Halo Infinite Campaign Open World

I am and always have been a Halo fan. Like so many other gamer's my introduction to Xbox was via Halo, I had stopped by a friend's house after school in December 2001 to option upwardly my homework he had copied. As I was on my way out I heard the now-familiar theme song and was stopped in my tracks. Always since and so, roughly one-month mail-release, Halo has been a significant function of my life. Needless to say, I was quite excited for Halo Infinite and the first Halo entrada in vi years. But as more and more information was released regarding the game'due south format and the developers hinted at the prospect of a larger more pseudo-open-world Halo campaign I began to worry. I didn't want a Far Cry style Halo game and unfortunately for me, that's exactly what nosotros got. While in pursuit of their open-world vision for Halo Space, 343 industries seem to have lost sight of what makes upwards the essence of Halo and in that pursuit, the developers appear to have been willing to cede anything and everything in service to the open up earth.

During the Bungie era of Halo, a huge portion of the squad's focus was on quality storytelling. As a outcome of this focus, Halo has always been filled with intriguing stories backed by rich lore. At the core of that story was an engaging conflict between multiple factions all with clearly defined motivations. Driving those motivations towards their end goals were interesting characters full of depth and personality. To witness the prophet's undying belief in the prophecy, the Arbiter's revelation of how his people had been used, Chief's devotion to the mission despite his undeniable emotional trauma, or Miranda's try to alive up to the retention of her begetter is what gives the story of the original Halo trilogy life.

From a story perspective, 343 industries have clearly attempted to replicate Bungie'southward success, just particularly throughout Halo v: Guardians and Halo Infinite, have failed to do so. While Guardians' storyline was successful in featuring several interesting characters with conflicting goals and motivations the fashion in which those characters behaved made little sense when because their background and history. But where Space fails to tell a compelling story is both in how convoluted said story rapidly becomes and the lack of compelling characters with understandable motivations. Master Chief has been well established as having a strong loyalty to humanity merely even his actions seem to be driven past petty more than winning the fight. While Esharum'southward motivation being solely to ensure his name becomes legendary undeniably moves the feud betwixt him and Master Chief forward that's essentially all it does.

At the outset of the entrada, after being given just a brief tease at the events that led to the present, both Chief and the player are thrust into a situation that is already in motion. As the story progresses, the role player learns that Cortana has died and Atriox (who is revealed to have been a pupil of Esharum'due south for some reason) led a siege on the Infinity before dying himself. While there is a lot of interesting stories alluded to throughout the entrada in Infinite, ane of the about egregious offenses of the game is that those story beats that are alluded to having occurred prior to the start of the entrada are far more interesting than anything that really occurs during the entrada. And fifty-fifty in the case of the story beats that make up the campaign of Infinite, the open world's demand that all storytelling exist presented through the lens of the Master Main necessitates that basically all of information technology be exposition vomited onto the player via hologram archives of interactions between other characters. Storytelling was one of the nearly glaring sacrifices in service to Space'due south open earth.

But the story wasn't all that was sacrificed at the chantry of the open world. Halo: Combat Evolved, a game that predates Infinite's entrada by more than 20 years, starts aboard The Pillar of Fall, then moves into a wooded woods surroundings very similar to the biome that makes up the bulk of Infinite, after that Combat Evolved moves into a desert canyon, then onto a covenant cruiser, a tropical island, and finally clandestine forerunner tunnels…all in the first iv levels! When accounting for Infinite's above-ground forest biome and cloak-and-dagger maze of precursor tunnels, Combat Evolved features three times the diverseness of setting in its showtime four levels equally Infinite does throughout the unabridged campaign. It is a well-documented fact that the evolution of Space was annihilation only smooth. Every bit the squad at 343 was developing an open world they were undoubtedly faced with challenges that they had never encountered in the context of Halo before. While the team is plainly full of extremely talented developers, that talent doesn't change the fact that the ambition of their vision would exist challenging for any squad in the manufacture. Naturally, as happens with most games, cuts had to be made. While I accept no insider information to confirm this theory, the fact that Halo has historically been a series that features a wide variety of biomes in each entry leads me to believe that biomes were something that had been planned but wound up on the cutting room floor in the interest of getting the game functioning and released.

A wide diverseness of beautiful settings have always brought the levels of Halo to life. The tranquillity snowy journey through Two Betrayals towards the cease of Combat Evolved, the sight of New Alexandria in flames from loftier atop the skyscrapers in Attain, inside the flood infected nightmare in the level Cortana at the stop of Halo 3, and even witnessing the devastation of Meridian in Guardians all brought the player closer to the world in which these stories took identify. Historically Halo'due south storytelling has been largely focused on witnessing immediate the beauty and desperation of the game's worlds. Those stories could have been completely unchanged in every way, aside from their settings, and they withal wouldn't have been able to flourish and come to life to nearly the extent they did. Halo's classic biomes and settings announced to be yet another casualty in pursuit of the open up world.

Because those settings were sacrificed, so to was the level pattern. The various settings, biomes, and geography that fabricated up the Halo games of the past allowed the developers to arts and crafts truly excellent environmental challenges making each new expanse feel unique and memorable. Throughout the older campaigns, with each new level came the new potential for a wide variety of tailored combat sequences. From vehicle gainsay to chases, to low gravity firefights, the Halo campaigns were e'er hiding something new and interesting around the next corner. By virtue of the open earth, Infinite'due south levels are all relegated to underground forerunner tunnels akin to those of the library level in Gainsay Evolved. While this manner was tolerable and fifty-fifty enjoyable while under the duress of the alluvion for one level, it gets erstwhile extremely quickly when those tunnels are all there is to speak of with regard to level design. Revisiting Halo 4 and particularly Guardians proves that 343 is extremely capable when it comes to level design, but any developer's skill is dependent on the level of liberty they have to design environments. Infinite's open up-globe dictated that every enemy run into had to be designed to be approached from whatever direction. Had the game been more than linear those combat scenarios could have been more focused and engaging. As is, Infinite's combat encounters are the definition of quantity over quality. Regardless of how well those forerunner tunnels were designed, when all the game has to offer is tunnels connected by the open world, 1 can't assist but wonder what the designers would take been able to conjure up had they non been shackled to said open earth.

Some of the most memorable moments throughout the entire series of Halo campaigns come from the major action ready pieces. Boarding the scarab in New Mombasa in Halo two felt exhilarating like a top tier action film, cutting the cables on the platform followed by a several minute complimentary fall equally the czar, escaping the Pillar of Fall in a warthog at the cease of Combat Evolved, and fireteam osiris running down the face of the guardian in Guardians all come up to listen as incredible visceral moments from by Halo games. Once over again Space'south open-earth stands in the mode of making those memories or anything similar them in the latest Halo campaign. By the unproblematic nature of open-world design, the onus for the creation of fun is on the thespian rather than the developer. The programmer tin gear up the dominoes merely they take no way of knowing what direction the player will be coming from so they take no way of knowing which domino the thespian will choose to knock downwards offset. Without a tailored feel the big activity set pieces of the past are replaced by a variety of ingredients with which the histrion gets to decide what to practice. While there is nothing wrong with this mode of pattern and in some settings information technology is even preferable, it seems a flake too far a departure for Halo. Not only did I detect my enjoyment of combat scenarios to vary wildly based on approach but the game also lacked any truly memorable scenes leaving no impression where even Guardians left me feeling something.

Storytelling, biomes, environments, level design, set pieces, and so much more were all sacrificed to the open-world gods as 343 chased the latest trend with the Xbox'southward flagship franchise. While Infinite's thirty-2nd gameplay loop is arguably the all-time the series has e'er seen, that 30 seconds over and again combined with a truly excellent grappling hook only isn't enough to carry an experience that is void of so many things that take fabricated past Halo games great. As more than and more elements that are fundamental to the Halo feel presumably hit the cutting room floor the game didn't get bad it just slowly became bland. And in a way, oftentimes it'due south worse to be bland than it is to be bad. A competent and finished game that is bad most of the fourth dimension at least took risks to try to deliver something memorable, Space's campaign feels like 1 of the most risk-averse games in recent memory, which resulted in something that was both fine and entirely forgettable. Hopefully using Infinite every bit the new Halo platform for years to come, 343 will be able to add in new campaigns that render to a more traditional Halo experience.

News writer and Xbox reviewer. Patrick lives in Minneapolis Minnesota with his married woman and their dog Ghost. Patrick studied economic science at the Academy of Northern Colorado and is particularly interested in the market place dynamics of the video game industry. When he's not working Patrick can exist institute walking Ghost through downtown MPLS, binging The West Wing on repeat, or playing hockey. You see everything Patrick does right here on GoombaStomp.com.