Halo Infinite’s incredible mechanical foundation is sullied by the most uninspired environments and art direction the series has seen. When your Ubisoft-esque checklist open world is among the least offensive aspects of your game’s campaign, you know you messed up.
In all seriousness, Infinite is simultaneously fantastic and awful. Master Chief has never felt better to control and his moveset allows the player to react more dynamically than ever before. Plenty of moments throughout this campaign, I pulled stuff off that made me feel like the coolest Spartan ever born. A couple of bosses in particular are GOAT-tier for the franchise and I’ll never forget how it felt facing off against them.
But I cannot overstate the importance of spectacle in a Halo game. Most of this campaign boils down to running through samey Forerunner corridors. The open world is limited to a single biome, and much of what was revealed in the announcement trailer is not present. Where are the large animals? The rain? The oceans? The snowy mountains? The moonlit groves occupied by stags? The raging thunder? The shifting deserts? The coiling trees? The waves of great bulls stampeding? The underwater vehicles exploring ruins? The beaches?
I understand that trailer was just a game demonstration, but it’s indicative of how lacking this experience is creatively. And considering the safe narrative’s corporate-fueled attempts to provide Halo with a riskless reboot, Infinite is all the more lacking. The whole of this open world is just Combat Evolved’s second mission extended from 30 minutes to 15 hours.
Overall, feelings are mixed. There’s lots to love here from a mechanical perspective, but it’s uninventive and visually trite.
In all seriousness, Infinite is simultaneously fantastic and awful. Master Chief has never felt better to control and his moveset allows the player to react more dynamically than ever before. Plenty of moments throughout this campaign, I pulled stuff off that made me feel like the coolest Spartan ever born. A couple of bosses in particular are GOAT-tier for the franchise and I’ll never forget how it felt facing off against them.
But I cannot overstate the importance of spectacle in a Halo game. Most of this campaign boils down to running through samey Forerunner corridors. The open world is limited to a single biome, and much of what was revealed in the announcement trailer is not present. Where are the large animals? The rain? The oceans? The snowy mountains? The moonlit groves occupied by stags? The raging thunder? The shifting deserts? The coiling trees? The waves of great bulls stampeding? The underwater vehicles exploring ruins? The beaches?
I understand that trailer was just a game demonstration, but it’s indicative of how lacking this experience is creatively. And considering the safe narrative’s corporate-fueled attempts to provide Halo with a riskless reboot, Infinite is all the more lacking. The whole of this open world is just Combat Evolved’s second mission extended from 30 minutes to 15 hours.
Overall, feelings are mixed. There’s lots to love here from a mechanical perspective, but it’s uninventive and visually trite.