Starting the plot with the engine already running, and the player filled with questions about what's going on, is a clever attempt to reclaim the curious intrigue of the younger series. This speculative universe has been so thoroughly explored that it can feel as though Halo's writers are out of stones left to overturn. He executes a secret mission for the United Nations Space Command, reclaiming the Zeta outpost for humanity. Relying on an everyman pilot and a perky AI only called "Weapon", the legendary Master Chief pushes himself to his limits. The Banished, an offshoot of the murderous alien Covenant, have taken over the ringworld. There, the narrative wakes at the top of the second act. Infinite's open-world story mode takes place on Zeta Halo: an advanced incarnation of the Halo superweapons.
So, I came up with a better idea: What if, instead of writing one article that tries to review all of Infinite, I wrote a few different reviews of individual facets of the game? Today, we start at the threshold of this brave new entry, coming in for landing on Halo's Campaign. What I want to do is upload the kind of Halo deep-dive that you can't get at every other outlet. After all, there are people doing the broad product coverage of this crowd-pleaser faster and more accessibly than I can. However, as I found myself cutting observations I felt passionate about, I began to realise that I might have bet on the wrong format to describe Halo Infinite. Originally, I had planned to write one long review about all the experiences gathered under the Infinite banner. It's also overstretched the developer's abilities and caused the franchise to slip into some of the most offputting practices of the modern games industry.
HALO SPARTAN STRIKE GIANT BOMB SERIES
Its mutation of the series has resulted in innovative and elating improvements. In the past two decades, there has been no Halo more transformative than this one. The wait is now over, and with Halo Infinite, 343 has produced the most 343 game yet. Its delicate movement mechanics and high octane take on Firefight lent it my favourite multiplayer to date, even if the throughline of the Campaign got lost in its scope.Īfter Guardians, the fandom waited in hallowed anticipation for six years before the series again took to the stars.
Halo 5: Guardians, however, was brimming with personality. It was also an uncomfortably cold game that lacked individual identity. Halo 4 was a triumph of polish that yielded some of the most refined weapon handling and insightful combat feedback up to that point. On the other hand, The Master Chief Collection had far more bells and whistles hanging off of it and stridently reimagined the sights and sounds of Halo 2. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was a loyal, by-the-book remake of the original game. Between 20, Microsoft's powerhouse released four different Halos, but compare any two of them, and you'd think they were the fruit of different studios. If there's one thing that 343 Industries does better than any other developer, it's reinventing itself.