Now Playing: Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite has what may be the best gameplay of any Halo game to date. Purely in terms of its combat mechanics, Infinite is a damn near perfect game. The movement, shooting, weapons and enemy AI all combine to create one of the most engaging, creative and tactical moment-to-moment action games that you’ll ever play. There’s an incredible ‘flow’ to combat that’s not unlike another fantastic shooter of recent years – Doom Eternal.

Whilst Infinite may lack the pure intensity and focus of Eternal, it shines in ways that Eternal does not. The introduction of the grapple shot changes the way you approach every fight, not only in giving you an expanded range of movement options, but the ability to pull weapons and other items towards you – grappling an explosive coil before tossing it towards a group of enemies never gets old.

But, unfortunately, I’m not just reviewing the gameplay of Infinite. It’s undoubtedly the best aspect of the game – as it always should be in any game – and it elevates everything else, including all the weaker aspects of the title. But those weaker elements do drag the overall experience down.

Infinite has this weird kind of split between a new open (sort of) sandbox and the more linear, structured levels of previous Halo games. The first few levels serve as a linear introduction and tutorial before dropping you onto the first ‘island’ of Infinite. The open world is split between multiple islands, and you’ll unlock each in turn as you progress through the story.

The open world is also where your frame rate will likely tank as soon as you step outside. Whilst I was able to maintain a rock solid 60FPS in the enclosed, linear levels of Infinite – and in the multiplayer which I’ll touch upon later – the open world is very poorly optimised.

It looks good, but not that good and I’d expect much better performance even on my older hardware. I mean, for all the technical issues that Cyberpunk 2077 had at release, I could still run that at a near constant 60 even on High settings, whereas Infinite struggles to stay at 60 even on Low despite not looking half as good. Thankfully, the not-too-noticeable dynamic resolution option kept me locked at 60 for the majority of my time in the campaign, even if it did makes things go a little blurry sometimes.

The open world is big – but not too big – and by dividing the content between multiple islands you never feel overwhelmed. There’s lots of collectibles to find if you like that sort of thing, but the focus of the side content is on rescuing marine squads, assassinating elite enemy targets, liberating operating bases (for fast travel and weapon / vehicle pick ups) and destroying enemy bases.

There’s not too much of anything so it doesn’t really get repetitive – there’s usually only one or two enemy bases in each region, for example, and they’re all entirely unique in terms of their design and function.

Now, just in case you’re worried, you can ignore all of this extra content if you want and just move from one main mission to the next. All of it is entirely optional. But, as I said in my First Impressions post, if you do skip it, I think you’re going to miss out on what makes Infinite unique and special within the Halo series.

Halo has always been at its best when it lets you loose within its combat sandbox and the open world of Infinite is the ultimate Halo sandbox. With all the weapons, equipment and vehicles on call at any time, you can approach how you tackle the open world content in any way that you want. You can go in solo, using stealth and long range weapons. You can go in hard and fast with shotguns and melee. You can load up a squad of marines armed with rocket launchers and then sit back and watch the carnage. Infinite lets you play how you want to play and that creative freedom is always a massive positive for me.

But then we have the more linear, structured ‘main’ missions of Infinite and that’s where the game loses its way. I wouldn’t say the missions are necessarily bad – well, maybe one of them. But aside from a handful of genuinely pretty good ones, the majority are largely mediocre in terms of design. They nearly all see you traversing the same environment type which gets pretty stale, and they rely far too much on endless copy-paste corridors connecting endless copy-paste rooms full of enemies.

But here’s the thing – because the gameplay is so damn good, you almost don’t mind. Like I said, it elevates all the weaker aspects of the title. I will say that Infinite does much better ‘boss’ fights than previous games though. Yes, they do tend to rely on ‘bullet sponge’ mechanics, but I found them all pretty fun and challenging when I played through the campaign on Legendary.

The open world also lacks environmental variety, although I don’t see this as a particularly major problem. As I said in my FI post, it’s like the developers took the ‘Halo’ level of Combat Evolved and shaped this entire game around that experience. And I can kind of understand why – Infinite is a return to a more pure and simple Halo experience than Halo 4 or what I’ve seen of 5.

But the main missions are, overall, kind of lacklustre. You reach a point in the game where the open world ends and you’re railroaded on a linear series of levels until you reach the end – levels that literally include multiple rooms where you just fight waves and waves of enemies. It’s pretty basic stuff which, if it wasn’t for the absolutely stellar gameplay, would be pretty irritating to work through.

There’s no big ‘set piece’ events in the campaign. No mission where there’s large scale vehicle action. I kept hoping all those marines I’d saved would show up at some point in tanks and warthogs and assist my assault on the final enemy base – a way of connecting the open world activities with the core missions. I was hoping for some kind of thrilling final chase / escape sequence but . . . nope.

Thankfully, whilst the mission design may be pretty disappointing, the story aspects keep you engaged. Things can be a little muddled at first but the game slowly reveals more information as you progress. Infinite feels, in many ways, like a reboot. Or maybe a reset for the series would be the more appropriate term.

It’s a way of clearing out the convoluted baggage of Halo 4 and 5 where it feels like they kind of wrote themselves into a corner. Remarkably, Infinite manages to do this pretty well, providing closure on those games, whilst setting up something new. Of course, we don’t know if what’s new will necessarily be better, but Infinite is a pretty good start.

The multiplayer component of Infinite is great in terms of gameplay, modes and maps, but the progression system and the lack of mode options and the UI in general really needs a lot of work. I won’t be factoring the MP into this review, however, because it’s not part of the package that you’re paying for – it’s a separate, free-to-play game with it’s own form of monetisation.

Infinite also currently lacks the co-op mode that I’ve enjoyed so much in previous Halo games. That’s a real shame, because I think the open world part of Infinite will shine even more if you can play with friends.

Overall, Halo Infinite is a pretty mixed experience. The gameplay may just be the best in the series yet. The story is good, if a little bit of a muddled reset. The open world is pretty well incorporated with some fun side content and plenty of secrets to explore. The main missions are fairly bland and basic in terms of design. There’s no co-op at the time of review. Oh, and the game kind of runs like shit in the open world right now.

If you’re a hardcore Halo fan, you already own Infinite anyway. If you’re a more ‘casual’ Halo fan, I’d still say this is worth picking up. If you’ve never played Halo before, this isn’t the worst place to start, but I’d still recommend getting the Master Chief collection first. If I had to rank Infinite compared the other Halo games I’ve played I’d put it below 1, 3 and Reach and more on par with Halo 2 – another flawed but occasionally brilliant Halo game.

7/10