In Reach, they were sort of given their own role separate from the elites and less powerful than they Halo 2 brutes, but they still felt out of place, almost like they were just there to change the pace of combat and nothing more. Finally, they were entirely removed in 4 and 5. In Infinite however, they finally have roles that suit them. They act as the main foot soldiers with a huge window of opportunity. Some brutes will be weak, while others will be complete monsters. They feel less versatile than the elites in terms of movement and health, but they put up a strong and satisfying fight, and I couldn't be more happy. The only enemies missing from the original games are the drones, but they've been replaced by a much more satisfying enemy that actually feels like a proper threat, but can still be eliminated immediately. Overall, I love everything about the gameplay in this title, easily some of the best Halo has ever been.
The narrative however, is where things get a little tricky. The game starts out with one of the most baffling introductions I've seen since The Rise of Skywalker. It seems 343 just wanted to distance themselves from the wall they set up for themselves in 5, and chose a different group of enemies for us to fight. However, instead of maneuvering around the wall, they chose to smash head first into it as hard as they possibly could. We're told that everything established at the end of 5 was just... kind of solved off screen. Cortana is gone, and now we got these new guys to worry about. It's a horrible tone setter and made me really worried for the rest of the game. But surprisingly, it kind of works. Once the game bashed through the wall, and starts its own thing, everything falls into place, and it feels right.
After that, I felt the narrative was decent. Some areas were really strong, while others were somewhat poor, but I never felt it got "bad". By the end of the game, I felt satisfied with the narrative, but I realized something: this story is just Halo 4 and 5 again, but better. The same themes and ideas present in those titles are repeated here: Chief trying to figure out if he's a human or just a machine, Chief's relationship with his AI, Chief saying goodbye to Cortana, a race from the past returning and trying to doom the galaxy, etc. Many of these same ideas are repeated, which I would call a flaw, if it wasn't for the fact they're done so well here. This is the first time in the series I've ever really connected with Chief on a level above "dude that I'm playing as". For the first time for me, I felt like he was an actual character; this largely due to how the writers found a great way to portray Chief as a human, while still making him sound and act as the Chief we know, unlike the Chief in 4 and 5, who just never felt like Chief.
The story is mostly fine, but takes a dip in the late middle of the game when the narrative just disappears, but thankfully this doesn't last for long, and the last few hours of the game are exceptionally good.
Aside from the campaign, the multiplayer is pretty fun as well. There's plenty I wish would be improved, such as the store, servers, and player count in FFA, but it's still plenty of fun.
I would love to give this game a 9 out of ten because of how much I love it, but there are far too any unforgivable flaws that really hurt the experience. For instance: levels can't be replayed, no co-op, no firefight or forge, multiplayer severs still aren't that stable, the store is a microtransaction hell hole, and too many people are still cheating online. I know that some of these are guaranteed to be added later on, and once they do, I'll be happy to boost my rating up. But until then, this game will be an extremely solid Halo game, that is unfortunately unfinished in too many areas.