As someone who almost never plays multiplayer or console-only FPS titles, I was never super into Halo. But I was curious enough to check the entirety of the Master Chief Collection when it finally landed on PC and did enjoy my time with it. ODST and Reach were the most enjoyable entries by far, but it’s not like I hated my time with the rest of the games. Apart, maybe, from the original which was just so damn tedious. Halo 5 never got a PC release so I’ve still yet to play it. But knowing how mostly disposable the story in these games is, I still was interested in checking out Infinite. And it’s quite nice.
At its core, Halo Infinite is still a typical Halo game. An FPS with some “modern” concepts (some of which the series popularized in the first place), but at the same time with many sensibilities of a classic PC FPS. With the addition of a grapple mechanic it’s even more pronounced, as you can swing around, keep momentum via bunny hopping and slopes and have a lot of fun with just movement itself. Shooting is also awesome with the variety of weapons and the two slot limit motivating you to constantly experiment with what you’re using or switching to melee. Which, yet again, is also improved with the grapple mechanic. The vehicles, another staple of the series, are also present and remain fun to use, even though the controls for keyboard and mouse are still atrocious. I mean come on – no tank controls for controlling an actual tank? Really?
In fact, the game in general feels like an attempt to take the original Halo: Combat Evolved, analyze every part of it, expand and evolve every idea that it had and discard everything that people disliked. It’s not the first attempt at this approach (Halo 4 had a similar concept), but this time the results are surprising. Up until now, while many Halo levels were gigantic and had many ways of approaching the goal, the series have only once dabbled into the idea of an “open world” with ODST and even there it was limited only to the “hub” level. With Infinite the series attempt to create an open world title, but one that is more similar in structure to a Crysis 1 mission, rather than a typical sandbox open world.
There are several linear cinematic levels but a huge chunk of the game happens on a big part of a Halo Ring world which contains main objectives as well as many collectibles and side objectives. However, not all of the world is available from the start – rather, every main mission takes place on a certain part of the world with the entrances to other parts blocked. But the further into the story you progress, the more parts of the world you unlock. It’s a nice and easily digestible approach that also allows those, who prefer to just focus on the story do just that. While those who are attracted to finding stuff, doing side missions and the like can do that and get helpful, if not necessarily vital, rewards.
Given how often I get bored of open worlds, I’m happy to say that the approach Halo Infinite takes is actually quite fun, especially due to how much joy you get out of simple movement mechanics in this game. This approach fits the series well too (apart from Halo 2, I suppose, that had a very cinematic Science fantasy feel to it) and everything just clicks. It helps that the game avoids the horrible enemy designs like the obnoxious Flood, and sticks to the ones that are enjoyable to fight against.
The story is more decent than I’ve expected, to be honest, but it’s still more of a fun action adventure with Cool Hero Dude Who Saves The Day Again than anything more than that. It also seems like my prediction was right and knowledge of Halo 5 is mostly pointless as this game starts with a lot of “what’s going on” that isn’t a continuation of a previous game – it’s all new storyline and it’s all explained in this game. The music is solid too, better than Halo 4, but not as wild as some of the early Halo tracks dared to be occasionally. Oh and the game looks very good, if not flawless. And not without bugs, gameplay or visual.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with Halo Infinite and it’s been one of the more enjoyable entries in the series for me. If you like fast paced FPS with open levels and more old-school pace (but with many “modern” ideas) you will probably enjoy this game as much as people who will also care about the open world exploration aspect of it.