fiercely held by Banished forces.
It’s here where all those toys you may
have unlocked can finally come into
play – one final effort at an open
world Halo, before Infinite sort of
gives up on pretending to be an open
world entirely in its final hours.
HALO FINITE
But Halo Infinite is still an open
world, and even when
it guns back into a
more traditional pace
in the latter half, it can’t
escape that structure.
The Forerunners must
have loved their trip to
Seattle, because
Infinite’s world is all
minor variations on the
same Pacific Northwest environment.
Because the story needs to take place
within this small chunk of Zeta Halo
(less an expansive ringworld and
more a modest national park),
missions can’t break off into desert
vistas, frozen valleys, or dense urban
warzones. Enter a mission, and
you’re guaranteed it’ll be some
combination of pine forests and
pristine Forerunner structures.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a
beautiful forest. Infinite is a gorgeous
game, omitting the overdesigned
characters and environments of 343’s
previous games to create a well-
considered evolution of Bungie’s
visuals. Forests are thriving with
wildlife, grass sways in the breeze,
and Forerunner structures feel
suitably imposing. That ring on
the horizon is physical, interacting
with the sun and casting long
shadows across itself.
But that familiarity robs missions
of a unique identity, and after
finishing the game the only one that
really stands in my memory is a
late-game level in a particularly fun
Banished facility. The open world’s
lush forests, valleys and marine-
rescue setup may strongly evoke Halo
(the mission) from Halo (the 2001
series debut), but none of the main
missions stand up against the
timeless design of The Silent
Cartographer, or even Halo 3’s less
fondly remembered meat labyrinth,
Cortana (er, again, the mission).
In the moment, level and
encounter design is great. 343 is so
careful to make sure fights never feel
overly familiar, always throwing new
pain points into the mix. There are
even moments that call back to highs
from earlier games – fending off
Sentinels from a painfully slow
gondola, tearing down valleys in a
Scorpion tank. But there’s nothing as
spectacular as the time Halo 3
dropped two building-sized
Scarabs on top of you and told you to
just figure it out.
Instead, Infinite has boss fights,
and they’re decent, if a little
uninspired. But there’s a special place
in hell for a pair of
Brutes you’re forced to
face in an open ditch –
one riding a souped-up
Chopper while the
other nukes you with
artillery fire,
summoning extra
baddies when either
is defeated.THE LOUD CARTOGRAPHER
But the biggest frustration is that,
for as much as Infinite has been
earmarked as a throwback to the
series’ roots, 343 can’t shed 20 years
of lore baggage. It’s frustrating
because at the root of the game is the
relationship between Chief, the
UNSC pilot who rescues him at the
game’s opening, and The Weapon –
an AI modelled after Cortana after
Cortana went all galactic dictator-god
at the end of Halo 5.
At its heart, this dynamic works!
Chief is starting to feel tired after all
these years of being a video game
hero, but his need for heroics and
duty creates a wonderful tension
with a pilot who is at the absolute
end of his tether. The Weapon often
risks coming across as gratingly naïve,
but she feels like a knowing
throwback to the first Halo’s version
of Cortana – a friendly voice to
accompany you through ancient
ruins and apocalyptic schemes.
A family can be a big green man,his blue holographic partner, and a
nervous wreck at the helm of a
130-ton dropship, and that’s okay.
They’re a good foundation for a
story, but unless you’re clued in on
Halo 5 the story is a hot confusing
mess. The Banished simply aren’t
interesting baddies, a straight reskin
of the Covenant only redder and
meaner, but they soon share the
stage with 343’s favourite trope.
Halo’s established ancient aliens,
the Forerunners, aren’t mysterious
anymore, so we’re introduced to a
new ancient alien who has a
grudge against the Forerunners
and, by proxy, humanity.
Any mystery Halo used to hold
has been lost under a deluge of
proper nouns and thousand-year
machinations, and keeping track of it
is exhausting. But when all is said
and done, the story isn’t even really
about the Banished, or the Harbinger,
or the Endless. It’s about Master
Chief and Cortana, a relationship that
even with the latter’s absence, drives
everything our big green man does
throughout the game. Truth be told,
it’s not a relationship that’s ever
worked for me.FIGHT FINISHED
Infinite wants to kick off a new era of
Halo by asking why we fell in love
with it in the first place. Exploring
the open world after wrapping the
campaign is a joy, exploring nooks
and crannies for secrets, basking in
the alien beauty of watching the sun
set behind the ring and rising on the
other side of it moments later.
Wrapping up all those side missions
I skipped and admitting that they
probably were best left until now,
when I’m done with the story but
still hankering for some good fights.
For lapsed fans of the Bungie
games like me, Halo Infinite is a
strong return to form, and in the heat
of battle it’s the best running and
gunning the series has ever had.
It’s painfully easy to imagine a world
where Infinite could have easily been
one of my favourite entries to date.
But between a redundant open world
and a story that can’t shed the series’
baggage, Halo Infinite’s campaign
falls just shy of being a great Halo.78
Infinite can’t deliver on
its open world ambitions,
but it’s a solid entry with
the best shooting the
series has ever seen.VERDICTUnless you’re
clued in on Halo
5 the story is a
hot confusing
mess.CUSTOM HARDWARE
The weapons you know, but differentMA40 LONGSHOT
The basic assault
rifle is good. It’s very
good. But this
version packs a
meaner punch at a
longer range and is a
must-have for
any Spartan.UNBOUND
PLASMA PISTOL
Even the humble
plasma pistol gets a
souped up variant,
charging faster and
unleashing a
shotgun spread of
devastating bolts.M41 TRACKER
Rockets are hard to
come by, so make
sure you never waste
another shot with a
homing variant of
the trusty rocket
launcher pulled
out of Halo 2.Halo Infinite
REVIEW