After the honeymoon phase for this game wore off, this game has been exposed for it's glaring problems that are a reflection of the current state of Halo and 343 industries. Microsoft has single handedly botched and ruined their flagship franchise due to their greed and mismanagement of the IP. It is certainly better than Halo 4 and Halo 5 but that is a very low bar to clear. I wouldn't go as far as to call this a bad game but it is by no means a great game and is a far cry from the rest of the titles developed by Bungie.
The campaign is so boring and bland and just feels like another generic open world game. Why they thought it was a good decision to try and adapt Halo into an open world experience is still a baffling move that shows Microsoft and 343 really have no idea what they really want to do with Halo and are just chasing trends to capitalize on flavor of the month. The story is painfully boring and misses out on a really interesting premise with the banished. Why did they decide to "kill" off Atriox (the man who was the main antagonist of the previous canonical entry and an extremely intriguing character who could have made for a compelling villain and story) for Escharum; A watered down "villain" who does pretty much nothing except monologue to Chief for the entire game just makes no sense. He is just a hologram for 99% of the game and when you finally encounter him it's a very boring boss fight where you just grapple around and whittle down his health very slowly. He then dies and claims to be an "honorable fighter" despite almost never showing himself to Chief. The fact that then they decide for Chief to show respect to him just shows the shallowness of the story present in the campaign. Speaking of another wasted antagonist, Jega 'Rdomnai, the so-called "Spartan Killer". He is even worse than Escharum, he isn't even present in any cutscenes apart from the one that introduces him at the start of the game and then dies in a very meek fashion. More wasted potential for a very cool and interesting antagonist. Not to mention the game has a secondary villain who just adds nothing to the story and adds to the list of lore elements that 343 has thrown into the Halo lore that has contradicted the setup Bungie had with its storytelling. The Harbinger and the Endless are probably the most boring villain faction in the Halo franchise. The rest of the characters in this game aren't bad per se but just really shallow and don't really make for a compelling story. Speaking of the story, it also ends on a cliffhanger that could be expanded in DLC but 343 or Microsoft have shown no intention to make it, meaning that the game that was supposed to be "the Halo game for 10 years” ends on a cliffhanger. How fucking stupid. Campaign gameplay is fine, nothing special. It has good gunplay and being able to customize loadouts for any mission is a cool addition. Enemies are fun to fight and they have reverted back to the old artstyle which is definitely a needed improvement from Halo 4 and 5. Their AI is also vastly improved which makes for an actually challenging campaign on higher difficulties unlike the travesty that is Halo 4 and 5's campaigns. The mission structure and open world environment itself is very repetitive which makes about 70% of the game an uninteresting drag. The map is all just one environment, grassy plains. It is definitely needed in at least one area of the game to call back to the second mission of Halo CE but that environment is all you get. Want mountain terrain, a tundra, a swamp, a city landscape? Too bad, not present here. Alongside the wasted potential of the environment is the same 2 bits of side content. Clearing enemy FOBs and finding chests. That is basically all there is to do outside of the main missions. Speaking of main missions, about 75% percent of the game is just forerunner architecture so say goodbye to any mission variety. Really the only good missions were the first mission on the ship and the tank run. The rest are just snoozefest corridor shooters. Also a bit of a nitpick but where is a warthog run? That could have made the ending much better than what we got. How ironic that about 70% of the open world experience you're traveling around in a warthog in the open world going from place to place but you don't even end in one. Overall, the campaign is definitely better than Halo 4 and 5, but has so many missed opportunities that really could have made for a special campaign but unfortunately has led to just another generic open world experience from an AAA studio.
Now moving onto multiplayer; I will just quickly link a list of all the content that wasn't at launch; (https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/qwlog5/list_things_missing_from_infinite/). Nowadays, multiplayer is genuinely a fun experience. But it took almost 2 years to get to this point. It really is sad because the core gameplay is very fun; I'd argue it's the best core gameplay in the series. But it has always been plagued by the state of launch. For those who may not be aware, it did not launch with a dedicated Slayer playlist. A FPS multiplayer game did not launch with a playlist that has been in every single FPS game since Unreal Tournament. Even COD with its yearly entries launches with a Team Deathmatch playlist. Not to mention all the other iconic playlists that were present in other Halo games. There were almost no maps and no game modes at launch. It also to this day does not have a good XP system or a ranking system But it did launch with an overpriced digital store.
Speaking of that store, it is a clear indication that Microsoft has no intentions on ever building an interesting Halo multiplayer experience. The moment this game went free to play was the moment it died. It made progression non-existent, and locked almost all of customization behind the digital storefront. It stings to see just how far Halo has fallen from the basically perfect system present in Reach to what we have nowadays in Infinite.
There is so much more I can talk about but not only has it already been done to death already, it would basically just turn into a rant about 343 and Microsoft. So TLDR: Game is fine and definitely has its good moments, but it is plagued by the deep rooted problems with 343 and Microsoft’s handling of leadership and IPs.
The campaign is so boring and bland and just feels like another generic open world game. Why they thought it was a good decision to try and adapt Halo into an open world experience is still a baffling move that shows Microsoft and 343 really have no idea what they really want to do with Halo and are just chasing trends to capitalize on flavor of the month. The story is painfully boring and misses out on a really interesting premise with the banished. Why did they decide to "kill" off Atriox (the man who was the main antagonist of the previous canonical entry and an extremely intriguing character who could have made for a compelling villain and story) for Escharum; A watered down "villain" who does pretty much nothing except monologue to Chief for the entire game just makes no sense. He is just a hologram for 99% of the game and when you finally encounter him it's a very boring boss fight where you just grapple around and whittle down his health very slowly. He then dies and claims to be an "honorable fighter" despite almost never showing himself to Chief. The fact that then they decide for Chief to show respect to him just shows the shallowness of the story present in the campaign. Speaking of another wasted antagonist, Jega 'Rdomnai, the so-called "Spartan Killer". He is even worse than Escharum, he isn't even present in any cutscenes apart from the one that introduces him at the start of the game and then dies in a very meek fashion. More wasted potential for a very cool and interesting antagonist. Not to mention the game has a secondary villain who just adds nothing to the story and adds to the list of lore elements that 343 has thrown into the Halo lore that has contradicted the setup Bungie had with its storytelling. The Harbinger and the Endless are probably the most boring villain faction in the Halo franchise. The rest of the characters in this game aren't bad per se but just really shallow and don't really make for a compelling story. Speaking of the story, it also ends on a cliffhanger that could be expanded in DLC but 343 or Microsoft have shown no intention to make it, meaning that the game that was supposed to be "the Halo game for 10 years” ends on a cliffhanger. How fucking stupid. Campaign gameplay is fine, nothing special. It has good gunplay and being able to customize loadouts for any mission is a cool addition. Enemies are fun to fight and they have reverted back to the old artstyle which is definitely a needed improvement from Halo 4 and 5. Their AI is also vastly improved which makes for an actually challenging campaign on higher difficulties unlike the travesty that is Halo 4 and 5's campaigns. The mission structure and open world environment itself is very repetitive which makes about 70% of the game an uninteresting drag. The map is all just one environment, grassy plains. It is definitely needed in at least one area of the game to call back to the second mission of Halo CE but that environment is all you get. Want mountain terrain, a tundra, a swamp, a city landscape? Too bad, not present here. Alongside the wasted potential of the environment is the same 2 bits of side content. Clearing enemy FOBs and finding chests. That is basically all there is to do outside of the main missions. Speaking of main missions, about 75% percent of the game is just forerunner architecture so say goodbye to any mission variety. Really the only good missions were the first mission on the ship and the tank run. The rest are just snoozefest corridor shooters. Also a bit of a nitpick but where is a warthog run? That could have made the ending much better than what we got. How ironic that about 70% of the open world experience you're traveling around in a warthog in the open world going from place to place but you don't even end in one. Overall, the campaign is definitely better than Halo 4 and 5, but has so many missed opportunities that really could have made for a special campaign but unfortunately has led to just another generic open world experience from an AAA studio.
Now moving onto multiplayer; I will just quickly link a list of all the content that wasn't at launch; (https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/qwlog5/list_things_missing_from_infinite/). Nowadays, multiplayer is genuinely a fun experience. But it took almost 2 years to get to this point. It really is sad because the core gameplay is very fun; I'd argue it's the best core gameplay in the series. But it has always been plagued by the state of launch. For those who may not be aware, it did not launch with a dedicated Slayer playlist. A FPS multiplayer game did not launch with a playlist that has been in every single FPS game since Unreal Tournament. Even COD with its yearly entries launches with a Team Deathmatch playlist. Not to mention all the other iconic playlists that were present in other Halo games. There were almost no maps and no game modes at launch. It also to this day does not have a good XP system or a ranking system But it did launch with an overpriced digital store.
Speaking of that store, it is a clear indication that Microsoft has no intentions on ever building an interesting Halo multiplayer experience. The moment this game went free to play was the moment it died. It made progression non-existent, and locked almost all of customization behind the digital storefront. It stings to see just how far Halo has fallen from the basically perfect system present in Reach to what we have nowadays in Infinite.
There is so much more I can talk about but not only has it already been done to death already, it would basically just turn into a rant about 343 and Microsoft. So TLDR: Game is fine and definitely has its good moments, but it is plagued by the deep rooted problems with 343 and Microsoft’s handling of leadership and IPs.