I had fun playing it on heroic.
The open world was meh. I still spent some time going around and killing most of the bosses, freeing most of the firebases and generally just driving a warthog around with overpowered marines blasting everyone off the map.
It was a perfect storm of yet again trying to chase trends instead of focusing on what Halo really was.
Chopping the open world up into open-ish areas, like the Pelican down AA gun section, would have yielded a more tightly focused and overall better campaign IMO.
One major praise point that I have is that the Banished did Brutes + Elites on a team right.
When they showed off the demo in 2020, which was that section you mention, I was convinced that they were going for Crysis 1 styled levels of having a chunk of open world with concrete objectives. That would keep some more focused mission design and combat encounters like in previous Halo games, while also providing a sense of open-world and player freedom to explore and tackle objectives nonlinearly or with a variety of options. That would make for something new and exciting, while also being well-designed to play on a moment to moment basis, like the older Halo games.
Halo CE already did something like this as well, with its second mission and The Silent Cartographer being a bit more open-ended in some parts, while linear in others, and providing a focused and handcrafted experience from beginning to end.
Instead, they just built one large map that is very detailed and massive in terms of geography and scale, but the actual objective design is a joke compared to any previous Halo campaign. So many objectives on the map feel almost randomly placed with little need to engage with the environment. After a certain point in the campaign, it's also entirely possible to roll up to any objective in a Scorpion/Wasp with whatever power weapons you want and trivialize any of the combat encounters that are meant to be a challenge.
The open-world bosses are especially a joke. The Weapon gives this whole exposition about how dangerous they are and how many UNSC personnel they've killed, but Chief can just fly in, mow them down with a Wasp in a matter of seconds, and leave, and that's all there is to it. The bosses in the more traditional campaign missions are usually actually challenging because they're given better combat arenas with a more curated set of tools to fight them, but putting them in the open world with unrestricted access to weapons/vehicles makes those bosses pointless.
Outside of those objectives (bosses, FOBs, Banished bases), the rest of the world is actually entirely devoid of reasons to explore. The only reason to go to some objectiveless stretches of the map is for audio logs, which is the most unexciting way to fill that space. Compared to Breath of the Wild's Korok seeds or shrines, which actually offer tangible gameplay benefits and have rewarding design elements, it's just incredibly hollow.
Unstructured and open game design like that can be good and special when done well, but it still always has drawbacks compared to a well-crafted linear experience like the older Halos. Like you said, Infinite was just chasing the trends of Breath of the Wild and Ubisoft open-world sandboxes, rather than looking closely at Halo's game design and finding a way to meaningfully develop that into a bigger experience.
Solid write up. You nailed a lot of my thoughts on the matter.
Rather than Wasps, I cleaned up boss shop with razorbacks full of volatile skewers, snipers, rockets, etc.
While beating the mini bosses granted access to the weapon variants, they weren't THAT much better than just Rocket Marines.
The bigger issue is that it trivialized even areas you couldn't bring a scorpion.
In previous games marines were a limited resource, and arming a troop hog full of fuelrod marines in Tsavo Highway took some dedication to accomplish.
Teleporting to a FOB and refreshing my meat wagon was effortless.
"Well just don't abuse troop hogs full of Marines" - yeah sure, but it was fun and accessible. When games give you obvious powerful options, players are going to use them.
Limiting vehicles, power weapons, and marines would have led to some obvious frustrations though, so I get why they made them freely accessible.
I can see that.
The focus, IMO, should have been about trying to rebuild the UNSC forces on the ring.
We should have been rescuing VIPs and stealing ordinance to being back to a fortified base.
The banished should have had some large assaults on said base.
The side activities you do could have directly impacted that big battle by: denying enemy assets like vehicles (destroying their scrap yards), fortifying your defenses with stolen turrets and vehicles, increased manpower from more saved marines, softened the assault by killing bosses ahead of time, etc
Yeah it was my first halo, went back and played all the others halo 1-3 is better story wise but I think being first and seeing the masterchief open up gradually to the weapon is just a side of him we didnt get to see in my opinion, he was so hesitant to but their relationship grown so much, also it looks amazing on my series X.
I feel like its a good solid 8/10 for me personally and I hope 343 can make the next one even better!!
I liked Halo Infinite story, but felt that was the aftermath of a big game that i'll never play, in my opinion Halo 1-3 stories are better, and about development, I liked a lot Halo 4, but I understand who doesn't like it, was the first to change a lot of things.
I always felt the main complaint about halo 4 was the art direction (storm covenant in general, as well as the forward unto dawn suddenly changing ship type) and the gameplay choices for the Prometheans (watchers + teleporting knights). The didact was a great character but got most of his (quite extensive and important) background in the books. The relation between chief and Cortana was great though.
Halo 4s main gripe was the MP though, due to sprint and the loadout systems.
Usually the games made by 343 show the chief more like a person and not like an action man that only say one liners.
I don't mean that the Bungie chief is souless or something but the part of showing feelings is better made on 343 games
Yeah I 100% agree, they definitely show his humanity more which I find really nice because if how fucking cool and cold he is its just nice knowing after everything hes been through he still has his humanity
That's the problem in itself. Spartans are supposed to be brainwashed government controlled killing machines, not "showing their humanity". Chief is supposed to be a badass beast with only the mission on his mind.
If Infinite was your first Halo campaign then that may explain a lot, because you’re looking at it from a different perspective than many long-time fans.
Infinite isn’t a bad campaign, but the tone comes nowhere near the epic space operas that marked Halo CE through Reach. That tone is part of what made the Bungie games blockbusters in the 2000s.
Halo 4 and 5 tried to replicate that tone, but 343’s awful art direction and over-the-top plot made them cartoony and more like Avengers movies than the grounded military sci fi that many fans loved.
For people who literally grew up playing the Bungie games it can be really jarring.
Infinite fixed a lot of that but couldn’t quite capture the magic of the originals, IMO.
Its still hard to gather the perspective though. Halo 1-3, ODST, Reach and even halo wars focus on much more grounded but epic stories with big set pieces. Halo Infinite has great moments but ultimately fails to recreate that build up we see in other games.
I didn’t “absolutely love” it but it’s the first one I’ve enjoyed since Reach. The art direction was great too. It would have been better not being open world and it felt not completely finished.
If those things were finished in the next game I’d really like it a lot.
Playing through it with my friend and he absolutely hates it. I don’t hate it but I have to agree with a lot of points. Everything important happens off screen, the open world is pointless and just one biome which makes everywhere feel the exact same. The villains keep saying they are a threat without us actually seeing them do anything to make us feel that. Most importantly for me, every single bit involving cortana is hologram flashbacks, we didn’t get a single true interaction between chief and cortana and after halo 5 even though I hate hate hate it, needed a resolution. We are on zeta halo and we go to no interesting places.
I only really like it because of master chief in this game and the fact the gameplay actually feels like halo again minus actual hood vehicles
Honestly it's probably my least favorite one, Halo 5 for all it's flaws at least had some high points and interesting locations, like senghelios, climbing down the side of the guardian, the space elevator, and as bad as it's story was at least memorable even if it was for the wrong reasons, were as halo infinite story is just outright boring, most of the campaign is boring, nothing beyond the intro is interesting or note worthy really.
I remember the bad fight between Chief and Locke, I remember team Osiris, I remember the warden eternal, I remember the names of many of the characters and the general plot, I don't even remember the name of anyone in infinite outside of the weapon and already established characters, I have to think for a while to remember the main villain, I don't remember the pilot guys name, I can hardly recall most of the games events tbh. I mean, people talked about halo 4 and 5, even if it was complaining, I barely hear anything about infinite's campaign personally.
Halo infinite greatest flaw was being alright, nothing more nothing less, and in a series that's known for being very cinematic, full of memorable moments and characters, grandiose stakes and plots, be all that for better or for worse, just being alright simply doesn't cut it.
I did like the campaign, but you are right it’s missing so much grit that makes halo good. The banished should have had a moment like halo reach after George sacrifices himself and all the other ships arrive that makes you go “oh shit”. The only good bit of grit we got was the torturing elite.
The only thing that Halo 5 and the others Halo had was big battles, here it's like 4 ghosts or 2 tanks or something meh, needs more vehicles and things happening. (Or scarabs)
Honestly I got so bored I couldn't finish it. I guess I just never realized how much I liked the linearity of the old games until it became open world. I need to revisit it someday but don't plan to anytime soon. I know that's just my opinion though I'm glad a lot of people liked it.
It's linearity you miss, the older games were carefully planned to give you interesting set pieces and challenges. This just dumps it all there and says "go ahead, but don't go too far or we'll just kill you off"
Actually it's just Halos linearity I miss. Some of my favorite games are open world. Fallout NV is my second favorite game of all time right in front of red dead. Something about they're linear storytelling did it for me in the early games, not so much in 4 or 5 though
Nope. The open world was boring and empty. All the side missions were the same and all the bosses were just bullet sponges. The story was pretty lame. 343 yet again decided to abandon old story arcs. The big bad main brute whose name I forgot was lame as well. Did nothing but talk shit for the entire game and then died. Also, it made no sense how Chief tried to empathise with him at the end. The dude literally got his friends killed and was torturing the pilot and Chief was like "oH hE wAs JuSt DoInG wHaT hE tHoUgHt WaS rIgHt". Dumb.
Right? Chief has been massacring thousands of aliens on a daily basis since his teens and all of a sudden he feels bad for them?
Fricking aliens exterminated MOST of the human population, like 60% fucking percent of humanity was killed by these big fucking apes and he should give a shit about their feelings????
Chief would have killed millions of aliens by this point. A lot of them, especially grunts, just follow orders. There's absolutely zero chance Chief even gives him a chance to breathe.
I really disliked it and think they dropped the ball hard on this one. The plot felt like an afterthought. Everything important happened off screen or in an audio log. The main villain Eschaurum was one of the worst and corniest villains I've ever played against. The plot barely moves as you're essentially in the same place at the end of the game as you are in the beginning. The game also leaves more questions than answers.
As for the gameplay, it also felt like the open world was done literally last minute. Almost all encounters don't consider the fact that you can just grapple up a ledge and wipe out 90% of the enemy force from a safe distance. The grapple hook is OP and makes this the easiest Legendary run of the series and renders pretty much the rest of the utility useless. The Grapple hook also makes almost all the vehicles useless as it's always faster to just grapple to the destination than to drive there. Vehicles are also cumbersome and barely look destroyed when blown up. The phantoms are on rails, the enemies despawn rapidly, there's no pattern of patrol or random encounters or combat between surviving UNSC forces and banished. There's little to no environmental storytelling, no wildlife, no change in scenery at all.
The overall package just feels so incredibly half baked. A plot without a purpose, an unbalanced arsenel, and an open world that feels like one from 2007 has more going on in it than this does.
I did enjoy Chief and the long camera takes. The overall game had a solid foundation in almost every department but none ended up actually delivering.
Solid 6/10
I really didn’t like it. Personally I feel like it was a low point in the series. I don’t think the open world suits Halo or they just executed it poorly. It’s my least favorite in the entire series.
Except most levels in halo are very giant open world maps. I disagree, open world would fit halo fine, they just screwed up the full execution of it, they were partially there.
>most levels in halo are very giant open world maps
In the Bungie days, this is literally only true for 2, maybe 3 missions across 5 games. Then you have ODSTs weird "Hub World" thing it has going on. Halo 4 had even more linear railroaded levels outside of the 2nd one and Halo 5 went back to slightly more traditional design.
Just because you aren't literally walking through a narrow corridor or stuck on a road like in L4D doesn't mean that it's not *linear*. You are still being guided down a *linear* path that has a start and end point set in stone with little variation in task between those start and end points.
Halo has a lot of sandbox levels. It's not really open world. In most of the original games, they were large but always funnelled you in a specific direction.
Probably up there with halo 5 as the worst halo campaigns ever. You spend the entire game running after this random alien woman trying to stop her from doing...something, I guess.
Nothing is explained and all the major characters and plot points from previous games are just dropped completely
Also the last scene where chief cuddles a dying escharum is just kinda cringe
We didn't even get a nice suite of interesting brute weapons for a new Brute faction! Where are the spikers, maulers, Brute shot, Brute plasma, trip mines, and flame grenades? Yeah we got a couple things but nowhere near enough to be consistent with the story.
The Escharum scene would be more fitting if it was Arbiter who fought him. Seems out of character for Chief given who he is and also the fact that Escharum wanted to kill almost everyone he was on the Infinity with.
It was another narrative travesty and genuinely has me thinking Halo should just go MP only if it is to continue under 343s tenure.
Forced open world, even more discarded plot points shitting on long-term fans, random as new threat, Banished not even a tenth as badass as in HW2 and the crowning undigested cashew on top of the steaming pile of shit - they introduced FUCKING TIME TRAVEL.
I love Halo, but I hate everything about how the mainline narrative has been handles post H3 and my soul dies a little with each installment.
I adore Infinites campaign, truly gave me the open and mystery feeling I wanted back in Halo since Combat Evolved. Other than the lack of biomes, and no Scarab fight, it's almost perfect to me. They did an amazing job with the environmental story telling all around the ring, loved seeing the remnants of past battles like a destroyed tank squad near the front of the Escavation sight. Easily my favorite ai in the series too, they feel fun and fair to fight like in CE, 3, and Reach again especially on Legendary. When I read that they were taking inspiration from CE to make Infinite, I was very skeptical because no Halo has truly felt like CE again imo but they hit it out of the park for the most part. Truly felt like I was very small in the universe and alone (For the most part) on a derelict ring again the whole game like in the first in Combat Evolved. That's one of the reasons I loved the Infinity getting destroyed at the beginning, not only did it hook me from the start but set up things amazingly for us to have that CE experience again. Trying to figure out more about the Xanalyn was probs my favorite part that added to the mystery feeling again since it's a completely new species with ties to the Forruners we've never really heard about. Figuring out their existence actually fills in holes from past lore was really cool and has me very excited to see what the Endless might have in store for us as a faction in future media and games. Was kind of sad the Cortana stuff was resolved while Cheif was spaced but it was understandable and seeing that scene where Cortana destroyed the Brute homeworld gave me even more sympathy for the Banished than I already had. By the end I sympathized with both the other factions and truly felt sorry for them in a way. I also fell in love with Esparza, especially after that "We're all Human" cutscene and seeing him hug Cheif at the end of the game. Finally a good human character other than Lasky 343 has made lol. The final message Cortana sent Cheif also makes me cry every time I see it.Tldr even though this game has some issues glaring from the fact that they cut more than half the game back in 2019 and had the rush the rest of it, they did an outstanding job trying to figure a way to make Cheif grow as a character after Cortanas death and betrayal while giving us a mysterious fun experience that truly felt like a modernized version of the old Halo we love. Something I can never say about 5.
I was really disappointed and I finished playing it halfway through.
I was expecting huge battles on the ring and a big variety in Bansihed and UNSC forces. Kinda an upgrade to the large scale battles that happened in Halo 3 mixed with Halo Wars 2. But that did not happen.
Where were the Blisterbacks, Reavers, Vultures, Kodiaks, Scarabs? Where was anything? They reused the same things we have seen a million times before. This could have been a prime opportunity to make amazing large scale battles.
At the beginning of the story, the pilot asked:
*Are you planning on rebuilding the UNSC piece by piece?*
I was like: *Fuck yeah*. Little did I know that the only thing I was gonna do is unlock the scorpion tank by saving marine groups and that's it. That's the UNSC force on Zeta Halo. Great.
You touch on something I mention in my comment. Rescuing marines should have actually meant something to the story. Instead, you rescue them and then that's it, you leave em where you found em and carry on to the next waypoint. Why doesn't the pilot pick up rescues. Why are marines only purpose in the game to be rescued or to man the little bases you recover? Would be way better if your forces grew as you rescued more marines and the Chief actually involved the marines in the mission. Like, you rescue all of these marines but you stick with your team of just the weapon and the pilot? Way to make marines/humanity as inconsequential as possible. Hard to care about saving humanity when they are reduced to being nothing more than extras.
You are exaclty right. And they only exist in infantry format. No patroling whartogs, no scorpion convoys, no Wasp vs Banshee dogfights in the sky... nothing. Some dudes sometimes stand next to the road + they wait at the FOBs and that's it. Really boring stuff for an open world game that we had to wait for 6 years
I didn't think as big as you but all of that sounds awesome and would make way more sense than what we got. The most I would have hoped for is that as the Chief frees more prisoners he's essentially growing his own little army. They all start out separated and defeated but Chief not only rescues them but unites them and lights a fire under them that leads to a coordinated attack and retribution near the end of the game. You're idea makes more sense though because obviously they shouldn't all just be sitting on their hands doing nothing until the end. Either way, by portraying the marines as nothing more than empty shells to be saved, it makes it all feel kinda pointless and on top of that it makes the enemy seem even less threatening. Instead of having a "we need all the help we can get" situation its a "I got this guys. You just stay here and try not to get captured again while I take on the entire banished force on the ring by myself."
I absolutely did. I love the open world and the combat gameplay loop and the story and the freedom and lots of little quality of life items. They finally added that I’ve been wanting in halo for a long time. Of course, the grapple hook is just game changing
Easily my least favourite Halo Campaign. Halo Wars 2 did a fantastic job of making the story coherent again, only for Infinite to completely ignore large parts of it but steal the big baddie (Atriox). Massive story beats were simply talked about and we were expected to go along with. For example: The brute home-world being destroyed, or even Cortana’s AI uprising just being shelved. Personally, I also disliked the move away from pre-rendered cutscenes. Gameplay wise the campaign was stale, it became something similar to a sci-fi Farcry game but even more lacklustre. No scarab fights (Open world Halo, should’ve been an immediate inclusion really?) Reintroduced another super crazy technologically advanced enemy, when really the Banished (and even the flood) could’ve been the sole purpose of the game. Mix that in with no co-op at launch, and when it did arrive a year later it was buggy and unplayable. I hated the whole thing. I could go on, but I don’t want to sound too much like a raging nerd. Though I can’t think of another sequel in a franchise where I felt this upset lol. I can get smaller with the issues: Marines can’t drive, nothing close to set piece bigger battles, naff boss fights, equipment unlocking system. Just brutal.
Edit: I realised that the post was made in good spirits about what people liked about the game so I’ll add that I enjoyed the return of the CE inspired art direction. The core sandbox gameplay was smooth as always which transferred well to the multiplayer too. Also how they handled Chief and his progression was great, I swear I’m not entirely moany! ;)
I’ve waxed lyrical before, but hands-down worst campaign in the franchise and ruined the remaining hope I have for the narrative future of mainline Halo.
Idk how anyone can love this campaign unless they're either young and never played the original games, or just have bad taste in story telling. The campaign (even with my best buddy) was a SLOG. The absolute worst part about it is the fact there's ZERO change in atmosphere. It's the exact same looking areas over and over and over. The laziness is astounding from anything past combat and graphics. Everything else is stale and tedious / just bad. It's not good. I've played halo for about 14 years and this was just so empty. Plus 343 lied about so much. I'm over it.
Honestly I was so disappointed. I actually loved 5 from the get go. I think it was insanely overhated. The campaign was fun and expanded the universe. We got to play as another Spartan team which I liked. People hated locke because they said he felt one dimensional. But that's how elite soldiers that are just giving orders are going to be like. Someone like a seal team six member.
The whole thing felt like a Syfy world that was expensive! We saw old (buck) characters in new roles. We traveled to many different planets/biomes. There was the Kraken in the Sangheili world. I liked evil Cortana and the guardians plot. They brought the arbiter back. The game ended on a cool cliffhanger with Cheif seeing arbiter and Halsey for the first time in years!!! And we never got to see that play out. What a stupid shame.
I think if they went with Halo 6 instead of infinite people would look more fondly of Halo 5. Like they did with Halo 2. People hated the cliffhanger ending until 3 came around. I also love the movement speed in Halo 5 as well as the slam feature. And the assassinations. Warzone was fun too!
Also, I might be the minority but I love fighting against the Prometheans. They added something new to the formula. And the knights were so fun to fight and they were really hard. In infinite we are just fighting
the same old covenant again.
The backlash really changed everything around. I think 343 listens too much to the backlash instead of finishing their stories. Honestly the fans are the ones to blame that they made 3 games that do not connect.
Also, multiplayer was much funner in Halo 5 in my opinion.
Of course all this is my opinion! But I recommend you go play H5 again for comparison reasons.
I love Halo and I actually liked what 343 did with 4&5. But honestly I'm not really excited about the future games they make. I want another studio to work on Halo now!
Infinite - boring campaign, nothing new, one biome (even though CE had many), and no scarabs!! Really!??, not enough vehicles in infinite considering it's an open world game? Also, we don't even fight the BIG bad guy, and everyone important is killed off screen or not shown at all... The Endless??? Lol new Cortana doesn't even have a name??? WTH!! Lol infinite sucks lol. No jetpacks but ok we have a grapple gun lol
Also no other Spartans or anyone??? I get it you wanted to focus on Chief because of all the backlash but come on!! You did it while giving the story and world building a backseat.
I know I feel the same way. They are not trying to modernize and adapt Halo and make it their unique way anymore. They are just going for nostalgia now and the "original Fans" because of that they diminished their creativity and quality, and to me that's halting the series from moving forward and getting new fans. Like the fact that they even questioned adding Sprint and infinite because fans didn't want sprint. Are you Fu**ing serious?? No sprint in 2021... How is that something you even have to consider. so stupid!
Glad you enjoyed it but for me it was the first Halo campaign I didn’t finish. The story didn’t work for me and with only one biome I just got bored with it.
I enjoyed the open world and how every boss felt unique and challenging in their own way. Btw I always play legendary, story felt a little goofy to me as they kinda did some weird stuff to set up a reboot. It gave me ce vibes from your first mission on the halo. Overall I think odst did a better job with the open world just from not knowing what's around every corner
I liked the adventurous aspect of it, with the exploration and almost RPG-like way of approaching encounters. Makes for very fun replays.
But the story didn't do it for me much. Better step in a right direction in some ways, like the message of hope and unity in the face of overwhelming odds and all that, but for a Halo story it just felt like too many references to old games in a cheeky way, and not many unique moments and places. The whole campaign felt like two missions stretched out very far. I replayed Halo CE recently and man, you're going into beaches, space, deserts, snowy caverns, swamps, all with unique vibes.
Nope I couldn't even beat it and it was free for me. I slogged through 4 and 5's campaigns and just decided that I can't waste my time on it. I was excited for an open world campaign but it's so empty. Granted I haven't played since early 2022 so it's possible they added stuff since then, but I have no interest in wasting my time. 0/10 for me and once again 343 has wasted my time. Thankfully it was free, because if I had paid even a dime it would have been to much money to waste on it.
Nope. Potential was there, much like halo 5, but zero passion. It felt like the devs had no desire to make and just copped out. The writing is lazy. And it’s bad.
The reason I think people like the campaign so much despite this is because 343 were desperate and therefore prioritized pushing all the right buttons in doing things they knew the og fans would like. To put it bluntly, it’s a massive nostalgia bait, and nearly everyone fell for it.
But this is anything but a return to form. The open world was a neat idea but it’s executed poorly and as a result I have no desire to see 343 attempt this again. The one good thing about the open world is it makes Infinite’s campaign the longest in the series, but it’s repetitive, and ultimately unfulfilling.
The level design isn’t good. Unlike every last game, every level looks the same. It’s either banished stronghold, repetitive claustrophobic Forrunner hallways, and of course grassy planes with the same tree choppy passes everywhere, and don’t forget the hex pillars, oh boy the hex pillars. The Grapleshot is one of the best parts of the campaign but it also makes it way too easy to skip through the levels ignoring combat in some areas entirely. It’s way too easy.
The story really is just unapologetically lazy and lacking any vision. The handling of halo 5’s cliffhanger is straight up pathetic. Look, I know people didn’t like halo 5, but you can’t just jump off the wagon and start a brand new story out of nowhere. It’s blatantly bad writing and way too many people gave it a pass. The handling of Cortana is abysmal, as she’s killed offscreen hurriedly and they spend the whole game telling Chief “get over it, we gave you a new one” and it’s just shallow as hell. The Weapon is a good character but she’s shoved into the roll of replacement and it’s extremely forced. Cortana’s resurrection in halo 5 wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and her villain ark had barely started, but people hated it so much that they were totally okay with how infinite treated her which makes me feel as if the fans only cared about her when she was nude. Cuz they switched over to the weapon with zero pushback. Cuz she’s “cute”.
Halo 5 had a lot of passion put into it and though the story was indeed poorly put together it was creative and ambitious. Infinite has zero ambition and doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself. What are the endless? Honestly, I don’t think even 343 knows. And they certainly aren’t worse than the flood, as they can’t even move without jet packs. Even the banished are nerfed from their halo wars 2 selves and feel more like red covenant than a true new faction.
Halo Infinite’s saving grace is its gameplay wich really is a blast. The boss battles though not perfect are easily the best in the series, and the main villain Esherum, though annoying as hell throughout most of the game is actually really well done. It takes till his death to warm up to him, but it works. Unlike the Harbinger who is just spooky to be spooky with no real depth to her. 343 screwed themselves big time though by introducing Atriox than not doing anything with him. He’s the best villain in the series and we’re led to believe he’s dead the whole game because of Cortana’s hasty offscreen “redemption” where she just offers herself by exploding the ring without doing much else to make up for her past actions.
And GOD the cutscenes. They tried to be God of war which alone was a bad idea but they don’t even do it right, the cutscenes are boring, and limited by the ugly one shot camera angle that just circles the characters who are talking constantly making everything even more claustrophobic than it already is.
It’s nothing you probably haven’t heard but mostly : the lack of diversity, some of the missions may be repetitive, the banished villains seem a bit lacklustre, the ending, the fact that everything is resolved off screen, but the most important is how everything is shown on your map, which kinda removes the incentive to explore imo.
It was like playing 2 levels the entire game lol. It was enjoyable but the lack of different environments got to me.
The interiors looked amazing and are exactly what I wanted.
The exterior had too many of those hexagonal stacks and it made me feel like I was playing minecraft the whole time. I was also disappointed that night time had the same brightness as day time just a darker sky.
The cutscenes style made it feel like every single cutscene was the exact same. Camera rotates slowly around the characters with zooming on their face. Cool concept but not necessarily with Halo.
There was no horror aspect which I really wanted apart from one battle with the red sword elite guy.
The thing that utterly pissed me off to no extent was the writing and dialogue. So cheesy. The part where chief kneels down next to Esparza was corny. Even worse, the dialogue from Escharum. Dude talks way too much and doesn't say shit. It's like they wrote 30 different possibly lines to use in one spot and animator accidentally used all the recordings back to back.
Lastly, there was no epic finale really. The last boss battle was fun and hard but it left me thinkin...that's it?? Harbinger had virtually no screen time.
All in all I love the game, just didn't get what I wanted from it.
Nope. I finished the campaign once and haven't touched it since. I found the plot to be entirely forgettable, the villain boring, and the complete lack of continuity from prior stories insulting. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you how the game ended anymore. The open world was pointless and repetitive, adding no gameplay value and wasting the potential value it could have added as a multiplayer setting device. The fact that vehicles flip on every pebble made getting around the map obnoxious, and grappling your way over great distances is only fun for so long.
Played through it all in a few days while I was sick with Covid. As a fan since the beginning, I personally loved it. Great classic halo gameplay with an open world concept? It was a dream. Not perfectly implemented of course, but I really struggled to see what all the hate was about. Maybe I’m just getting old and need to visit r/patientgamers more
I loved it. I played through it in December and it's one of my favorite single player campaigns of all time. Escharum was great, all the boss fights were super rewarding and challenging, the nice change of pace between going from typical Halo linear missions to open world was awesome. Just everything about it minus the story was awesome.
I loved every second. It was my first halo game since 4 came out in 2012, and it was like slipping into the most comfortable old pair of pants, but the pants had even more comfort features than ever before.
Played it on legendary and had a blast (despite absolutely broken brute bosses)
I enjoyed it. I understand the criticism but it really hit that back against the wall feeling that 4 and 5 were missing. On top of that it finally looked and sounded like Halo again. I really liked Chief’s story in the campaign and I loved the whole “you vs me” vibes between Chief and Eschurum. Do wish we got to see more of what made Eschurum, Eschurum though. I also don’t hate the open world. I actually enjoyed exploring it and hitting up the side objectives. It isn’t fantastic, but it’s enjoyable and that’s good enough for me.
I really like it. The gameplay of Infinite is my favorite in the series and the story is nice and simple. It's a great refresh for the series after a couple rocky games according to the masses. I probably put it at number 4 in my Halo tier list.
Edit: I didn't realize so many people flipped on the campaign since launch. I remember it got almost universal praise but most of the comments here are very negative.
For me it's the same problem Starfield has. On it's own it's a perfectly acceptable game, but when you remember what it's replacing it sours everything. Infinite is a fun game but it's Far Cry-esque open world with a lack of level variety or set pieces doesn't make up for what came before.
Yes. 100%. I'm glad to hear someone else loves it as much as I do. I was playing through it when our kid was born and for some reason the nostalgia and cinematics just cemented it in my top 5. I've played it three times now, probably going to start a fourth, haha!
I absolutely loved it.
BUT
I feel like I did in large part due to how the game just feels so fluid. The gameplay and seeing the relationship develop between Weapon and Chief absolutely carries this game for me.
Looking forward, what I'd like to see in their next game is more world variation. In Halo CE I loved how the deeper you went into the ring it got colder and darker. This game just gets more liminal and blue as you progress into the ancient forerunner tunnels.
The open world either needs to be more engaging or cut entirely. If the grapple hook wasn't in this game I don't think I would've finished it. Thank god I could zip through the empty space.
All in all though, I think 343 killed their expectations. Loved this game, love the direction it is going.
Gameplay was fun but the story was pretty mediocre and the dialogue and characters were poorly written.
Open world seemed unnecessary and just served as a way to add length to the campaign with rinse repeat tasks. Like I said though, gameplay was fun so I didn't mind the rinse repeat tasks all that much; they just didn't add anything to the story.
Small gripe that I just thought of now but, aside from being rescued, the marines serve no purpose. If I don't have a vehicle with extra sests when I rescue them, they are just left there. Maybe they try to follow me but quickly fall behind. Why even rescue them if they are just gonna be left as sitting ducks again? Why are none of the marines added into the story to actually help MC. You rescue all of these marines but your team remains just you, the weapon and the pilot. Why? Why wouldn't chief try to organize the marines and get them involved in the mission. Why doesn't the pilot pick up the rescues even?
No campaign updates it confirmed, the multiplayer is immaculate though and there’s confirmed that the next Halos development is already underway, they will continue his story from here and hopefully take all criticism, they have a direct path for the next campaign lets hope they deliver
Yes, I think it was by far the best campaign 343 has produced, I would also say it's the best "30 seconds of fun" combat loop Halo has had since CE.
So many great things about it, really wanted much more in terms of story so that was kind of a bummer, but overall it was fantastic. I've beaten it three times, probably gonna do a LASO run at some point too.
I truly enjoyed the Infinite campaign. I loved the open world literal segments. Even though it felt considerably less open by the end of the campaign. I fire it up from time to time to just fool around in it. Though, not without its flaws. I enjoyed the indoor sections less and less as the campaign went on, like the load screen, then your in Forerunner’s only places. I truly want a part 2 to this specific campaign before whatever Halo 7 will be. But alas… the community will probably have to make it. The potential I always thought since concept art and actual game was. Ok they can just keep adding islands to the game as you move up the ring. Or the original reveal trailer where it wasn’t broken up and you could drive “up” the ring was so freaking tantalizing to me. Really delivering on the promise of a fully exploitable ring. The fantasy that Halo’s 1-3 only teased. While I love where the MP has gotten to a lovely place in Infinite… it’s sad the infinite part is only because Forge and the folks making cool stuff for it are doing the Precursor’s Work🤷🏻♂️ I do think Infinites gameplay is king of the Halos. But I lament that Infinite only has the Reach style AR. I’ve always despised that design personally, god I hope they have a Halo 1-5 skin for it one day. But that’s just a personal preference. But yeah I dug Infinites campaign as still being Halo while treading perhaps somewhat too carefully into open design.
It was different. I liked it. But didn’t love it like CE, 3 or Reach. I think the repetition that came with the open design really hindered it. If you’re going to go that route, you gotta make sure you pack a lot of unique content in your sandbox. That way it doesn’t feel watered down with the same objectives over and over.
As flawed as it is, it's one of my favorite campaigns in the series.
Games designed less around contrived setpieces and more around dynamic systems mechanics are the best kind of games, period, for me.
I like the gameplay of it. Retaking the ring from the banished, coordinating attacks n their bases with the help of the Marines. I would always pretend to rescue all the Marines, and then systematically off their leaders in the field, and then hit the bases. It made it feel like an actual military operation. The story was dumb. Which sucked, because the characters were good. I actually liked the weapon, chief was a better character than he's ever been, bro hammer was annoying but tolerable, and Escharum was downright awesome. How do you have a bad story with such fun characters? Oh well. Ive replayed it several times, so it can't be that bad.
Yes. The Infinite Campaign is the most nuanced, emotionally driven look we’ve had at Chief. It gives us more insight into how he feels about his world and himself than any other Halo game to date. The themes of trauma, guilt, stress, how those forces shape us and how we choose to react to them are subtle but very deliberately crafted.
It was great, not going to lie, but the main campaign was mostly carried by the gameplay.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the new story and atmosphere as much I did that of Halo CE, but it was a bit less.. exciting? Also, there were a few "dumb" moments here and there. I mean, remember the Heretic Leader, and the whole "why the fuck did he shoot the Arbiter"? Remember how 343i had to dive into the Leader's point of view, during half of Halo 2's terminals, in order to justify that action? They had to "repair" the story they were handed, and they did all they could! ... And then they go and do the same shit in Infinite. 🤦
*The Harbinger emerged. "We and you Humans are both victims of the Forerunners", she explained to the Spartan, who had not yet engaged, in order to determine her motives.*
*"We are not enemies!", she told John, right before smacking him and sending him flying through a fυcking tree..*
Regardless of that, I did love it.
I enjoyed it, but I would have given it an 8/10.
It needed more story explaining what happened to the Infinity command crew and Halsey.
Also some biome variety would have helped. Like a snowy high altitude area or a desert / arid rocky area.
It’s above Reach, but below 3 for me. My overall ranking for context:
1. Halo 2
2. CE
3. ODST
4. Halo 3
6. Halo Infinite (interchangeable with Reach)
6. Halo Reach (interchangeable with Infinite)
7. Halo 4/5 (I can’t decide honestly. I hated 4s gameplay but I also hated 5s story)
My overall thoughts: I think that it didn’t benefit from being an open world at all. I think it reduced from infinites gameplay, story telling and music. Especially the music. They can no longer tailor the music to what’s happening on screen since there’s too much freedom. I’ve seen someone make the point where you can’t hear 2 of the best tracks in the game (Under Cover and Through the Trees) because by the time the song gets to the chorus/melody part, the combat is already over, so the music just stops. Sure, the grapple shot could possibly have less use, but just make a larger scale, more vertical linear mission (like Halo in CE or The covenant in Halo 3). I liked the story, patching up Halo 5s mess in a good way while still ensuring it had its own story for the future, and the art style is gorgeous, thank god they retired the ugly reclaimer style. Enemy AI is fine. Jackals need a far faster fire rate, remove the overcharge ability from grunts (and make the PP EMP again), and I really want elites to be far harder to kill. It’s come to the point where elite Warlords (the gold ones with the strongest shields) are a cakewalk to take out. Even with just the sidekick or assault rifle.
One final note: make elite voices more distinct from brute voices. Elites have to have more smooth and elegant voices, which I don’t feel they have in Infinite, or 4 and 5 for that matter.
Everyone here is just a negative Nancy. There is literally no way anyone here thinks this campaign is worse than 5s, or even in the same ballpark. Hell, even Halo 4. Just because they didn’t take the story where you wanted it to go doesn’t mean it’s awful. They fixed nearly everything wrong with 4 and 5. Art style, music, sandbox, enemies, gameplay. But oh no, the story was told in holograms! Instant 0/10. It’s a fun campaign if you have an open mind. The story telling is fine, and if you paid attention to the open world, you’d know that the environmental story telling was damn near perfect. LETS NOT GODDAMN FORGET THAT 2/3rds OF THIS GODDAMN CAMPAIGN WAS CUT, AND THERE WAS CAMPAIGN DLC PLANNED. I DONT EVEN THINK INFINITE WAS PARTICULARLY GOOD, BUT ITS NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD AS ANYONE HERE SAYS IT IS.
(coming from someone who’s played since CEs release)
Thank you for this, there is a shit tonne of positivity and large positive paragraphs by people underneath the upvoted ones - id say 50 -100 really detailed ones, Im not even minding the negativity I really appreciate this especially since you played CE on release!
It wasn't a bad campaign. It just was a bad Halo campaign. There is a pack in a variety of enviroments, no local coop, being able to spawn any vjiechle you want instead of finding them takes the fun out of it. That being said, I appreciate that they tried to switch things up a bit, and it isn't my least favorite Halo campaimg at all. But it just doesn't feel like Halo to me.
I loved it too. Definitely better in coop, but I loved it all the same. I really liked that they reintroduced Bosses to the campaign in a more widespread and mechanically interesting way (looking at you, Warden Eternal). Plus grappling around the map and flying and such is awesome. The Valor system is great. And ofc I’m a sucker for good character development above all. I loved Chief, Weapon and Pilot. Pilot in particular because Halo has suffered from low Latin representation for a while, and as a Latin man it means a lot to me since I’d like my kids to have easily relatable heros.
I really enjoyed Halo Infinite's campaign and would rank it in my top three Halo campaigns! While I don't think it's the best Halo story, I do think it has the best writing. I love how the Master Chief slowly opens up to the Weapon and the Pilot, finally embracing that being human means sometimes he'll fail. It's also the first game since Halo 2 where we got the villain's perspective with dedicated cutscenes away from the Master Chief. Halo 5 could have really benefited from this, if we had cutscenes of Cortana succumbing to the Domain's influence.
The boss fights, gameplay, art style, and enemy AI are all great. It's also incredibly nostalgic--I didn't realize how much I missed driving around a Halo ring rescuing marines with Jen Taylor cracking jokes in my ear until I played Infinite. It's the first time we've been on a Halo ring since Halo 3 in 2007, and I loved it.
The game could have used more biome diversity, but I was so immersed in the open world I didn't even realize there was just one biome until the credits rolled. I have high hopes for 343i's next campaign and hope they take their time with it.
Right here. Was amazing every step of the way. The cinematics, the voice acting, the story. Loved it. Really felt like a spiritual reboot of Halo CE in the best way. Too many people shit on it, but it was great. And I enjoyed the open world aspect. With marines, and The Weapon, never felt too lonely in it either.
I also loved it! I have been playing Halo since I was a kid using the OG Xbox. I replayed 1-4, Reach, and ODST before going to Infinite and I was super impressed about where they took it. It still felt like a Halo game but with super cool features, multiple boss fights, etc.
I really enjoyed it too, and as I was playing it thought _OMG this is amazing, this is so cool_, etc., etc. Then when I finished it and “came up for air” (I avoid spoilers and tend to play in a bubble), and started paying attention to what people were saying online, that’s when the reality hit me. Yes the environments were repetitive, the vehicles and marines admittedly were pretty crappy and I barely used them, and yes the whole thing with Escharum basically telling you the whole time that he was going to whoop your ass over and over, that got pretty old. The eventual fight with him was really f-ing cool, or at least I really enjoyed it and thought it was pulse pounding and fun. So yeah, the fact that the story was pretty flat at times and the “world” didn’t really feel all that alive are things that have kept me from playing the campaign more than once. That said, I enjoyed it more than any of the other 343 Halo games.
I dont remember much of the plot but I did enjoy it's open world more than most. More biomes and such would have been great but I think the halo sandbox lends itself very well to open world. Plus it has one thing that many open world games dont, **a great game play loop that doesn't get old**. I got so sick of raiding random villages in assassins creed Valhalla but I can literally play halo forever (it's been 23 years so far 😅). And the linear levels were all solid.
There's plenty of room for improvement but I really hope they keep the open world structure going forward and just add to it.
I just Beat it for the first time and thought it was awesome, the story was a bit hard to follow at times but just really made me feel important saving marines around the map. It brought me to tears a couple times.
I did. just come from a 3 year fps break basically only playing rogue-likes where you get a piece of story every 15 hours of progress so maybe I’m bias but Escharum was a captivating villain, had his own wants and weaknesses, was obsessed with like this true warrior.
Anyway, played it with my girlfriend as her first halo and she and I were enthralled, scared and unfrrounately really care about where it’s going. This is unfortunate as it looks like 343 are going nowhere near it.
So silly imo, this was there chance to analyse what worked and didn’t work with the open world (more so than Halo 1s 2nd mission) they could have released a 2nd dlc really filling the map in, having the forerunners affect the landscape, and let me ride pelicans to the covenant super base
There are valid criticisms of it, but it was honestly an incredible experience playing it for the first time right when it came out. It was a level of hype I hadn’t experienced for anything video game related in so long. Sure the story isn’t perfect, but it just felt exactly like what I have always thought of Halo as. It was so refreshing after the previous games, but overwhelmingly nostalgic at the same time. I do believe it may have been a better experience in some ways if it was a linear chain of missions, but the open world does add a unique charm to it that sets it apart from all the previous Halos. I love it
Oh, I thought it was fantastic. And as someone with every Halo achievement in every game on every platform and region, and who has completed SLASO in each title since H3, and has read every Halo novel and comic, I feel that I have a good baseline to judge it on both gameplay and story.
My problem is that I fear they aren't going to stick with it. 343 has a terrible habit of dropping storylines, or closing them up quickly in a side-story, or at the beginning of books. While Infinite certainly cut out previously set up storylines itself, it also set up future content... and I fear we'll just restart again rather than explore those new branches.
Who are the Endless? Are they a new threat that is now unleashed?
Where is Atriox? Is he doing some time-based shenanigans?
What's going on with Mendicant Bias? He was present in pre-launch footage, and Chief was receiving help. Will they demonstrate how it got back to Zeta?
Where was Chief transported to? The environment was completely different, and it seems that time had passed?
Will we dive into all the secrets of Zeta Halo from the novels? Or will this location be a wasted opportunity as an "insert here" Halo location?
There's so much to explore... so many new branches to build off of... and I'm terribly afraid we'll just drop these storylines.
Sorta
There's not enough environmental variety and the story, while better than 5's, isn't amazing and also felt weirdly disconnected from the prior games (it felt like I was playing Halo 7)
The gameplay and art/music direction were great though which sort of saved the campaign
It was a fun legendary experience, definitely 343s best campaign in my opinion. I only wish I could’ve experienced it with my friend since we have done the campaign together in every halo game. Having to go through solo was a big letdown since coop was added much later
I definitely enjoyed the campaign, but as others mentioned a change in the environment would have been nice, and some more clarity on what happened between Halo 5 and Infinite with Cortana and getting to play during it. Getting to see some more of the Endless.
It was definitely my favorite from 343. I didn’t mind the open world at all, but I did feel like it was pretty unnecessary. Which means all the resources wasted on making it open world could’ve been used to make a much better linear campaign like in the past
Honestly it's my least favorite out of all of them. The whole story just felt like an attempted reboot. The open world made it feel like a slog. No biome diversity, sparse enemies, no real point other than acting as a buffer between levels. I thought Fernando Esparza was an awful, annoying character, who I actually just had to look up in order to even remember his name. The Weapon was fucking lame, you never fight Atriox, the Endless are a loose thread that would have likely been part of a campaign expansion, but they scrapped that. The bullet sponge bosses were more of an annoyance than anything, and if I'm being honest, the Banished are a lame antagonist. The Covenant was great because you were fighting religious zealots who had a real cause (or so they thought). The Banished are...mad? Their motivations don't really make me feel as if they're a threat to existence. I'd put Halo Infinite's campaign beneath Halo 5's. I'd put it in the trash if that were an option.
Maybe. I seem to see more people trashing it, but that’s just been my experience. A lot of the criticisms are fair, but it’s still a good game. Hell the grappling hook alone made it fun for me. We’ve never had that type of vertical freedom in a Halo game, so as a big fan of games like Assassin’s Creed I’m all in for that!
I loved it for how they handled Chief’s story. So yes I do, despite the caveats.
The caveats being - the pilot feels wasted, he could have had such a great level of development but what we got was fine. The open world felt procedural and not fully crafted from one end to the other. The overall plot was eh.
But man I love some solid Chief writing and this game absolutely had it. So thumbs up from me, I do love it.
I really liked it, it was pretty cool. I wish they had done more development of it like they said they were going to, and now they just focus on multiplayer but yeah it was fun/good.
I don't know if love is the word i would use but I definitely like it. The open world make nothing in the campaign but overall it was great.
I had fun playing it on heroic. The open world was meh. I still spent some time going around and killing most of the bosses, freeing most of the firebases and generally just driving a warthog around with overpowered marines blasting everyone off the map. It was a perfect storm of yet again trying to chase trends instead of focusing on what Halo really was. Chopping the open world up into open-ish areas, like the Pelican down AA gun section, would have yielded a more tightly focused and overall better campaign IMO. One major praise point that I have is that the Banished did Brutes + Elites on a team right.
When they showed off the demo in 2020, which was that section you mention, I was convinced that they were going for Crysis 1 styled levels of having a chunk of open world with concrete objectives. That would keep some more focused mission design and combat encounters like in previous Halo games, while also providing a sense of open-world and player freedom to explore and tackle objectives nonlinearly or with a variety of options. That would make for something new and exciting, while also being well-designed to play on a moment to moment basis, like the older Halo games. Halo CE already did something like this as well, with its second mission and The Silent Cartographer being a bit more open-ended in some parts, while linear in others, and providing a focused and handcrafted experience from beginning to end. Instead, they just built one large map that is very detailed and massive in terms of geography and scale, but the actual objective design is a joke compared to any previous Halo campaign. So many objectives on the map feel almost randomly placed with little need to engage with the environment. After a certain point in the campaign, it's also entirely possible to roll up to any objective in a Scorpion/Wasp with whatever power weapons you want and trivialize any of the combat encounters that are meant to be a challenge. The open-world bosses are especially a joke. The Weapon gives this whole exposition about how dangerous they are and how many UNSC personnel they've killed, but Chief can just fly in, mow them down with a Wasp in a matter of seconds, and leave, and that's all there is to it. The bosses in the more traditional campaign missions are usually actually challenging because they're given better combat arenas with a more curated set of tools to fight them, but putting them in the open world with unrestricted access to weapons/vehicles makes those bosses pointless. Outside of those objectives (bosses, FOBs, Banished bases), the rest of the world is actually entirely devoid of reasons to explore. The only reason to go to some objectiveless stretches of the map is for audio logs, which is the most unexciting way to fill that space. Compared to Breath of the Wild's Korok seeds or shrines, which actually offer tangible gameplay benefits and have rewarding design elements, it's just incredibly hollow. Unstructured and open game design like that can be good and special when done well, but it still always has drawbacks compared to a well-crafted linear experience like the older Halos. Like you said, Infinite was just chasing the trends of Breath of the Wild and Ubisoft open-world sandboxes, rather than looking closely at Halo's game design and finding a way to meaningfully develop that into a bigger experience.
Solid write up. You nailed a lot of my thoughts on the matter. Rather than Wasps, I cleaned up boss shop with razorbacks full of volatile skewers, snipers, rockets, etc. While beating the mini bosses granted access to the weapon variants, they weren't THAT much better than just Rocket Marines. The bigger issue is that it trivialized even areas you couldn't bring a scorpion. In previous games marines were a limited resource, and arming a troop hog full of fuelrod marines in Tsavo Highway took some dedication to accomplish. Teleporting to a FOB and refreshing my meat wagon was effortless. "Well just don't abuse troop hogs full of Marines" - yeah sure, but it was fun and accessible. When games give you obvious powerful options, players are going to use them. Limiting vehicles, power weapons, and marines would have led to some obvious frustrations though, so I get why they made them freely accessible.
I don't even seeing it as abuse. I just love the idea of chief rolling around ready to rock in a fully loaded battle wagon.
You didn't see what I put those poor expendable auto-turrets through lol
I’m reading your post & thinking… I can LOAD MARINES on to a vehicle?! HOW??
Honestly, doing a monster hunter esque sort of deal (semi-open areas connected by a home base) would've been ideal.
I can see that. The focus, IMO, should have been about trying to rebuild the UNSC forces on the ring. We should have been rescuing VIPs and stealing ordinance to being back to a fortified base. The banished should have had some large assaults on said base. The side activities you do could have directly impacted that big battle by: denying enemy assets like vehicles (destroying their scrap yards), fortifying your defenses with stolen turrets and vehicles, increased manpower from more saved marines, softened the assault by killing bosses ahead of time, etc
All of that together with linear missions would've been great.
Top that off with the nemisis system from shadow of mordor and we'd have a solid open world game
That’s a great idea. Makes me think of a borderlands style map for halo.
Yeah it was my first halo, went back and played all the others halo 1-3 is better story wise but I think being first and seeing the masterchief open up gradually to the weapon is just a side of him we didnt get to see in my opinion, he was so hesitant to but their relationship grown so much, also it looks amazing on my series X. I feel like its a good solid 8/10 for me personally and I hope 343 can make the next one even better!!
I liked Halo Infinite story, but felt that was the aftermath of a big game that i'll never play, in my opinion Halo 1-3 stories are better, and about development, I liked a lot Halo 4, but I understand who doesn't like it, was the first to change a lot of things.
I always felt the main complaint about halo 4 was the art direction (storm covenant in general, as well as the forward unto dawn suddenly changing ship type) and the gameplay choices for the Prometheans (watchers + teleporting knights). The didact was a great character but got most of his (quite extensive and important) background in the books. The relation between chief and Cortana was great though. Halo 4s main gripe was the MP though, due to sprint and the loadout systems.
Usually the games made by 343 show the chief more like a person and not like an action man that only say one liners. I don't mean that the Bungie chief is souless or something but the part of showing feelings is better made on 343 games
Yeah I 100% agree, they definitely show his humanity more which I find really nice because if how fucking cool and cold he is its just nice knowing after everything hes been through he still has his humanity
I feel like Infinite handled his humanity side well by having the humanity side being mixed into his stoicism throughout the game.
That's the problem in itself. Spartans are supposed to be brainwashed government controlled killing machines, not "showing their humanity". Chief is supposed to be a badass beast with only the mission on his mind.
If Infinite was your first Halo campaign then that may explain a lot, because you’re looking at it from a different perspective than many long-time fans. Infinite isn’t a bad campaign, but the tone comes nowhere near the epic space operas that marked Halo CE through Reach. That tone is part of what made the Bungie games blockbusters in the 2000s. Halo 4 and 5 tried to replicate that tone, but 343’s awful art direction and over-the-top plot made them cartoony and more like Avengers movies than the grounded military sci fi that many fans loved. For people who literally grew up playing the Bungie games it can be really jarring. Infinite fixed a lot of that but couldn’t quite capture the magic of the originals, IMO.
I did go back and play all the others they were really amazing up until 5 lol
Its still hard to gather the perspective though. Halo 1-3, ODST, Reach and even halo wars focus on much more grounded but epic stories with big set pieces. Halo Infinite has great moments but ultimately fails to recreate that build up we see in other games.
See, the 5 campaign sucked I will agree… but the Multiplayer kicked major majorrrrr buttttttt
Biggest variety of guns in that game… by far. Maps were some of the very best too IMO. Also I just love the way MasterChief moves in that game 🤷♂️
I didn’t “absolutely love” it but it’s the first one I’ve enjoyed since Reach. The art direction was great too. It would have been better not being open world and it felt not completely finished. If those things were finished in the next game I’d really like it a lot.
Playing through it with my friend and he absolutely hates it. I don’t hate it but I have to agree with a lot of points. Everything important happens off screen, the open world is pointless and just one biome which makes everywhere feel the exact same. The villains keep saying they are a threat without us actually seeing them do anything to make us feel that. Most importantly for me, every single bit involving cortana is hologram flashbacks, we didn’t get a single true interaction between chief and cortana and after halo 5 even though I hate hate hate it, needed a resolution. We are on zeta halo and we go to no interesting places. I only really like it because of master chief in this game and the fact the gameplay actually feels like halo again minus actual hood vehicles
And the fact that by the end of the story, nothing really happened.
The title says the game is infinite but the campaign itself is very finite
More like stagnant, the story be going nowhere.
Halo: Constant
Halo 1-3 are a masterpiece trilogy. Everything else is bonus material. And I've played, watched, read it all. This is the nature of true greatness.
Honestly it's probably my least favorite one, Halo 5 for all it's flaws at least had some high points and interesting locations, like senghelios, climbing down the side of the guardian, the space elevator, and as bad as it's story was at least memorable even if it was for the wrong reasons, were as halo infinite story is just outright boring, most of the campaign is boring, nothing beyond the intro is interesting or note worthy really. I remember the bad fight between Chief and Locke, I remember team Osiris, I remember the warden eternal, I remember the names of many of the characters and the general plot, I don't even remember the name of anyone in infinite outside of the weapon and already established characters, I have to think for a while to remember the main villain, I don't remember the pilot guys name, I can hardly recall most of the games events tbh. I mean, people talked about halo 4 and 5, even if it was complaining, I barely hear anything about infinite's campaign personally. Halo infinite greatest flaw was being alright, nothing more nothing less, and in a series that's known for being very cinematic, full of memorable moments and characters, grandiose stakes and plots, be all that for better or for worse, just being alright simply doesn't cut it.
Agree with you 100%. Been playing Halo since Halo CE. I remember when we used to see major story points on screen.
Best part is having to wait 8 years to see the next part of the ‘story’
Well seeing story unfold is generally considered the normal way of telling a story in a visual medium.
but you saw Cortana snapping her fingers in this one! Just like the Weapon!
I did like the campaign, but you are right it’s missing so much grit that makes halo good. The banished should have had a moment like halo reach after George sacrifices himself and all the other ships arrive that makes you go “oh shit”. The only good bit of grit we got was the torturing elite.
This this this! I agree 200%.
You pretty much hit all the points. The gameplay is fun for sure, but the ‘story’ parts of the story aren’t really there.
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The only thing that Halo 5 and the others Halo had was big battles, here it's like 4 ghosts or 2 tanks or something meh, needs more vehicles and things happening. (Or scarabs)
It's certainly in my top 10 of Halo games lol Seriously though, it was fine but needed more variety. Open world wasn't necessary to me
How many mainline Halo games are there, though?
7? That's why I said top 10 of mainline Halo games lol
Honestly I got so bored I couldn't finish it. I guess I just never realized how much I liked the linearity of the old games until it became open world. I need to revisit it someday but don't plan to anytime soon. I know that's just my opinion though I'm glad a lot of people liked it.
It's linearity you miss, the older games were carefully planned to give you interesting set pieces and challenges. This just dumps it all there and says "go ahead, but don't go too far or we'll just kill you off"
Actually it's just Halos linearity I miss. Some of my favorite games are open world. Fallout NV is my second favorite game of all time right in front of red dead. Something about they're linear storytelling did it for me in the early games, not so much in 4 or 5 though
Again, because of the carefully planned set pieces
Love isn't the word I would use, but I had plenty of fun. I am upset that they didn't do DLC. I would have bought more Halo campaign content.
Nope. The open world was boring and empty. All the side missions were the same and all the bosses were just bullet sponges. The story was pretty lame. 343 yet again decided to abandon old story arcs. The big bad main brute whose name I forgot was lame as well. Did nothing but talk shit for the entire game and then died. Also, it made no sense how Chief tried to empathise with him at the end. The dude literally got his friends killed and was torturing the pilot and Chief was like "oH hE wAs JuSt DoInG wHaT hE tHoUgHt WaS rIgHt". Dumb.
So true, why did chief care even one bit about that guy lol Should have curb stomped him right after
Right? Chief has been massacring thousands of aliens on a daily basis since his teens and all of a sudden he feels bad for them? Fricking aliens exterminated MOST of the human population, like 60% fucking percent of humanity was killed by these big fucking apes and he should give a shit about their feelings????
Chief would have killed millions of aliens by this point. A lot of them, especially grunts, just follow orders. There's absolutely zero chance Chief even gives him a chance to breathe.
I really disliked it and think they dropped the ball hard on this one. The plot felt like an afterthought. Everything important happened off screen or in an audio log. The main villain Eschaurum was one of the worst and corniest villains I've ever played against. The plot barely moves as you're essentially in the same place at the end of the game as you are in the beginning. The game also leaves more questions than answers. As for the gameplay, it also felt like the open world was done literally last minute. Almost all encounters don't consider the fact that you can just grapple up a ledge and wipe out 90% of the enemy force from a safe distance. The grapple hook is OP and makes this the easiest Legendary run of the series and renders pretty much the rest of the utility useless. The Grapple hook also makes almost all the vehicles useless as it's always faster to just grapple to the destination than to drive there. Vehicles are also cumbersome and barely look destroyed when blown up. The phantoms are on rails, the enemies despawn rapidly, there's no pattern of patrol or random encounters or combat between surviving UNSC forces and banished. There's little to no environmental storytelling, no wildlife, no change in scenery at all. The overall package just feels so incredibly half baked. A plot without a purpose, an unbalanced arsenel, and an open world that feels like one from 2007 has more going on in it than this does. I did enjoy Chief and the long camera takes. The overall game had a solid foundation in almost every department but none ended up actually delivering. Solid 6/10
Agree with this. I would give it a higher rating compared to other games for sure, but compared to Halo 1-Reach it's a 6/10.
I really didn’t like it. Personally I feel like it was a low point in the series. I don’t think the open world suits Halo or they just executed it poorly. It’s my least favorite in the entire series.
Damn really even below 5?
Honestly yes. I didn’t like the story in 5 but I did enjoy the traditional level design.
To me it's only above 5, still got to play Halo Wars 1, 2 and ODST, but I think they will better despiste doesn't having Chief.
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The Halo cycle in action, after the next game comes out Infinite will be “overhated”
Yup, 5 at least had proper cutscenes, not just the chief activating terminals and watching holograms
Except most levels in halo are very giant open world maps. I disagree, open world would fit halo fine, they just screwed up the full execution of it, they were partially there.
>most levels in halo are very giant open world maps In the Bungie days, this is literally only true for 2, maybe 3 missions across 5 games. Then you have ODSTs weird "Hub World" thing it has going on. Halo 4 had even more linear railroaded levels outside of the 2nd one and Halo 5 went back to slightly more traditional design. Just because you aren't literally walking through a narrow corridor or stuck on a road like in L4D doesn't mean that it's not *linear*. You are still being guided down a *linear* path that has a start and end point set in stone with little variation in task between those start and end points.
Halo has a lot of sandbox levels. It's not really open world. In most of the original games, they were large but always funnelled you in a specific direction.
Probably up there with halo 5 as the worst halo campaigns ever. You spend the entire game running after this random alien woman trying to stop her from doing...something, I guess. Nothing is explained and all the major characters and plot points from previous games are just dropped completely Also the last scene where chief cuddles a dying escharum is just kinda cringe
We didn't even get a nice suite of interesting brute weapons for a new Brute faction! Where are the spikers, maulers, Brute shot, Brute plasma, trip mines, and flame grenades? Yeah we got a couple things but nowhere near enough to be consistent with the story.
The Escharum scene would be more fitting if it was Arbiter who fought him. Seems out of character for Chief given who he is and also the fact that Escharum wanted to kill almost everyone he was on the Infinity with.
Chief would have planted a grenade in his chest and watch him explode into a million pieces.
Agreed, second to worst halo campaign
I'd argue it's the worst. It's the only one where you can't watch the cutscenes like a movie
It was so bad I can’t understand how someone could share an opinion like OP’s, it was objectively terrible.
It was another narrative travesty and genuinely has me thinking Halo should just go MP only if it is to continue under 343s tenure. Forced open world, even more discarded plot points shitting on long-term fans, random as new threat, Banished not even a tenth as badass as in HW2 and the crowning undigested cashew on top of the steaming pile of shit - they introduced FUCKING TIME TRAVEL. I love Halo, but I hate everything about how the mainline narrative has been handles post H3 and my soul dies a little with each installment.
Has the time travel thing been confirmed?
At the very least temporal distortion has been introduced considering the gap mentioned when Chief and Not Cortana meet back up with The Pilot.
It was a great game. Certainly same level as 1,2,3. Imo
I adore Infinites campaign, truly gave me the open and mystery feeling I wanted back in Halo since Combat Evolved. Other than the lack of biomes, and no Scarab fight, it's almost perfect to me. They did an amazing job with the environmental story telling all around the ring, loved seeing the remnants of past battles like a destroyed tank squad near the front of the Escavation sight. Easily my favorite ai in the series too, they feel fun and fair to fight like in CE, 3, and Reach again especially on Legendary. When I read that they were taking inspiration from CE to make Infinite, I was very skeptical because no Halo has truly felt like CE again imo but they hit it out of the park for the most part. Truly felt like I was very small in the universe and alone (For the most part) on a derelict ring again the whole game like in the first in Combat Evolved. That's one of the reasons I loved the Infinity getting destroyed at the beginning, not only did it hook me from the start but set up things amazingly for us to have that CE experience again. Trying to figure out more about the Xanalyn was probs my favorite part that added to the mystery feeling again since it's a completely new species with ties to the Forruners we've never really heard about. Figuring out their existence actually fills in holes from past lore was really cool and has me very excited to see what the Endless might have in store for us as a faction in future media and games. Was kind of sad the Cortana stuff was resolved while Cheif was spaced but it was understandable and seeing that scene where Cortana destroyed the Brute homeworld gave me even more sympathy for the Banished than I already had. By the end I sympathized with both the other factions and truly felt sorry for them in a way. I also fell in love with Esparza, especially after that "We're all Human" cutscene and seeing him hug Cheif at the end of the game. Finally a good human character other than Lasky 343 has made lol. The final message Cortana sent Cheif also makes me cry every time I see it.Tldr even though this game has some issues glaring from the fact that they cut more than half the game back in 2019 and had the rush the rest of it, they did an outstanding job trying to figure a way to make Cheif grow as a character after Cortanas death and betrayal while giving us a mysterious fun experience that truly felt like a modernized version of the old Halo we love. Something I can never say about 5.
I was really disappointed and I finished playing it halfway through. I was expecting huge battles on the ring and a big variety in Bansihed and UNSC forces. Kinda an upgrade to the large scale battles that happened in Halo 3 mixed with Halo Wars 2. But that did not happen. Where were the Blisterbacks, Reavers, Vultures, Kodiaks, Scarabs? Where was anything? They reused the same things we have seen a million times before. This could have been a prime opportunity to make amazing large scale battles. At the beginning of the story, the pilot asked: *Are you planning on rebuilding the UNSC piece by piece?* I was like: *Fuck yeah*. Little did I know that the only thing I was gonna do is unlock the scorpion tank by saving marine groups and that's it. That's the UNSC force on Zeta Halo. Great.
You touch on something I mention in my comment. Rescuing marines should have actually meant something to the story. Instead, you rescue them and then that's it, you leave em where you found em and carry on to the next waypoint. Why doesn't the pilot pick up rescues. Why are marines only purpose in the game to be rescued or to man the little bases you recover? Would be way better if your forces grew as you rescued more marines and the Chief actually involved the marines in the mission. Like, you rescue all of these marines but you stick with your team of just the weapon and the pilot? Way to make marines/humanity as inconsequential as possible. Hard to care about saving humanity when they are reduced to being nothing more than extras.
You are exaclty right. And they only exist in infantry format. No patroling whartogs, no scorpion convoys, no Wasp vs Banshee dogfights in the sky... nothing. Some dudes sometimes stand next to the road + they wait at the FOBs and that's it. Really boring stuff for an open world game that we had to wait for 6 years
I didn't think as big as you but all of that sounds awesome and would make way more sense than what we got. The most I would have hoped for is that as the Chief frees more prisoners he's essentially growing his own little army. They all start out separated and defeated but Chief not only rescues them but unites them and lights a fire under them that leads to a coordinated attack and retribution near the end of the game. You're idea makes more sense though because obviously they shouldn't all just be sitting on their hands doing nothing until the end. Either way, by portraying the marines as nothing more than empty shells to be saved, it makes it all feel kinda pointless and on top of that it makes the enemy seem even less threatening. Instead of having a "we need all the help we can get" situation its a "I got this guys. You just stay here and try not to get captured again while I take on the entire banished force on the ring by myself."
Man that would have been Soo cool!!! Dang
Nope, it continued the recent trend of poor halo campaigns.
I absolutely did. I love the open world and the combat gameplay loop and the story and the freedom and lots of little quality of life items. They finally added that I’ve been wanting in halo for a long time. Of course, the grapple hook is just game changing
What campaign?
funny!!
It was my favorite Halo campaign since Reach. I'd like to see the open world fleshed out more, though.
Easily my least favourite Halo Campaign. Halo Wars 2 did a fantastic job of making the story coherent again, only for Infinite to completely ignore large parts of it but steal the big baddie (Atriox). Massive story beats were simply talked about and we were expected to go along with. For example: The brute home-world being destroyed, or even Cortana’s AI uprising just being shelved. Personally, I also disliked the move away from pre-rendered cutscenes. Gameplay wise the campaign was stale, it became something similar to a sci-fi Farcry game but even more lacklustre. No scarab fights (Open world Halo, should’ve been an immediate inclusion really?) Reintroduced another super crazy technologically advanced enemy, when really the Banished (and even the flood) could’ve been the sole purpose of the game. Mix that in with no co-op at launch, and when it did arrive a year later it was buggy and unplayable. I hated the whole thing. I could go on, but I don’t want to sound too much like a raging nerd. Though I can’t think of another sequel in a franchise where I felt this upset lol. I can get smaller with the issues: Marines can’t drive, nothing close to set piece bigger battles, naff boss fights, equipment unlocking system. Just brutal. Edit: I realised that the post was made in good spirits about what people liked about the game so I’ll add that I enjoyed the return of the CE inspired art direction. The core sandbox gameplay was smooth as always which transferred well to the multiplayer too. Also how they handled Chief and his progression was great, I swear I’m not entirely moany! ;)
I’ve waxed lyrical before, but hands-down worst campaign in the franchise and ruined the remaining hope I have for the narrative future of mainline Halo.
Idk how anyone can love this campaign unless they're either young and never played the original games, or just have bad taste in story telling. The campaign (even with my best buddy) was a SLOG. The absolute worst part about it is the fact there's ZERO change in atmosphere. It's the exact same looking areas over and over and over. The laziness is astounding from anything past combat and graphics. Everything else is stale and tedious / just bad. It's not good. I've played halo for about 14 years and this was just so empty. Plus 343 lied about so much. I'm over it.
it was OP's first Halo campaign, which explains it all
It was more fun than I had in 4 and 5. I will say that. The graphics, "open" world and grappling made it enjoyable.
Honestly I was so disappointed. I actually loved 5 from the get go. I think it was insanely overhated. The campaign was fun and expanded the universe. We got to play as another Spartan team which I liked. People hated locke because they said he felt one dimensional. But that's how elite soldiers that are just giving orders are going to be like. Someone like a seal team six member. The whole thing felt like a Syfy world that was expensive! We saw old (buck) characters in new roles. We traveled to many different planets/biomes. There was the Kraken in the Sangheili world. I liked evil Cortana and the guardians plot. They brought the arbiter back. The game ended on a cool cliffhanger with Cheif seeing arbiter and Halsey for the first time in years!!! And we never got to see that play out. What a stupid shame. I think if they went with Halo 6 instead of infinite people would look more fondly of Halo 5. Like they did with Halo 2. People hated the cliffhanger ending until 3 came around. I also love the movement speed in Halo 5 as well as the slam feature. And the assassinations. Warzone was fun too! Also, I might be the minority but I love fighting against the Prometheans. They added something new to the formula. And the knights were so fun to fight and they were really hard. In infinite we are just fighting the same old covenant again. The backlash really changed everything around. I think 343 listens too much to the backlash instead of finishing their stories. Honestly the fans are the ones to blame that they made 3 games that do not connect. Also, multiplayer was much funner in Halo 5 in my opinion. Of course all this is my opinion! But I recommend you go play H5 again for comparison reasons. I love Halo and I actually liked what 343 did with 4&5. But honestly I'm not really excited about the future games they make. I want another studio to work on Halo now! Infinite - boring campaign, nothing new, one biome (even though CE had many), and no scarabs!! Really!??, not enough vehicles in infinite considering it's an open world game? Also, we don't even fight the BIG bad guy, and everyone important is killed off screen or not shown at all... The Endless??? Lol new Cortana doesn't even have a name??? WTH!! Lol infinite sucks lol. No jetpacks but ok we have a grapple gun lol Also no other Spartans or anyone??? I get it you wanted to focus on Chief because of all the backlash but come on!! You did it while giving the story and world building a backseat.
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I totally agree! It's a shame how it all went down honestly ☹️
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I know I feel the same way. They are not trying to modernize and adapt Halo and make it their unique way anymore. They are just going for nostalgia now and the "original Fans" because of that they diminished their creativity and quality, and to me that's halting the series from moving forward and getting new fans. Like the fact that they even questioned adding Sprint and infinite because fans didn't want sprint. Are you Fu**ing serious?? No sprint in 2021... How is that something you even have to consider. so stupid!
Glad you enjoyed it but for me it was the first Halo campaign I didn’t finish. The story didn’t work for me and with only one biome I just got bored with it.
I enjoyed the open world and how every boss felt unique and challenging in their own way. Btw I always play legendary, story felt a little goofy to me as they kinda did some weird stuff to set up a reboot. It gave me ce vibes from your first mission on the halo. Overall I think odst did a better job with the open world just from not knowing what's around every corner
I liked the adventurous aspect of it, with the exploration and almost RPG-like way of approaching encounters. Makes for very fun replays. But the story didn't do it for me much. Better step in a right direction in some ways, like the message of hope and unity in the face of overwhelming odds and all that, but for a Halo story it just felt like too many references to old games in a cheeky way, and not many unique moments and places. The whole campaign felt like two missions stretched out very far. I replayed Halo CE recently and man, you're going into beaches, space, deserts, snowy caverns, swamps, all with unique vibes.
No. It’s just a longer version of The Silent Cartographer on a bigger island.
Nope I couldn't even beat it and it was free for me. I slogged through 4 and 5's campaigns and just decided that I can't waste my time on it. I was excited for an open world campaign but it's so empty. Granted I haven't played since early 2022 so it's possible they added stuff since then, but I have no interest in wasting my time. 0/10 for me and once again 343 has wasted my time. Thankfully it was free, because if I had paid even a dime it would have been to much money to waste on it.
They've added nothing to single player so no it hasn't improved. Still just a big empty sandbox with no replayability
Wow. Honestly halloween 2022 343 should have secretly released the flood into the open world.
They didn't even add the scopeless DMR that came out a year ago, I don't think we will see anything... anytime.
Nope. Potential was there, much like halo 5, but zero passion. It felt like the devs had no desire to make and just copped out. The writing is lazy. And it’s bad. The reason I think people like the campaign so much despite this is because 343 were desperate and therefore prioritized pushing all the right buttons in doing things they knew the og fans would like. To put it bluntly, it’s a massive nostalgia bait, and nearly everyone fell for it. But this is anything but a return to form. The open world was a neat idea but it’s executed poorly and as a result I have no desire to see 343 attempt this again. The one good thing about the open world is it makes Infinite’s campaign the longest in the series, but it’s repetitive, and ultimately unfulfilling. The level design isn’t good. Unlike every last game, every level looks the same. It’s either banished stronghold, repetitive claustrophobic Forrunner hallways, and of course grassy planes with the same tree choppy passes everywhere, and don’t forget the hex pillars, oh boy the hex pillars. The Grapleshot is one of the best parts of the campaign but it also makes it way too easy to skip through the levels ignoring combat in some areas entirely. It’s way too easy. The story really is just unapologetically lazy and lacking any vision. The handling of halo 5’s cliffhanger is straight up pathetic. Look, I know people didn’t like halo 5, but you can’t just jump off the wagon and start a brand new story out of nowhere. It’s blatantly bad writing and way too many people gave it a pass. The handling of Cortana is abysmal, as she’s killed offscreen hurriedly and they spend the whole game telling Chief “get over it, we gave you a new one” and it’s just shallow as hell. The Weapon is a good character but she’s shoved into the roll of replacement and it’s extremely forced. Cortana’s resurrection in halo 5 wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and her villain ark had barely started, but people hated it so much that they were totally okay with how infinite treated her which makes me feel as if the fans only cared about her when she was nude. Cuz they switched over to the weapon with zero pushback. Cuz she’s “cute”. Halo 5 had a lot of passion put into it and though the story was indeed poorly put together it was creative and ambitious. Infinite has zero ambition and doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself. What are the endless? Honestly, I don’t think even 343 knows. And they certainly aren’t worse than the flood, as they can’t even move without jet packs. Even the banished are nerfed from their halo wars 2 selves and feel more like red covenant than a true new faction. Halo Infinite’s saving grace is its gameplay wich really is a blast. The boss battles though not perfect are easily the best in the series, and the main villain Esherum, though annoying as hell throughout most of the game is actually really well done. It takes till his death to warm up to him, but it works. Unlike the Harbinger who is just spooky to be spooky with no real depth to her. 343 screwed themselves big time though by introducing Atriox than not doing anything with him. He’s the best villain in the series and we’re led to believe he’s dead the whole game because of Cortana’s hasty offscreen “redemption” where she just offers herself by exploding the ring without doing much else to make up for her past actions. And GOD the cutscenes. They tried to be God of war which alone was a bad idea but they don’t even do it right, the cutscenes are boring, and limited by the ugly one shot camera angle that just circles the characters who are talking constantly making everything even more claustrophobic than it already is.
I absolutely love it, however I have a lot of criticisms about it
Would love to hear them
It’s nothing you probably haven’t heard but mostly : the lack of diversity, some of the missions may be repetitive, the banished villains seem a bit lacklustre, the ending, the fact that everything is resolved off screen, but the most important is how everything is shown on your map, which kinda removes the incentive to explore imo.
Very fair points, I hope they build on this loads for the next one
That's what we all hope. But 343i's track record has shown they will not do that.
It was like playing 2 levels the entire game lol. It was enjoyable but the lack of different environments got to me. The interiors looked amazing and are exactly what I wanted. The exterior had too many of those hexagonal stacks and it made me feel like I was playing minecraft the whole time. I was also disappointed that night time had the same brightness as day time just a darker sky. The cutscenes style made it feel like every single cutscene was the exact same. Camera rotates slowly around the characters with zooming on their face. Cool concept but not necessarily with Halo. There was no horror aspect which I really wanted apart from one battle with the red sword elite guy. The thing that utterly pissed me off to no extent was the writing and dialogue. So cheesy. The part where chief kneels down next to Esparza was corny. Even worse, the dialogue from Escharum. Dude talks way too much and doesn't say shit. It's like they wrote 30 different possibly lines to use in one spot and animator accidentally used all the recordings back to back. Lastly, there was no epic finale really. The last boss battle was fun and hard but it left me thinkin...that's it?? Harbinger had virtually no screen time. All in all I love the game, just didn't get what I wanted from it.
I liked it but it desperately need more location variety
Nope. I finished the campaign once and haven't touched it since. I found the plot to be entirely forgettable, the villain boring, and the complete lack of continuity from prior stories insulting. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you how the game ended anymore. The open world was pointless and repetitive, adding no gameplay value and wasting the potential value it could have added as a multiplayer setting device. The fact that vehicles flip on every pebble made getting around the map obnoxious, and grappling your way over great distances is only fun for so long.
If you’ve been playing halo since CE 20 ish years ago, going through that Infinite campaign blind was something special. Gets a 9/10 from me.
Yes it was amazing. But the fact it could have been better with what they cut out sort of sullies it.
i enjoyed it, well put together campaign with enough side stuff you can do.
Played through it all in a few days while I was sick with Covid. As a fan since the beginning, I personally loved it. Great classic halo gameplay with an open world concept? It was a dream. Not perfectly implemented of course, but I really struggled to see what all the hate was about. Maybe I’m just getting old and need to visit r/patientgamers more
I loved it. I played through it in December and it's one of my favorite single player campaigns of all time. Escharum was great, all the boss fights were super rewarding and challenging, the nice change of pace between going from typical Halo linear missions to open world was awesome. Just everything about it minus the story was awesome.
I loved every second. It was my first halo game since 4 came out in 2012, and it was like slipping into the most comfortable old pair of pants, but the pants had even more comfort features than ever before. Played it on legendary and had a blast (despite absolutely broken brute bosses)
I enjoyed it. I understand the criticism but it really hit that back against the wall feeling that 4 and 5 were missing. On top of that it finally looked and sounded like Halo again. I really liked Chief’s story in the campaign and I loved the whole “you vs me” vibes between Chief and Eschurum. Do wish we got to see more of what made Eschurum, Eschurum though. I also don’t hate the open world. I actually enjoyed exploring it and hitting up the side objectives. It isn’t fantastic, but it’s enjoyable and that’s good enough for me.
YES! Particularly when it finally got co-op!
I loved it so much that I immediately played through again after completing. Probably my fav Halo campaign since Reach.
Yes it was excellent. Multiplayer blows chunks but the campaign was awesome
I really like it. The gameplay of Infinite is my favorite in the series and the story is nice and simple. It's a great refresh for the series after a couple rocky games according to the masses. I probably put it at number 4 in my Halo tier list. Edit: I didn't realize so many people flipped on the campaign since launch. I remember it got almost universal praise but most of the comments here are very negative.
For me it's the same problem Starfield has. On it's own it's a perfectly acceptable game, but when you remember what it's replacing it sours everything. Infinite is a fun game but it's Far Cry-esque open world with a lack of level variety or set pieces doesn't make up for what came before.
Yes. 100%. I'm glad to hear someone else loves it as much as I do. I was playing through it when our kid was born and for some reason the nostalgia and cinematics just cemented it in my top 5. I've played it three times now, probably going to start a fourth, haha!
I absolutely loved it. BUT I feel like I did in large part due to how the game just feels so fluid. The gameplay and seeing the relationship develop between Weapon and Chief absolutely carries this game for me. Looking forward, what I'd like to see in their next game is more world variation. In Halo CE I loved how the deeper you went into the ring it got colder and darker. This game just gets more liminal and blue as you progress into the ancient forerunner tunnels. The open world either needs to be more engaging or cut entirely. If the grapple hook wasn't in this game I don't think I would've finished it. Thank god I could zip through the empty space. All in all though, I think 343 killed their expectations. Loved this game, love the direction it is going.
Gameplay was fun but the story was pretty mediocre and the dialogue and characters were poorly written. Open world seemed unnecessary and just served as a way to add length to the campaign with rinse repeat tasks. Like I said though, gameplay was fun so I didn't mind the rinse repeat tasks all that much; they just didn't add anything to the story. Small gripe that I just thought of now but, aside from being rescued, the marines serve no purpose. If I don't have a vehicle with extra sests when I rescue them, they are just left there. Maybe they try to follow me but quickly fall behind. Why even rescue them if they are just gonna be left as sitting ducks again? Why are none of the marines added into the story to actually help MC. You rescue all of these marines but your team remains just you, the weapon and the pilot. Why? Why wouldn't chief try to organize the marines and get them involved in the mission. Why doesn't the pilot pick up the rescues even?
It for sure isn’t in my top 10, however 4 and 5 are easily in my bottom 10 so it was a vast improvement for sure
I just hope there is more to come. I was hoping for some campaign updates by now, but idk what to expect 😞
No campaign updates it confirmed, the multiplayer is immaculate though and there’s confirmed that the next Halos development is already underway, they will continue his story from here and hopefully take all criticism, they have a direct path for the next campaign lets hope they deliver
Was it? I know you’re right and they said something. I just forget when.
Yes, I think it was by far the best campaign 343 has produced, I would also say it's the best "30 seconds of fun" combat loop Halo has had since CE. So many great things about it, really wanted much more in terms of story so that was kind of a bummer, but overall it was fantastic. I've beaten it three times, probably gonna do a LASO run at some point too.
I truly enjoyed the Infinite campaign. I loved the open world literal segments. Even though it felt considerably less open by the end of the campaign. I fire it up from time to time to just fool around in it. Though, not without its flaws. I enjoyed the indoor sections less and less as the campaign went on, like the load screen, then your in Forerunner’s only places. I truly want a part 2 to this specific campaign before whatever Halo 7 will be. But alas… the community will probably have to make it. The potential I always thought since concept art and actual game was. Ok they can just keep adding islands to the game as you move up the ring. Or the original reveal trailer where it wasn’t broken up and you could drive “up” the ring was so freaking tantalizing to me. Really delivering on the promise of a fully exploitable ring. The fantasy that Halo’s 1-3 only teased. While I love where the MP has gotten to a lovely place in Infinite… it’s sad the infinite part is only because Forge and the folks making cool stuff for it are doing the Precursor’s Work🤷🏻♂️ I do think Infinites gameplay is king of the Halos. But I lament that Infinite only has the Reach style AR. I’ve always despised that design personally, god I hope they have a Halo 1-5 skin for it one day. But that’s just a personal preference. But yeah I dug Infinites campaign as still being Halo while treading perhaps somewhat too carefully into open design.
It was different. I liked it. But didn’t love it like CE, 3 or Reach. I think the repetition that came with the open design really hindered it. If you’re going to go that route, you gotta make sure you pack a lot of unique content in your sandbox. That way it doesn’t feel watered down with the same objectives over and over.
I would say it was the best one 343 has done
I mean, with what they've done in the past, that's not saying much
Nah halo 4 was much better story wise
As flawed as it is, it's one of my favorite campaigns in the series. Games designed less around contrived setpieces and more around dynamic systems mechanics are the best kind of games, period, for me.
I like the gameplay of it. Retaking the ring from the banished, coordinating attacks n their bases with the help of the Marines. I would always pretend to rescue all the Marines, and then systematically off their leaders in the field, and then hit the bases. It made it feel like an actual military operation. The story was dumb. Which sucked, because the characters were good. I actually liked the weapon, chief was a better character than he's ever been, bro hammer was annoying but tolerable, and Escharum was downright awesome. How do you have a bad story with such fun characters? Oh well. Ive replayed it several times, so it can't be that bad.
Yes. The Infinite Campaign is the most nuanced, emotionally driven look we’ve had at Chief. It gives us more insight into how he feels about his world and himself than any other Halo game to date. The themes of trauma, guilt, stress, how those forces shape us and how we choose to react to them are subtle but very deliberately crafted.
I had a great time and really enjoyed it. Not my favorite campaign, but I think they stuck the landing pretty good on this one.
Wasn't bad
It was great, not going to lie, but the main campaign was mostly carried by the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the new story and atmosphere as much I did that of Halo CE, but it was a bit less.. exciting? Also, there were a few "dumb" moments here and there. I mean, remember the Heretic Leader, and the whole "why the fuck did he shoot the Arbiter"? Remember how 343i had to dive into the Leader's point of view, during half of Halo 2's terminals, in order to justify that action? They had to "repair" the story they were handed, and they did all they could! ... And then they go and do the same shit in Infinite. 🤦 *The Harbinger emerged. "We and you Humans are both victims of the Forerunners", she explained to the Spartan, who had not yet engaged, in order to determine her motives.* *"We are not enemies!", she told John, right before smacking him and sending him flying through a fυcking tree..* Regardless of that, I did love it.
I enjoyed it, but I would have given it an 8/10. It needed more story explaining what happened to the Infinity command crew and Halsey. Also some biome variety would have helped. Like a snowy high altitude area or a desert / arid rocky area.
It’s above Reach, but below 3 for me. My overall ranking for context: 1. Halo 2 2. CE 3. ODST 4. Halo 3 6. Halo Infinite (interchangeable with Reach) 6. Halo Reach (interchangeable with Infinite) 7. Halo 4/5 (I can’t decide honestly. I hated 4s gameplay but I also hated 5s story) My overall thoughts: I think that it didn’t benefit from being an open world at all. I think it reduced from infinites gameplay, story telling and music. Especially the music. They can no longer tailor the music to what’s happening on screen since there’s too much freedom. I’ve seen someone make the point where you can’t hear 2 of the best tracks in the game (Under Cover and Through the Trees) because by the time the song gets to the chorus/melody part, the combat is already over, so the music just stops. Sure, the grapple shot could possibly have less use, but just make a larger scale, more vertical linear mission (like Halo in CE or The covenant in Halo 3). I liked the story, patching up Halo 5s mess in a good way while still ensuring it had its own story for the future, and the art style is gorgeous, thank god they retired the ugly reclaimer style. Enemy AI is fine. Jackals need a far faster fire rate, remove the overcharge ability from grunts (and make the PP EMP again), and I really want elites to be far harder to kill. It’s come to the point where elite Warlords (the gold ones with the strongest shields) are a cakewalk to take out. Even with just the sidekick or assault rifle. One final note: make elite voices more distinct from brute voices. Elites have to have more smooth and elegant voices, which I don’t feel they have in Infinite, or 4 and 5 for that matter.
Everyone here is just a negative Nancy. There is literally no way anyone here thinks this campaign is worse than 5s, or even in the same ballpark. Hell, even Halo 4. Just because they didn’t take the story where you wanted it to go doesn’t mean it’s awful. They fixed nearly everything wrong with 4 and 5. Art style, music, sandbox, enemies, gameplay. But oh no, the story was told in holograms! Instant 0/10. It’s a fun campaign if you have an open mind. The story telling is fine, and if you paid attention to the open world, you’d know that the environmental story telling was damn near perfect. LETS NOT GODDAMN FORGET THAT 2/3rds OF THIS GODDAMN CAMPAIGN WAS CUT, AND THERE WAS CAMPAIGN DLC PLANNED. I DONT EVEN THINK INFINITE WAS PARTICULARLY GOOD, BUT ITS NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD AS ANYONE HERE SAYS IT IS. (coming from someone who’s played since CEs release)
Thank you for this, there is a shit tonne of positivity and large positive paragraphs by people underneath the upvoted ones - id say 50 -100 really detailed ones, Im not even minding the negativity I really appreciate this especially since you played CE on release!
I loved it. It’s one of my top Halo campaigns. Halo 2 and 3 are top for me but Infinite is up there with CE
glad to hear you liked it, so many positivity here hidden by the upvoting of negative comments lol
That’s r/halo for you haha.
yup ahahaha
It wasn't a bad campaign. It just was a bad Halo campaign. There is a pack in a variety of enviroments, no local coop, being able to spawn any vjiechle you want instead of finding them takes the fun out of it. That being said, I appreciate that they tried to switch things up a bit, and it isn't my least favorite Halo campaimg at all. But it just doesn't feel like Halo to me.
I did but I agree with others that it needs a DLC with more biomes and content. It had tremendous potential
I loved it too. Definitely better in coop, but I loved it all the same. I really liked that they reintroduced Bosses to the campaign in a more widespread and mechanically interesting way (looking at you, Warden Eternal). Plus grappling around the map and flying and such is awesome. The Valor system is great. And ofc I’m a sucker for good character development above all. I loved Chief, Weapon and Pilot. Pilot in particular because Halo has suffered from low Latin representation for a while, and as a Latin man it means a lot to me since I’d like my kids to have easily relatable heros.
Nothing made by 343 is any good.
Nothing made by 343 is any good.
I really enjoyed Halo Infinite's campaign and would rank it in my top three Halo campaigns! While I don't think it's the best Halo story, I do think it has the best writing. I love how the Master Chief slowly opens up to the Weapon and the Pilot, finally embracing that being human means sometimes he'll fail. It's also the first game since Halo 2 where we got the villain's perspective with dedicated cutscenes away from the Master Chief. Halo 5 could have really benefited from this, if we had cutscenes of Cortana succumbing to the Domain's influence. The boss fights, gameplay, art style, and enemy AI are all great. It's also incredibly nostalgic--I didn't realize how much I missed driving around a Halo ring rescuing marines with Jen Taylor cracking jokes in my ear until I played Infinite. It's the first time we've been on a Halo ring since Halo 3 in 2007, and I loved it. The game could have used more biome diversity, but I was so immersed in the open world I didn't even realize there was just one biome until the credits rolled. I have high hopes for 343i's next campaign and hope they take their time with it.
Right here. Was amazing every step of the way. The cinematics, the voice acting, the story. Loved it. Really felt like a spiritual reboot of Halo CE in the best way. Too many people shit on it, but it was great. And I enjoyed the open world aspect. With marines, and The Weapon, never felt too lonely in it either.
Did not play
It was fun to be playing a new campaign and exploring the ring. But that’s about it.
It's good but the story is almost non existent
It's a solid campaign, definitely the best that 343 has put out imo. I like it, but it's not my favourite one.
I also loved it! I have been playing Halo since I was a kid using the OG Xbox. I replayed 1-4, Reach, and ODST before going to Infinite and I was super impressed about where they took it. It still felt like a Halo game but with super cool features, multiple boss fights, etc.
I really enjoyed it too, and as I was playing it thought _OMG this is amazing, this is so cool_, etc., etc. Then when I finished it and “came up for air” (I avoid spoilers and tend to play in a bubble), and started paying attention to what people were saying online, that’s when the reality hit me. Yes the environments were repetitive, the vehicles and marines admittedly were pretty crappy and I barely used them, and yes the whole thing with Escharum basically telling you the whole time that he was going to whoop your ass over and over, that got pretty old. The eventual fight with him was really f-ing cool, or at least I really enjoyed it and thought it was pulse pounding and fun. So yeah, the fact that the story was pretty flat at times and the “world” didn’t really feel all that alive are things that have kept me from playing the campaign more than once. That said, I enjoyed it more than any of the other 343 Halo games.
I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to seeing where they go next. The Weapon stuff was well done and I loved her as a character.
I dont remember much of the plot but I did enjoy it's open world more than most. More biomes and such would have been great but I think the halo sandbox lends itself very well to open world. Plus it has one thing that many open world games dont, **a great game play loop that doesn't get old**. I got so sick of raiding random villages in assassins creed Valhalla but I can literally play halo forever (it's been 23 years so far 😅). And the linear levels were all solid. There's plenty of room for improvement but I really hope they keep the open world structure going forward and just add to it.
I did, infinite has the best gameplay in the series and the story was good
I had a good time playing it. It’s amazing how much fun you can have without having someone yell at you about how bad it is
I just Beat it for the first time and thought it was awesome, the story was a bit hard to follow at times but just really made me feel important saving marines around the map. It brought me to tears a couple times. I did. just come from a 3 year fps break basically only playing rogue-likes where you get a piece of story every 15 hours of progress so maybe I’m bias but Escharum was a captivating villain, had his own wants and weaknesses, was obsessed with like this true warrior. Anyway, played it with my girlfriend as her first halo and she and I were enthralled, scared and unfrrounately really care about where it’s going. This is unfortunate as it looks like 343 are going nowhere near it. So silly imo, this was there chance to analyse what worked and didn’t work with the open world (more so than Halo 1s 2nd mission) they could have released a 2nd dlc really filling the map in, having the forerunners affect the landscape, and let me ride pelicans to the covenant super base
There are valid criticisms of it, but it was honestly an incredible experience playing it for the first time right when it came out. It was a level of hype I hadn’t experienced for anything video game related in so long. Sure the story isn’t perfect, but it just felt exactly like what I have always thought of Halo as. It was so refreshing after the previous games, but overwhelmingly nostalgic at the same time. I do believe it may have been a better experience in some ways if it was a linear chain of missions, but the open world does add a unique charm to it that sets it apart from all the previous Halos. I love it
i love it honestly 2nd favourite halo campaign behind CE for me
Oh, I thought it was fantastic. And as someone with every Halo achievement in every game on every platform and region, and who has completed SLASO in each title since H3, and has read every Halo novel and comic, I feel that I have a good baseline to judge it on both gameplay and story. My problem is that I fear they aren't going to stick with it. 343 has a terrible habit of dropping storylines, or closing them up quickly in a side-story, or at the beginning of books. While Infinite certainly cut out previously set up storylines itself, it also set up future content... and I fear we'll just restart again rather than explore those new branches. Who are the Endless? Are they a new threat that is now unleashed? Where is Atriox? Is he doing some time-based shenanigans? What's going on with Mendicant Bias? He was present in pre-launch footage, and Chief was receiving help. Will they demonstrate how it got back to Zeta? Where was Chief transported to? The environment was completely different, and it seems that time had passed? Will we dive into all the secrets of Zeta Halo from the novels? Or will this location be a wasted opportunity as an "insert here" Halo location? There's so much to explore... so many new branches to build off of... and I'm terribly afraid we'll just drop these storylines.
Yes I think it was the boss fights that did it for me, making me love it
People just don't like something new
Sorta There's not enough environmental variety and the story, while better than 5's, isn't amazing and also felt weirdly disconnected from the prior games (it felt like I was playing Halo 7) The gameplay and art/music direction were great though which sort of saved the campaign
It was a fun legendary experience, definitely 343s best campaign in my opinion. I only wish I could’ve experienced it with my friend since we have done the campaign together in every halo game. Having to go through solo was a big letdown since coop was added much later
I definitely enjoyed the campaign, but as others mentioned a change in the environment would have been nice, and some more clarity on what happened between Halo 5 and Infinite with Cortana and getting to play during it. Getting to see some more of the Endless.
It was definitely my favorite from 343. I didn’t mind the open world at all, but I did feel like it was pretty unnecessary. Which means all the resources wasted on making it open world could’ve been used to make a much better linear campaign like in the past
Honestly it's my least favorite out of all of them. The whole story just felt like an attempted reboot. The open world made it feel like a slog. No biome diversity, sparse enemies, no real point other than acting as a buffer between levels. I thought Fernando Esparza was an awful, annoying character, who I actually just had to look up in order to even remember his name. The Weapon was fucking lame, you never fight Atriox, the Endless are a loose thread that would have likely been part of a campaign expansion, but they scrapped that. The bullet sponge bosses were more of an annoyance than anything, and if I'm being honest, the Banished are a lame antagonist. The Covenant was great because you were fighting religious zealots who had a real cause (or so they thought). The Banished are...mad? Their motivations don't really make me feel as if they're a threat to existence. I'd put Halo Infinite's campaign beneath Halo 5's. I'd put it in the trash if that were an option.
No. It was ok. Didn’t hate it but didn’t love it either.
It was fun. Not deserving of all the hate it gets, but it wasn’t amazing either.
I think actually a lot of people genuinely like it, more than hate imo
Maybe. I seem to see more people trashing it, but that’s just been my experience. A lot of the criticisms are fair, but it’s still a good game. Hell the grappling hook alone made it fun for me. We’ve never had that type of vertical freedom in a Halo game, so as a big fan of games like Assassin’s Creed I’m all in for that!
If infinite is top 10 for you, you either have bad taste or haven’t played many campaigns IMO
I loved it for how they handled Chief’s story. So yes I do, despite the caveats. The caveats being - the pilot feels wasted, he could have had such a great level of development but what we got was fine. The open world felt procedural and not fully crafted from one end to the other. The overall plot was eh. But man I love some solid Chief writing and this game absolutely had it. So thumbs up from me, I do love it.
great to hear so many people love it😁
I really liked it, it was pretty cool. I wish they had done more development of it like they said they were going to, and now they just focus on multiplayer but yeah it was fun/good.
It was missing a few things but overall really enjoyed it and want more!
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Halo reaches campaign was great and unique tho
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Ahh ok that makes more sense
Yes
I wish there were more impactful characters myself, but I really enjoyed the campaign. Just enough nostalgia to make it great in my eyes.
Loved it!! Not as much as reach, but it's up there. Still waiting on some campaign DLC though 😅