WARNING: THIS BLOG MAY CONTAIN IN-GAME SPOILERS FROM THE HALO INFINITE CAMPAIGN, WHICH MAY FOREVER RUIN YOUR CHILDHOOD.
Introduction
The 2021 Christmas season has arrived, and with it the release of Halo Infinite. After being delayed for the past year, I have to be honest in saying that I had become concerned that the game itself, as well as the franchise, may be in trouble; thankfully that was not the case. So does the game live up to the hype, or is it a failed attempt at a soft reboot for the franchise? That’s what I am going to answer in my blog. I will say up front that I am not an expert gamer, nor will you find me live streaming on Twitch, but I am a fan of the Halo franchise, and have been since I first played Halo 3 in 2009.
I actually have not played any games for the past year, as I didn’t have a console, and I received an early Christmas present this year in the form of an Xbox Series S! I have to be honest in saying that I had no idea that I was getting one, as they were impossible to find, and I couldn’t afford one. I was also uncertain if I would get to play Halo Infinite at launch, and I did! Just being able to take part in such an awesome event is both fun and life changing in itself, and something that I have never been able to experience before now.
Campaign Overview
To begin, the campaign consists of fourteen missions for you to complete, which takes about twelve to fourteen hours depending upon the difficulty that you choose. I played with the game set on easy, so that I could enjoy the game and story as it progressed. In addition, you will find that there are a total of fifty-four additional objectives to complete, which include: twelve forward operating bases (FOBs) to liberate from the Banished, seven Banished outposts, twenty distress calls from UNSC Fireteams, and seven High Value Targets (HVTs) to eliminate.
These are present during each campaign mission, which cannot be replayed after you complete them. Once you complete the campaign itself, you can go back and complete any of these objectives that you missed. I have to say that my initial impressions of the game are that it is the best title in the franchise to date. It has superb audio and graphics, and the frame rate is seamless. Most importantly it is entertaining and fun, and has a very similar appearance and feel to Halo 3, while remaining its own unique entry into the franchise.
It took me five days to complete the campaign, and that was done playing an average of three hours a day. I really had fun playing this game, and the experience left me longing for more. I have no idea when we will see the first DLC drop, however I can tell you that a trademark has been filed already for something called Halo: The Endless. I have no idea if this is a future DLC, but I hope so! What follows is a breakdown of some of the major aspects of the game and story.
Characters
To begin, anytime that I play a video game the first thing that I look at are the characters and the story. With the Master Chief we have followed his journey since Combat Evolved made its debut back in 2001. The Master Chief has become the quintessential sci-fi hero of all time, with a very atypical background and personality. His story has been balanced and intertwined with that of Cortana from day one, and they complete and complement each other perfectly.
Knowing who the protagonists are, we next turn our attention to the banished, whom we meet in Halo Wars 2. Out of all of the adversaries that the Master Chief has faced over the years, Atriox and Escharum may prove to be more than his equal. Any adversary in the Halo franchise has been well balanced against the Master Chief and the UNSC, but these two present a threat that we have never seen prior to now, and I loved it. These characters make you feel like you are being threatened by them yourself, and it is awesome.
The Story
The second aspect of any game that I look at is the story. Anyone can draft a decent story to a game, but it takes emotion, passion, and research to craft a story that makes you feel like you are a part of it, and Halo Infinite does exactly that. From the opening battle at the beginning, to the cliffhanger at the end, I hung onto every moment of this game. I wanted to know more about the Weapon, the fate of Cortana, and how Zeta Halo fit in to the narrative. You can have all of the greatest in sound effects and visuals, but without the depth of creative storytelling, all you really have is an arcade game to pass the time.
Gameplay Physics
Next, I want to talk about the physics of the gameplay in Halo Infinite. The familiarity of the game’s controls are all present, allowing the player to jump right into the game with little to learn. I liked the ability to adjust all of the control settings, including the dead zone and the speed at which the horizontal and vertical movement is controlled, which provide a more realistic and snappy response when scanning the environment, and moving from one target to the next.
Weapons
Weapons manipulation is spot on, and the venerable MA5 has been replaced with the MA40. The M6 is out, and it’s been replaced with a much more realistic sidearm, the VK50 Sidekick. I didn’t feel like the Sidekick had the knockdown power of the M6, and that is due to the difference in caliber. The Sidekick is chambered for a ten-millimeter cartridge, whereas the M6 is chambered for the fifty-caliber pistol cartridge. The standout weapon in this game is the new VK78 Commando assault rifle, which is the first assault rifle in game that isn’t a bullpup. It fires the 6.5 Creedmoor round, and features an angled mag well, holographic sight, and it is a beast!
Audio
The game is recorded in 7.1, and I found it to be an immersive experience. The vocals are all clear and crisp, and the sound effects are among the best that I have ever heard in a video game. This is due in part to the extensive real-world recordings done by the sound team. They went out and made recordings of actual firearms, explosions, aircraft, and vehicles to incorporate into the game’s audio. No sounds that I am aware of were recycled throughout the game, and each sound is unique to a specific event or object during gameplay.
Graphics
The visuals were just as impressive, with incredible color ranges, detailing, lighting, and shading. For a sci-fi shooter, Halo Infinite is as real as it can get. The game is running at thirty frames per second on the Xbox Series S, at 1080P resolution. You can switch the game to performance mode, however it’s still going to output at 1080p, and not 4K, which is not an issue that I care about. I have a Hisense forty-three-inch 1080P LCD LED television, and that’s good enough for me. In all honesty, I don’t see what all of the fuss is really about with 4K and 8K anyway, and I don’t see where it would make any real difference in how the game looks.
Technical Issues
As for bugs or glitches I only experienced one episode of a Brute freezing in place early on during gameplay, and that was it. There was no loss of audio at all. I did however experience audio and video out of sync when recording game clips to my console, and still have not determined why it happened, or how to resolve it. To be fair, this same error has occurred when recording clips from Titanfall 2, and is not exclusive to Halo Infinite, and should not be used to reflect any criticism upon the game or its performance.
Final thoughts
Earlier this year, I stated that we would see Cortana either pretend to be the weapon, or else take over her matrix in order to have a second chance at her existence. It turns out that we see her story come to an end in Halo Infinite, and I don’t think that it was what any of us were expecting or wanted. I was really hoping that we would see the Master Chief somehow save her, but the fact is the damage is done, and there just wasn’t any way to bring her back. Her actions solidified her demise, and fans were left with a heart-breaking goodbye. I did not agree with or like this decision at all, and I believe that redeeming her would have been a more perfect ending.
Instead, they replaced her with what is essentially a duplicate copy of Cortana, so I’m uncertain how that is going to play out in the future. The Weapon as she was called initially, was designed for the very purpose of capturing and removing Cortana if she became rampant, which is exactly what occurred. What surprised me was to see that she chooses to call herself Cortana at the end, which is only alluded to. Both characters are voiced by Jen Taylor, so it’s anyone’s guess how this all plays out in future DLCs. The Weapon is an innocent, happy character, and we see her being led in a way by the Master Chief, which we never saw happen with Cortana.
Prior to Infinite, my favorite game in the franchise was Halo 4, and I think that if I had a choice, Cortana’s story would have ended there. I think the rampancy story arc got out of hand and took the franchise in a direction that became less clear and determined. Infinite allowed them to bring a conclusion to that, while quietly resetting the course of the franchise along more familiar paths that are reminiscent of those in Halo 3. The issue that I have with that, is that keeping future gameplay confined to Zeta Halo will get old fast. No one wants to be stuck playing as the Master Chief on a ring for the next ten years.
If the franchise is going to move beyond all of the questionable events from Cortana’ s arc, then we need to see an expansive and open world gameplay that is not confined to a ring, or a single planet, but one that takes the player on a journey across the stars. Inevitably, I also think that we need to see the Master Chief retire. There is a lifetime of emotion, feelings, and memories that have gone untouched for him, and a story along those lines would help the staying power of the character if he’s around. Ultimately, I think that we need to see new characters brought in, that can take the reins from the Master Chief and move us forward beyond a singular hero.
Halo Infinite is full of action, depth, and emotion, but the real question is how will it surpass the legacy of the games that it is built upon? 343 Industries has stated that it is the last main entry into the Halo franchise for at least ten years, so how will that work? What is their plan? Not everyone plays or wants to see another Halo Wars title, and if this is the last game for at least ten years, is this the final entry of the Master Chief? If not, then what could be next for him, and why? Halo Infinite Leaves us with as many questions as we had before its release, we can only hope that the franchise doesn’t go down like the Infinity in a ball of fire.
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