Another Halo Infinite Postmortem
A year ago, I put my thoughts on Halo: Infinite’s surprise launch to paper. Today, I pull the trigger.
When I drafted my initial impressions on Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer, fans had just jumped in. Hopes were high, as they always are– And conditions could hardly be more ideal for a revival. A year later, and we’ve begun to piece together just how much of a disaster development had been. While Halo games typically go from concept to shelves in three years, Infinite was in development for six. High staff turnover, conflicting visions, and the shift to remote work did the game no favors. The announcement trailer for Halo: Infinite showcases seven unique biomes, the game’s campaign shipped with one. There just isn’t six years of work on the disk. What the hell happened?
Regardless, I don’t scrap projects. Here’s my original review, written on November 15th, 2021.
Where will Halo Infinite be in ten years? Hard to say, given the game’s surprise launch on Steam and Xbox twelve hours ago. On the twentieth anniversary of Xbox, developer 343 Industries has a shot to bring the brand back from the brink! It’s easy to be cynical at this point, honestly. The series has prattled on for so long that the hot button issue of Infinite’s gameplay, Sprint, has featured in more Halo than not.
I haven’t followed Infinite’s development or even installed the technical test 343 invited me to last Summer. I’ve just got other things going on. As a Halo fan, I’m on an island. Going into this Beta, I couldn’t really expect anything!
A Vertical Slice
Halo Infinite has good bones; It’s a base hit. 343 Industries should be commended for getting this game out the door. As of writing, Infinite is on track to overtake Call of Duty and Battlefield for the first time in a decade. But that success, however, is ramping itself off of fumbling competition. We’re up to our knees in AAA Industry controversy right now. Halo shipping “complete” can only be praised in context.
Once things spool up again, however, I think 343 will be left behind. In its current state, this is not a ten-year game. Halo Infinite is simultaneously safe and stale. This isn’t purely a 343 problem either! Internal politics and brutal crunch at Bungie almost killed people during development of Halo 2, and Halo: Reach is so polarizing that I can say I love and hate it in the same sentence. There have always been bad Halo games, but Infinite is the worst kind of flawed: Forgettable.
30 Seconds of Your Time
Whenever people talk about Halo’s feel, they gush about the “sandbox,” the sliding 30-Second Scale that gets the whole game going. Guns feel good, things are fun to shoot, and the levels mix it up. The series has buckets of nuance in its combat, but it all rides atop those 30 seconds of fun. This all puts Halo Infinite in a tough spot: I don’t like the combat, not for lack of trying.
Everyone should spawn the same and they should spawn dangerous. Credit where it’s due, 343 has gotten this right. Lest we forget, Halo is one of the last arena shooters. Winning is less about out aiming your opponent, and more about controlling unique resources to swing fights over time. The items make the maps distinct, and create these cool pinch points where players will fight over weapons, vehicles, or powerups that can completely turn the tide of a match. When you can’t feel out the frontline in a round of Halo, the game falls apart.
Halo Infinite loves its sandbox, but there’s none of the grit that made the older titles so memorable. It’s less like sand and more like glass. There isn’t anything important left out, but 343 has overdone it. Maps are symmetrical and polished to a shine. It’s all lanes, and that doesn’t do much to separate the game from any of its competitors. Halo Infinite might as well be Call of Duty with floatier jumps. There are bad maps in this game, and that’s not good when you only ship with ten. Couple that with burgeoning hit registration issues and grumblings about the game’s monetization, and Halo Infinite is already living on borrowed time.
I don’t want a Halo game that’s good by association. I want a Halo game that’s just good.