Welcome to my negative Halo Infinite campaign review. In creating this I don’t just want to be a toxic hater, I’m not here to bash 343 and I don’t hate Halo. This is just genuinely how I feel some days. Other days I’m much more positive so ill balance this piece out with an entirely positive review in the coming weeks so stay tuned for that. Like most things. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. I have written a more balanced review and it’s much, much longer and far less interesting (at least to me).

Story

Something struck me as I was writing this and that is how Halo finds itself in a similar position to many franchises from our childhoods. The original creators are either not involved or are brought in as executive producers or consultants and the new creators don’t understand what made the original so popular. In this regard Halo is a lot like the Star Wars franchise at this point and if you’re a Halo fan this should concern you. Consider that in both franchises the original concept and story is complete with the conclusion of the original trilogy, and each must find its own reason to exists. The owners of the IP find themselves with a galaxy of possibilities and characters that people love. So, what are they to do?? Leave the story alone for us to look back on fondly or expand the story with more instalments. At this stage both franchises face the same problem.

Where does the story go when a galaxy spanning threat has already been averted, the bad guys defeated, and the heroes story arc completed

Where does the story go when a galaxy spanning threat has already been averted, the bad guys defeated, and the heroes story arc completed (Here’s looking at you Marvel) Lucasfilm decided to soft reboot the franchise with the Force awakens, whilst Halo 4 attempted to both expand the lore of the Galaxy with the proper introduction of the forerunners, the librarian and the other geezer, whilst also making the story more personal between Cortana and Chief. Halo 5 continued this AI story arc and Halo 6 (Infinite) should have concluded it.

In many ways the Halo story of Infinite is like The Force Awakens. Both are soft reboots of the original instalment of the franchises. The same bad guys are back with a new coat of paint.

The familiar settings are back.

Familiar characters return in a new form

And the story follows the same beats. Destroy a planet killing laser or disable a galaxy killing Halo ring. The graphics and special effects are updated and many of the details are different, but the overarching story is the same as the first instalment.

It’s at this point Halo Infinite ceases to be like The Force Awakens and begins to look like the Rise of Skywalker. Both are the third part of a trilogy, and both disregard the previous two instalments content to tell their own story. Halo 6 should have seen the story resolve the A.I. crises from Halo 5. Instead, it switches out the Created for the Banished in the same way Rise of Skywalker swapped out the first order for Palpatine and the Final order. Both bad guys are re-treads of old familiar villains. The creators are hoping to tap into viewer and player nostalgia to distract us from the fact this latest version just isn’t as good as the original and that the story set up in the previous instalments wasn’t what the fans wanted to see.

Neither set of villains has anything to do with the threat set up in the previous two instalments. The First Order is quickly dispensed with as the main threat in the Opening crawl and the AI and Guardians are nowhere to be seen. Both franchises seem keen to “listen to the fans” and here we are presented with motifs, set pieces and villains from a more fondly remembered time!

In the case of Halo Infinite, this is a mistake and it’s one which colours the whole experience of playing through the Infinite campaign. Halo 6 should have taken a different approach. Rather than ignoring the Halo 5, 343 should have leaned into it. A more satisfying, more interesting take would have been to drop the banished in alongside the created, forcing Cortana to re-evaluate her priorities in the face of this new threat. The Created would have been defeated which provides closure on the Halo 5 campaign whilst leaving us in the same place ready to fight the Banished, The Endless or whoever else in whatever expansions 343 has planned. But most importantly the player would get to experience the final anguish of what befell Cortana providing a fitting narrative end to a story that, let’s face it, most fans never wanted told.

Hey Cortana

Ah Cortana – How badly you’ve been treated. Name me another franchise, which is still doing well, where one of the main characters was killed off screen??? Cortana was a key component of the success of Halo. She brought moments of levity and humanity to the first four games in contrast to Chiefs gruff, robotic presence, and to treat the character in such a disrespectful way stinks. And this is a problem entirely of 343s making. Now we see the problems of not having a vision bigger than one game at a time and with no overarching story the second trilogy of Halo is a narrative mess. I can see what they were shooting for. The character needed to grow but instead of making Cortana the bad guy in Halo 5 they could have used her as a foil during an AI crisis where all the other human AI turn of their masters and she is conflicted. Does she remain loyal to her friend or go along with the only thing like family she has. She could have been held hostage or even defect momentarily at the end of Halo 5? Halo Infinite could have picked up where this story left off and Zeta Halo could have been the ultimate battle between the AI, the Banished, Covenant and the UNSC. But if this weren’t possible the very least, we could have asked for was that 343 owned their choices and finished what they started in Halo 5.

When franchises dispense with whole story lines, they inadvertently tell the fan base that the story they are watching or playing through has no consequences. It can be retconned or ignored at any moment.

Campaign

My main problem with the campaign relates to the story as this permeates everything within those missions. It relegates the main threads of the of the Halo 5 campaign, still to be resolved, to flash backs Yes, we see a resolution to that story line, but all of this happens off screen, so it feels like our actions have little consequence for the players personally. It feels like we are just playing catchup the whole time. There are a few narrative threads left hanging and the reveal at the end is intriguing as it sets up lots of potential future stories, but it doesn’t make it fun to play through. Don’t get me wrong I was choked up at the end saying goodbye to an old friend but the more I think about it the more the resolution to the Cortana problem annoys me.

Cortana could have been a live presence helping us through the game before finally making the ultimate sacrifice and being replaced by her younger “sister”. Instead, we are helped from “beyond the grave” which just doesn’t pack the same emotional punch! She is dead already and this is telegraphed if not outright stated early in the story. This is a mistake, and they could have retconned the bad choices made in Halo 5 by resetting the same character or implanting the original Cortana’s memories into the Weapon to preserve the relationship between Cortana and Chief. Although even this would be blatant fan service so perhaps having Cortana redeem herself a little and the chance to see the weapon mature in to fully fledged grown up will be more satisfying as Halo Infinite matures and we will eventually forget that this is a new “Cortana”.

To my mind the campaign feels like it was reworked from something far more ambitious. The bread-and-butter parts of the campaign are repetitive with the meat of the story told through flashback cut scenes rather than something happening in the moment in game. The campaign missions are all the same and it all suffers from being semi open world. The campaign missions get lost in the rest of the world instead of being tightly focussed areas with their own identity. I am sure that we all have a favourite level from the original trilogy. Something which we play through every now and then because it’s so fun or we enjoy the challenge?? I’ve played this campaign a couple of times now and honestly struggle to remember any of the missions own their own. It’s all just a big Halo infinite mess.

And did we really have to fight the Adjutant twice? Instead of this the time could have been taken to flesh out the Banished lieutenants more. Either through more dialogue or more encounters on our way to the final destination. (Speaking of Boss fights).

Boss fights

The villains, or bosses, in this game are poor. Thats not to say they aren’t challenging but the story gives us little reason to care about most of them but appears to want us to. This isn’t the first time 343 have been guilty of this. (Halo 5 marketing campaign anyone!) They were prominently placed in the trailers, and they appear in cut scenes and have lines of dialogue, but we don’t know who they are or why we should be afraid of them or care about them. The Spartan hunters were a good idea, and had we faced more of them, getting harder as we go along, then these encounters would be more engaging. The worst of these bosses is “sword fighting dude” who must rescue the pilot from.

He is prominently placed in the trailers and given the reaction of some Youtubers you’d think he was a major character in the game. Unfortunately, he isn’t much more than a distraction. A cool set of armour on legs really. He is supposed to be extremely scary, but we see nothing much of him until we face him. A cut scene of him torturing marines or a shorter boss fight where he kicks our arse would set up the final fight with some stakes. Or drop him in to the map as we pass through it. He could be seen watching us at a distance and if you get too close, he disappears. It could have been very spooky and made us feel claustrophobic in an open world! Having said that the fight against him is atmospheric but on normal difficulty just not hard enough.

Rather than the collection of loose encounters we got Why not set up a cadre of lieutenants, Spartan killers, assassins, chiefs, and Generals each dispatched as the last fails. Also show them committing these heinous acts so we know the threat we are facing.

Next on my chopping block of hate is The Harbinger. This pointless character is dropped in and we know next to nothing about her. we know she wants to free the endless but not much else. Who are they, what do they want, why should we care? These are all questions to be answered later. This feels intentional as Halo is supposed to be a 10-year game, but it doesn’t make them any more engaging for players right now.

Gameplay

To be fair to Halo Infinite the charge of repetitive design and encounters was also levelled at Halo CE so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised the same issues affect this game as it is a soft reboot of the series. The part that CE got right however was the tight relationship between level design and available weapons. (I feel like I’m repeating myself here) Halo CE feels like a puzzle which can be unlocked with great strategy and weapon selection. Infinite feels like a massive sandbox of Halo themed toys that the developers are letting us play in. Which brings us to….
Weapon balance. I honestly believe you could complete the whole game with AR, grappling hook and grenades. Previous Halo titles feel like a puzzle where you must take the right weapon to the right fight and use it in the right way. This feels like 343 counted all the things that make Halo Halo and told the player go play.
Grappling hook is overpowered and makes movement cartoony. It feels like they have taken the advanced movement of Halo 5 and simultaneously nerfed it and made it even more ridiculous. But it’s a good thing they have because it avoids hours or walking between targets which would get dull quick. Which is fine in the out in the open world however in the more confined spaces of the campaign missions the grappling hook acts as both weapon and get out of jail free card. If you don’t like the position you’ve taken just throw the grappling hook and you’re on the other side of the room. This removes, or at least changes, the amount of strategy you need to deploy to win an encounter. Fights are more fluid and, within the context of the game more realistic but, I’m not sure this makes them more fun! The Grappling hook also allows us to break encounters by making Chief do things the developers never considered or accounted for. Ledges can be reached, boxes stood on drops no longer pose a threat. Just look across YouTube. Everyone is glitching boss encounters. Check out my video here to see me beat Escharum with melee!

Visuals

Ah the visuals. The cause of the initial delay in releasing the game and thank God, they did put it back because graphically the game is stunning. “But I thought this was the negative review” I hear you say… Well, it is stunning…..and boring. The entire map looks the same. You’d be hard pressed to tell one area from another. Halo CE was criticized for lots of derivative areas of the game map. But at least CE had purple interiors for the Covenant ships (show Halo CE ship interior) in contrast to the dark grey, silver blue hues of the Halo ring’s installations. In Halo Infinite The Banished and Halo installations are both muted shades of grey, ok fine the Halo interiors are shiny silver but it’s a similar muted pallet with little to distinguish them apart. The Banished are more industrial in design but this isn’t enough of a differentiator for me. Again, this feels like a symptom of a game which has been diminished in scope because of the development trouble or other delays caused by the pandemic. Without those delays we would have seen a more diverse set of biomes. Or this is now part of a deliberate strategy to stretch Halo Infinite out over its proposed 10-year life span! I am sure other parts of the ring will look vastly different and we will see these in the fullness of time. But that doesn’t make things better in the games current state.

Difficulty

The open world and availability of advanced UNSC hardware makes this too easy in places. Why bother taking on a base full of Banished when you can park up a tank and pepper them from a distance? Yes, Legendary difficulty is hard but traversing the map with a squad full of Marines, each equipped with whatever overpowered, endless ammo having weapon loadout you can dream up is no challenge at all (show laser firing marines or rocket marines). It’s fun for 5 minutes and the different loadouts might add some replay ability, but I don’t see this campaign going down as beating Halo’s 1,2,3, ODST, or Halo Reach for campaign longevity and replaya-bility . Check out my fears video for how I think the community will react in the long run.

Summing up

Halo Infinite has a planned 10-year life span and, in 2 or 3 years, once campaign DLC drops this strategy will look like genius. The story will be fleshed out, the art style will be more varied, missions will be memorable, campaign playlists implemented, and players will eagerly await each new chapter of Master Chiefs efforts to take back Zeta Halo and save humanity again. Until then we are stuck with an open world sandbox, which, whilst fun to play in every now and then, doesn’t hold the same long-term appeal as its predecessors.

You can watch this review on YouTube for the full effect!