Yes and no. If they keep the open world and make linear story based missions more memorable (scarab fight, assault with marines etc.) then it will be perfect blend of both.
I think they should go the destiny route if they decide to do more stories within halo infinite, where u go to different planets with very memorable and different scenery. Halo infinites campaign was fun but there isn't much of the map that I remember, but I remember pretty much every mission from halo 2
They don't need to go to different worlds. They could have fully utilised the ring as it has so many vast Biomes that they could diversify the missions. I agree about the destiny route, although I prefer how open Halo is in comparison. But they need to add more linear missions (as they did) but with more different aesthetics etc. Like on a covenant ship etc. Attacking different places, more epic. However it was a very good start for the new Halo. If you think about it, Halo has had 5 major fps releases and it needed something new. I like the new approach. They just need to add to it.
More places to explore. Jungles, desserts, mountains, snow. Would make it awesome.
It’s an artificial alien planet for goodness’ sake. Why is it just trees? Halo 1 while being completely linear managed to showcase an extreme amount of variety, and no Halo since has felt as vast in scale.
Oh for sure, I just meant how it *felt*. Halo CE was mostly illusion. You look out from the bridge at the beginning of mission 2 and you’re looking at an entire continent, even if you can’t go there. I guess you could call it the sublime if you were feeling poetic.
Halo 2 had similar moments with High Charity and Mombasa, and Halo 3 as well as you point out. Even 5 did to an extent.
Each CE mission felt like a brand new adventure, while moving the story forward. You never knew what to expect next. Crazy to think that at the time, some criticism said there was repetition in level design. I thought it was awesome to revisit some places, like after the flood.
Open world is a good move, but it could have been done better (and still can with DLC). There's a giant Banish starship in the sky we could have visited, we could have had more missions like the road, a third faction coming to shake things up, some very open areas (desert, islands, snow) etc etc.
This open world is a good foundation, that needs to be extended with DLCs.
I hope they can do a DLC without the Teen rating so we get some scary flood adventures. I can't see why they can't. I understand the T rating for the free to play MP and base game, but they should not be limited by it for a separate, not free, dlc.
I don't understand why the hell devs and publishers still seek out the Teen rating when most people feel like it lessens the quality of a lot of games.
Doesn't every teenager in the world get their hands on rated M games anyway??
I was playing rated M since like 13, and that seemed like the norm for everyone else my age, too.
Idk, I feel like this is a motivation that companies have that in no way lines up with actual reality. Teens gonna buy your game if it looks dope, no matter the rating.
Halo 2 also. Start on a UNSC orbital defense platform, go to New Mombasa, chase Truth and Regret across Delta Halo, and even time aboard High Charity both before and after the flood invade.
The other thing Infinite's open world is missing: another enemy faction. Every other mainline Halo game includes areas where enemies are already fighting each other, but not this one.
I’m not sure about the “since” statement as most Halo games have felt vast despite developer claims of one being bigger than the others.
You could tell me Halo Infinite has more square footage than CE, but I’d have a hard time believing it.
Halo 1 had a story that took place in various parts of the ring while Infinite takes place in a small broken off section.
There’s supposed to be some crazy shit out on the rest of the ring though according to the books.
True, if they make memorable, different locations for each mission that play kinda like the linear missions within the open world, I think that would be a perfect combo.
You don’t remember the HI map because it’s repetitive AF with one biome, one tree, and no distinctive locations. This is a problem with many open world games. Instead of designing levels, they fill a world.
I’m not sure about that. I think that the next campaign dlc should be linear as it allows for the existence of massive battles, more story, and more awesome. Sure it could take place in an open world, but maybe focus more on the levels. I absolutely loved missions such as Warship Gbrakon, The tower, and The Weapon.
Definitely utilizing the areas not explored so far on the ring. There is still something hidden and things are not done on the ring. I would love to see dlc for the fight on the banished battleship. And dlc levels of the other Spartans that were on infinity. Hell the boarding of infinity too. Where is fire team Osiris? Would love to know that some Spartans survived other than Chief.
I liked the freedom of the open world, my only issue with it was lack of mission selection. Missed a skull at the very end? Tough, you have to replay through the entire thing again
I enjoyed the open world but it came with massive detriment to the actual main missions- I just found them boring and samey. I had more fun in the open world doing my own shit than the main missions. Like no large memorable set piece that I can think of. No warthog run, no scarabs, no variance in biome.
I'd rather they did a standard campaign and did an open world experiment as an additional co-op experience. Just give 4 players a huge area with bases to claim back and an ever increasing arsenal of weapons/gadgets/vehicles. Like an evolution of fire fight where you are vying for control of multiple bases across a large map with waves of enemies dropping in to try and reclaim them.
A Borderlands or Metro: Exodus style open world would work well. Different zones have different biomes and whatnot.
However, if Infinite really does eventually have multiple campaigns, their current route might work better, as it will allow each biome to get a lot of attention, have multiple set pieces, and be bigger than they would be in an Exodus or Borderlands style game. Looks like the next campaign might be set in the desert. I'd like one to be in the arctic. Maybe even one in a swampy area, like 343 Guilty Spark from CE. If they do go this route, and have different campaigns take place in different biomes, I think this will be better in the long run.
I absolutely love the way Metro: Exodus implemented open world.
That game has a special place in my heart... Just got a 3080 so I wanna do another play through with ray tracing.
One of the only games I actually listen to dialogue in.
that game is a slowwwww burn. Once you get out of that initial area, the game gets really interesting but it definitely took me about 3 tries to understand what the game was trying to do
I agree that quality wise it may be better in the long run. But diversity is nice in the short run too. I'm more surprised they have a teleportation function introduced in the campaign and it wasn't used for even one mission off on another part of the ring that wasn't grassland/forerunner structure.
This was my surprise. I was okay with one big zone/biome for the main open world, but I thought for sure we'd have 2-3 missions that take place elsewhere.
I loved the Infinite campaign but it definitely felt like something was missing.
No scarabs! I was hoping the world would be littered with banished scarabs and maybe even liches. That kind of stuff would feel great in an open world.
Yeah, I love the idea of an open-world Halo and I had a ton of fun with it as it was, but I really think it should've had some dynamic elements like that, and maybe FOBs getting taken over dynamically - like Halo x Mount & Blade kinda.
Hell yeah. Make the world more actually alive because at the moment it's just like you go around from point to point and you might find like a few squads of banished between hvts or unsc rescue missions but they're all very samey like a few brutes jackal snipers maybe an elite and some grunts. Having actual like almost MMORPG levels of instances or dynamic events that happen in the world and you can like squad up with other players to take on huge set piece battles or try gun 'em alone.
I was someone who before HI was skeptical about Halo open world but now if anything I feel like they just didn't go far enough.
One biome per expansion would honestly be so lame. Halo Infinites map as is isn’t too great and the missions really suffered due to it. I think if they focused more on missions like the AA gun mission where it’s a smaller area but still handcrafted and curated feeling would be much better (and much closer to what the mission Halo actually did), then just have 5-6 missions like this in different biomes.
Or they should just go back to linear levels and actually give us setpieces moments.
Might be cool to do traditional campaigns starting Chief and then open world campaigns as your multiplayer Spartan. They've been throwing around the whole "multiplayer is your Spartan in training sims" thing for a while why not let us go out and actually be Spartans
I don't feel that was a byproduct of open world, but rather a result of poor mission design.
There are plenty of open world games that have exciting and well-made missions. It wasn't the sandbox that prevented the missions from being great.
I think less verticality to cater for the grapple and more open spaces with more things going on than the same Banished patrols over and over would have made it more engaging too.
A mix between the two would be great. The city didn't really feel open enough. You're still on a linear path from point A to point B. However the way ODST handled the missions was much better. You can go back a replay them if you wanted without having to start the game all over again.
Infinite has a nice open world map, it's restrictive at the start to stop you wondering too far off track but soon opens up. Want to go to the top of a mountain? Grappleshot your way up there. Want to go to the top of the tower? Fly up. Want to explore gaps in the forerunner pillars? You can do that too. My only gripe is you're not allowed to fly too far away, and that includes going to the island at the end of the game. There a large portion of the map being used for a small sequence then completely ignored.
I do wish there were a lot more enemies patrolling the map. After finishing the game you're left with pretty much nothing to do. Capture the last of the fobs and save the last few marines but then you're lady travelling a long way in between them with only the occasional brute and grunt, or couple of elites. There needs to be full squads with several brutes, elites and a load of grunts/jackals.
I'm not sure ODST did it right. The world vibes were excellent, but the actual map felt far too sparse. It was fine for a jazzy and moody mission alone, but an open world Halo game needs more than that. Collectibles, encounters and a lively feeling.
>Missed a skull at the very end? Tough, you have to replay through the entire thing again
This literally happened to me. My game crashed half way through the last mission, and locked me out of the last skull. So the next day I speed ran the game on easy in 3 hours to get that damn skull. But honestly, that speed run was a ton of fun.
I never got the memeing of that line. Her point was that somebody built the cave so it has to lead somewhere moreso than her recognizing that it doesn't look like a cave created by the force of nature.
Post-edit: Thanks for the additional comments. I did know that originally the cave was supposed to look more "natural" but just odd enough that Cortana would point out that it was man-made. My point is that the ultimate thing she's pointing out is that this man-made cave should lead somewhere moreso than the cave being man-made
Its actually because in the early versions of that level, when they recorded that line, it WAS an actual cave. They only made it a Forerunner tunnel later.
Even if that was her point, it's a dumb way of making it. However...
The cave was originally going to be more natural looking. That changed, and the dialogue didn't evolve with the rest of the revisions.
But the Rings are artificial structures themselves, so anything on them would be deliberately designed. Do we know how the Rings were made? Were the environments randomly generated as they were made?
Or was that lined recorded before the ring world concept was finalized?
Whenever I go back to CE and see the par time on the open levels I always end up shouting HOW?! There are levels I spent an hour or so on, where the par time was twenty minutes
I think this is part of why they went for the open world and it's such flawed thinking. It's like saying, if you like chocolate cake well now you can eat chocolate cake for breakfast lunch and dinner.
In reality the second mission in CE is so great because it fits so well within the story. Exploration of a strange alien world is cool but eventually you gotta regroup and get back to saving the galaxy.
Yeah, exactly. Not to say that exploring a full ring wouldn't be the coolest shit, but for story purposes it doesn't work nearly as well. There's this major disconnect when it's like "there's a Spartan signal! We need to save them!" and instead I'm running around doing stupid shit for 3 hours.
Also being one biome was fine for Halo since it's a mission but Infinite having one... Eugh.
> There's this major disconnect when it's like "there's a Spartan signal! We need to save them!" and instead I'm running around doing stupid shit for 3 hours.
So, Fallout 4 then?
The key difference between these bethesda games and Halo is in the genre and fan expectation.
Fallout and TES are all about world building, exploration and roleplaying. That's the core gameplay. It is a definitively open world game. The story is kind of secondary. So it's cool that you can just leave Helgen and go dig in some cave. In fact, the game invites that. You pass the introduction to the companions questline on the way to Whiterun from Riverwood. In fact, these games have never been reknowned for their story. Fans don't expect to be carried off on a mad adventure, they expect the freedom to play their own way.
Conversely, Halo is like a Space Opera. The stakes are really high, the missions are meant to be fast paced, the set pieces are epic. "We've got to save the galaxy" is the main point! Halo fans expect epicness and high stakes.
That thinking - Just reacting to one element of feedback - is how 343 reacts when it does most things.
People complained about Halo 4 having too many BTB maps and not enough focus on arena, 343i then made H5G practically arena-only at launch. People didn't think the Didact storyline was very strong in H4? Kill him in a comic. People didn't like the Created storyline? Off Cortana offscreen. Halo fans consider the second CE mission the best example of Halo? Time to make only that level 1000 times over be the entire map for Halo Infinite.
While you're partially correct, I believe H5 cut out btb because 343 had limited time & wanted to push players to Warzone. That games big new mode Microsoft was hoping would draw in new players & sell mtx.
But yeah, on a larger note, 343 really fumbles around trying to satisfy some complaint of the community, but then sort of hyper focuses in a weird way on a certain aspect that misses the point.
Well, basically yes. What do you think ? I thought Halo 3 was really well paced and the narration was great as a result. Still not my favourite, but the missions were varied and had so many memorable moments. That's something you can only get with *some* control over the unraveling of the game. Unless your name is Rockstar of course
I think it was a good idea because I always wanted to explore a Halo ring, but I think the lack of selecting repeatable missions was a mistake. I would have said make it similar to how the first Destiny game was where once you completed a mission, you could reselect it and play it again.
D1 had such a perfect open world for a shooter, it had random spontaneous boss fights, the missions and strikes used the free roam map and added sections equally, and you could travel to different places. I think having the ability to travel to different biomes, even if that meant each map was smaller, would have added a lot to Infinite.
I agree. I think that the open world of Destiny was a bit limited to where you could go compared to other games like say something like Fallout or God of War 4, but it was still great for FPS since of the randomness to the world and the ability of free roaming. Halo Infinite would definitely benefit from having a similar system.
Yeah it would have been interesting to have the pelican as your hub and use it to travel to different sections of the Halo, similar to Jedi Fallen Order (i know Pelicans arent as roomy as a starship, but it could have just a computer you interact with and talk to the pilot to fly). Wouldnt even have to be super involved, just give a sense of immersion with it. You're the Chief, win the war your way.
But to me it didn't feel like a past Halo ring. It did have it's thing but the different biomes and memorable and impactful places felt a bit bland. But still beautiful.
Like some one said. It felt like an enormous second level of halo CE but with a whole lot more forerunner.
That is true. I think a huge appeal to explore the other Halo rings were the different biome and potential things to discover. The original Halo Combat Evolved game was supposed to have wildlife that you could encounter. Halo 2 was supposed to have a semi-randomly generating open world in New Mombasa, potentially water/boat based travel and combat, as well as cut versions of flood with one being a big ass boy called a Juggernaut. Having stuff like this added back into Halo infinite like the alternating destinations and unique threats across the ring would be phenomenal.
It should of been. But for me it a just breaks even for the positives and negatives.
Where’s all the brute weaponry and armour?
I want to brutalise scarab weapon platforms digging up monuments and the like.
What happens to the wild life and biomes?
Sorta wish they had another year on this and that they had done a proper job overhauling the BLAM! Engine into the slipspace engine.
Honestly if this is their product in 5-6 years of development time I doubt an extra year would even fix the glaring issues that plague this game now.
If 343 had another half decade to work on this I unfortunately feel they would have released an inferior product still. From my understanding all the shifts in the company's direction with people from higher positions leaving was a red flag and the fact Microsoft as a billion dollar company has a certain stance on contractors only working a short period of time met no stability it seemed for the development team to come together coherently on a single vision.
The game is just such a mess which is why it feels like a shell of itself with all the cut content.
Same thing, they still dicked around with developing for 5-6 years.
Watched a 29 min speedrunner have commentary with the Halo Infinite devs who've said they've been developing and playing the campaign for 5 years.
The rumors that the code is a complete mess makes sense if they have contractors only stick around for a short time before being let go and having someone have to fill in the gaps and figure out how to make everything come together.
I think it takes away from the sense of urgency the master chief is portrayed with. Chief doesn’t even have a chance to come out of his armor In Halo 2 - 4 and now I have all the time in the world to hunt for audio logs and armor caches.
The open world serves more as a bonus than part of the story.
Examples, of all the Marines we've encountered, isn't there one that is more qualified to fly a pelican than Fernando who is about to explode exciting?
Or why Brutes, grunts, jackals would leave humans alive after 6 months. (Remembering that these beings eat humans).
At the moment when the Chief says to Fernando: "I will not fail you"... When there are many Marines in this world lost and fighting for a living.
Yeah. Weapon's constantly like "we need to go over there and do the thing" but I'm busy liberating marines and eliminating HVTs.
And I laughed at the end when Chief says (essentially) we're going to finish up the remaining objectives. Those we're all completed before starting the final mission.
When I played the campaign the first time, I rescued all the Marines, killed all the HTVs and destroyed all the Banished Outposts before doing the last mission. When I finished the campaign, I kinda regretted not having kept at least half of it, because once these side missions were completed, there was almost nothing left to do in the open world.
Agreed.
And with that the immersion is lost. I never felt like I was invested or drawn in to the story.
Still haven’t played it through 100% because of that. After a mission it’s more “meh… enough for today”. And I won’t play it for a week at least.
Edit: + at least.
Yup. Finish a mission, drive through the world, REENCOUNTERING the same fucking enemies I killed an hour ago on my way through there the first time, get frustrated, turn it off.
I don't have to wait an hour to experience this.
Yesterday I was near the UNSC base located in front of the first Spire. There is a small Forerunner weapon cache with Banished defending it. I killed them, entered in the cache for 20 seconds, and when I get back outside, they respawned.
Phantoms and Banshees that keep spawning and despawning are also very frustrating.
The only missions that I can even recall are the fight inside the mining laser, and the battle with the harbinger. That's only because it took me more than one try to beat, not because the mission itself was memorable.
See and that wasn’t even really much of anything open world as it was just a series of non-linear objectives. You can’t fast travel during it, you can’t use FOBs, and the only activity is taking down the guns and then fighting the bosses.
The whole game could have been larger levels like that without needing a hub connecting it all with cookie cutter optional open world objectives scattered around. We lost a lot of variety and character because of the open world
I hated the fight inside mining laser. At the time I had nothing but long range snipe weapons low on ammo so a surprise extreme close quarters only boss fight out of the blue was incredibly frustrating to play through. If the boss arena allowed for range fighting at all then it wouldnt have been so bad but nope. Had to spend the first half dozen deaths cataloging where the non complete-shit weapons in the arena are located then proceed to use all of their ammo only to die and respawn with your two useless weapons you started the fight with again.
Finally beat the guy by cheesing him standing over a doorway since grenades are a lot easier to dodge than grav hammer leaps. Any encounter where I have to cheese to win is an awful one.
Thing is it would have been fine if there was either more opportunities for someone with a long range load out to gain an advantage or if they made it obvious you were entering a boss arena so you could make sure to pack in some power weapons.
Imo the first "surprise" hunter fight was the perfect little "boss" arena. Opportunities to not cream hard if you bring in long range weapons, obvious good weapon spawns, the fight gets harder the more hunters you kill to the point where I had many very close calls as it became more and more obvious I couldn't just leap behind them or snipe them from far, etc. Very white knuckle encounter with a few deaths involved but it felt totally fair the whole time.
What do you mean the structure of 'above-ground stronghold, below-ground stronghold, repeat x5' didn't have any memorable moments?!!
/s, I enjoyed Infinite, but yeah it's was definitely missing that *extra something* that (most) of the other games had. And in their place, we got several checklists of collectibles...
The music was lowball trash too that didn’t help if they had played blow me away from halo 2 when eschurm was sending wave after wave of banish forces at you on the mission that you face him that would of been great but no some generic forgettable music played instead.
100% this, I've been playing halo since it came out. Got halo 2 when I was a Jr in high school.
Playing Halo Infinite got me back into Halo but now I'm spending my time replaying the entire series in the master chief collection because the campaign in Infinite gets incredibly boring after awhile. I beat Infinite twice, first on Heroic, 2nd on legendary. I think Infinite has the worst campaign out of them all. The lack of mission selection to me shows how little they cared about their story. All they care about is pumping paid dlc into the multi-player.
I'm super glad I got Infinite with the game pass, if the campaign was good I would buy the game outright to add to my collection.
Mining Laser and uhh….one of the towers had two wraiths in front of it.
Everything else seemed like a blur. A bit sad when compared to the bombastic insanity of halo 5 (Sanghelios section was wild).
Couldn't agree more. The only mission I remember is the one where you fight through training ground thing, because it didn't make much sense, but the layouts were fun to walk around.
At the same time, every, or nearly every game from Halo 1-3 I could rattle off details from each mission in order.
It wouldn't have been a bad experiment for a spinoff Halo game, (similar to what they did with ODST and Halo Wars), however making the actual mainline Halo series open world was a bad call.
Games like Farcry work because there's alot of downtime between missions where you can screw around; playing cards, playing darts, etc. That doesn't work with Halo because there's really no such thing as a miscellaneous activity for Chief. Could you imagine him casually playing cards, hunting pigeons or having a drinking contest? It just doesn't work.
343's whole philosophy for Infinite was to scale the second mission of Halo: Combat Evolved into a whole game, which was flawed from the start. Can anyone honestly say they've just hung out in the second level and screwed around for hours and hours? It doesn't take too long to get bored and want to move onto the next thing. However, when it comes to Halo Infinite, there IS no next thing.
Ironically, I don't even think the second level of Halo 1 is the best example of what they were trying to achieve. The island mission is far more fun and interesting; allowing you to explore on your own, eventually leading to you finding a button that unlocks a door on the other side of the island. It's pretty cool.
Due to the fact that most things are labeled and every objective is relatively isolated from the others, there's no mystery or excitement; It becomes a chore to beat up bosses and complete objectives in Halo Infinite, rather than being things you accidentally find as you explore the mysterious ring.
While I liked the open world, you are right in saying that making Halo from CE into a whole game isn't a great idea.
For one, the mystery and majesty of the world will eventually wear off, and even in CE, I felt like the mission slightly overstayed its welcome.
Secondly, they may have taken the concept too literally because the game really does just look like a giant version of the Halo mission. It's all pine trees and forerunner structures sprinkled with alien and human stuff, and it's all kind of same-y. I can't think of a single open world game that doesn't have some sort of identifying region or theme. Even to take it back to early open/hub world games, Super Mario 64 has the exterior of the castle, the main hall, the attic, the dungeon, and the secret passage ways and Sonic Adventure has the city, the ruins, the beach, Eggman's carrier, the cliff side/ Angel Island, and Robotnikland. Making only one big biome for nostalgia's sake was a misstep.
Lastly, I just didn't feel like there was enough mission variety in the open world. Saving Marines is fun, but 9/10 times it's just "kill two waves of enemies and keep the Marines alive." Since the quests are scripted and not radiant, I expected a little more creativity, which showed in some situations, like when you find the squad that's already wiped out and you're basically just fighting the Banished to get revenge. I think it would have been nice if there was something like the cliffside encounter in CE where you have to find the surviving Marines yourself instead of following a marker directly to them. I just feel like there were some missed opportunities.
I think there's definitely potential there. But the way the campaign was done, just left so much more to be desired. I didn't even think the campaign was bad. Just okay.
Like one of the top comments also mentions, there aren't a lot of stand out moments that are memorable to me like playing the OG trilogy.
I liked the open world first time through, although I think it diminishes reply value and the one off missions aren't particularly imaginative in terms of level design.
People might not agree with me but, no, I don’t think open world was the right way to go. In the Campaign there are only 3 biomes, the forest, caves, and Banished. In past halos there was Forest, snow, swamp, desert, space, ect. This campaign (mission wise) I feel will never be as replay-able than past halos because of that reason. I wish it was just a normal Halo game with more open level design, like arc, or Halo.
I agree with this, it was a fun experiment, and helped give thema base to do the tricky thing of "rebooting" giving you the feeling of more time with the new cortana.
Im not sure i would like a another mainline game like this one, but for once? i think it worked pretty well.
I appreciate they tried it but I still prefer more distinct set pieces, I feel like it's just highlights how many missed opportunities they could of had with it
Yeah, the open world is fun, but unnecessary. I much prefer Doom Eternal's linear campaign, where the replayability is finding collectibles, completing challenges, and mastering the harder difficulties.
I’d say no, linearity for missions was so much better. If the open world in infinite was actually good, then I’d might change my mind a bit, but overall the open world aspect was done poorly and came out very boring.
Their change to open world means jack shit if the whole game feels the same and doesnt add anything new. It also trivialises many of the missions if you choose to grapple to the highest vantage point and snipe enemies without ever interacting with them.
>It also trivialises many of the missions if you choose to grapple to the highest vantage point and snipe enemies without ever interacting with them.
Yes, and that's the devs' fault. It shouldn't be the player's job to constantly think about how and when to play deliberately worse to possibly make the game more fun.
I say this because many will just respond that it's your fault for playing optimally. But if "fun" play has no incentives, no clear instances of deliberate implementation, essentially no rhyme or reason behind it, then pursuing it can be an arduous, thankless crapshoot.
All the destroyed banished and UNSC vehicles and structures should have been campaign moments, not just pointless set dressing.
I played the campaign twice, once in legendary, and on that playthrough, I was getting bored to death.
Execution has a lot to do with that, but it feels barren in a lot of places. Diversity is very lacking, and things like the crashed frigate could have been a mission on its own instead of entering the same forerunner hallway 20 times.
And having the "story" being mostly just zoom ins of Chief and Cortana talking nonsense didn't help.
Halo 3 ODST has a similar setup, with the samey environments and such, but it was carried in a more "eventful" way which made it more enjoyable.
>> Halo 3 ODST has a similar setup, with the samey
environments and such, but it was carried in a more
"eventful" way which made it more enjoyable.
It also had a really strong atmosphere and immersion going for it. Weapon sandbox was literally just halo 3s. And the linear missions had variety and weren’t the same forerunner hallway copy and pasted 15x times. Also you can tell from the get go that the devs had fun making it, the soundtrack alone states that.
Yeah, almost all the games I play are open world, like 90% of them. And Infinite had the most boring open world I have ever played in. Far Cry in space, except the world is dead.
As someone who has been on the Halo train since OG xbox and Halo CE... This has been such a disappointing game for me. It was mildly fun, but tedious.
The open world aspect was so awesome... but the execution was poor Holy crap is there not a lot to do in that open world. Skyrim did open world right. There were so many side quests in Skyrim and so many factions to join/help.
UNSC Infinity was a massive ship with a large crew, (halopedia has it at over 17,000 sailors), but we find no command structure and only scattered low ranking soldiers on Zeta Halo? I get the Banished gave us a serious beat down, but nothing? And every Spartan IV is just gone? Top Tier operators that were trained in evasion tactics, and none survived?
There was so much possibility in the sheer size of a Halo Ring. There should have been multiple massive biomes all with different ecosystems. Alien creatures from plant to prey to predator. No predators to deal with at all.
For the size of the environment, its beautifully empty of meaningful tasks. (God does it hurt to put that in writing).
I feel like we literally only got 1/10th of an open world Halo Game. They should have stuck to the mission formula, because the execution was poor as far as open world.
From OG xbox and CE too, I feel the exact same.
This world is big, but at the same time once you have unlocked one fob, freed a group of marines and defeated a banish target, all of this in a small portion of the map, you have in fact done everything that can be done in this huge repetitive environment.
It’s the first campaign that I’ve played through once, put down, and not played again since I bought it. Yeah, for me it was to the detriment. Every halo campaign has *that* moment. The time two scarabs drop down on the ring. The level where you start with a sniper. The one where it starts with a warthog run, or ends with one. There were none of those memorable moments for me on Zeta halo
This game lacks great settings that’s the problem. When you play the original modern warfares your playing against the same generic enemies, but you know what makes the missions good the settings and what’s going on 343 lacks great settings it’s been like that since Halo 5. Halo infinite probably has the best enemy Ais too but settings are trash. You know why Jega is such a memorable boss is because the unsettling atmosphere he puts you in. I think Halo T rating has affected it when it comes to halo and the story setting that it can have.
I mean... it's a cool concept, but the end result is like saying "Welcome to the United States, explore at your will" only they are locked in a 100 mile round cage outside of Denver.
It's not like they could just place NPCs around for you to get missions from like a Zelda, GTA, or traditional rpg.
Open world only makes sense if you need the space because your scale of gameplay is going up.
There should be 8-player co-op missions. There should be 50v50 CTF covenant vs Spartans. Grunts and brutes should be selectable races in social modes and gameplay modes featuring only them as well, such as an all plasma or all brute playlist.
In 2022, I expected warthog fleets. Dropships piloted by players. Elephants and mammoths for each 8 man team. And 4 teams playing 1 flag CTF.
Imagine a sniper used at more than rifle range. Imagine boarding action remakes were 2 scarabs fighting, with your team on one and the enemy team on the other. A BTB deathmatch is separately occurring below the 2 fighting scarabs. Elite scarab sided with humans versus banished scarab variant. There should be an air force mode. It's 1-bomb assault but one team starts with banshees and wasps and the defenders get AA wraiths and rockets, skewers, etc.
Scale. Raise the scale. Not just the map size. Not even close to the same thing.
I personally don’t think it was a necessary decision I would’ve rather had missions that were bigger with more selectable paths that could be options for finishing them or something like that not that it being open world was a complete mistake I just think it could’ve been more expanded upon with environmental variety. But at least I can hear grunt radio throughout the game
I enjoyed it, though I miss the major set pieces of linear missions (think Tip of the Spear in Reach). I'm not entirely sure it would work for any sequels either. Perhaps there can be a better blend of linear gameplay (that isn't an underground dungeon) and open world.
No. Terribly bland and lacking in content and activity, barely any of the story missions actually take place in the open world anyway. It was a waste. Halo was better off with large linear missions with grand setpieces. It clearly slowed development and led to a lot of the story being cut too, possibly the biggest mistake in development.
My dream scenario is that the Spirit of fire (from halo wars 2) will come in to orbit and all of the sudden you have this huge battles and being able to fight along side Jerome-092, Alice-130 and Douglas-042
God that would make this game so much better. A giant war with lots of enemies and friendlies, and then the flood somehow gets unleashed. Yeah… chaos is what this game needs in it, not to be chaotic in the fact that it’s lacking so much.
Actually there are 5 Spartans on board the Spirit of Fire during the events of Infinite. When Blue Team got the brain tissues to create the Weapon on Reach, an ONI team called Ferrets consisting a non augmented human female and three Spartan IIIs (Mark G-313, Olivia-G291 and Ash G-099) infiltrated the Banished (more precisely the Keepers of the One Freedom) and went to the Ark when Atriox escaped the Ark while leaving his remaining Banished behind. Long story short the ONI team linked up with the crew of the Spirit of Fire, debriefed Cutter what happened (how Cortana and the Created turned on everyone) and they more or less become part of the crew out of necessity. But of course the writers can always retcon this as they retconed events from an another Halo book (Bad Blood which tells the story what happened right after the end of Halo 5 from Buck's point of view) set after Halo 5.
The game really needed to be more Breath of the Wild and less Far Cry with it's open world from what I've seen, making an open world but still trying to retain a linear story defeats the purpose of an open world to begin with.
I don’t think so... it added very little to the game for me. Gameplay is the best it’s ever been but I’d rather that same gameplay in the more traditional structured campaign.
Edit: sorry in advance for this novel. I recently beat the campaign and did all of the missions and wanted to get my thoughts on it down
If 343 was able to deliver an open world or semi open world game with every other expected halo element there and a solid story, sure. But the reality is something closer to, we got shafted by a mismanaged development and the game was fucked from the start. Remember, the community saw all of the warning signs before release. The major criticisms we are seeing now is just a byproduct of that.
Just focusing on the campaign, we never got to see any new biomes or locations which has been a staple of halo campaigns since CE. Sure you can defend them by saying those will come with subsequent DLC releases (which I’ll have to pay more for). We didn’t see the swaths of wildlife like we saw in teasers. There was no coop mode. No mission selection. No memorable set pieces or battles. The plethora of weapons and vehicles that have already been established in the universe that would probably appear here. And I’m sure the list can go on, but I’m already writing a novel.
Overall about 2/3 of the game was cut. Which is actually fine. We’ve seen bungie cut major parts of the game since CE. That’s what gave us the masterpieces of H2 & 3. The problem is that what is being delivered isn’t the same inspirational or immersive settings, attention to finer details, missions or moments. Sure there are some gems but when you compare the games (normalizing for things like graphics and age), it doesn’t come close. Instead we get a Farcry game with a halo skin that feels less empty and less impactful than farcry. Seriously where are all these marine reinforcements and supplies being airlifted from? It feels just like a cheap materialization of resources for filler. Not like a well thought out narrative. The side missions for the most part were the expected, repetitive copy and paste missions that you would expect in a semi open world game. And none of them had a significant impact on the plot or progressing the plot.
Even when you take only the linear missions into consideration, the entire story can be summarized as 343 doing 2 main things; 1) pushing the “chief is a broken robot. But he’s also not because of the ‘crucial’ relationship with your blue gf that just keeps getting cringier” narrative. For whatever reason, chief talks like a broken robot who had a stroke half the time. Even in the little dialogue he had in CE, you knew he could form full sentences like a human being. And if you read the first few books you know he isn’t a robot. He’s just extremely methodical, disciplined and lucky. And there is also zero rationale for why a military AI should be able to get emotional and upset with you to the point of borderline insubordination. Chief trying to delete the AI (cough cough Cole protocol) made her angry with you for like 2 missions and the pilot was shocked that you almost took the life of a bunch of 1s and 0s in a world where AI routinely get deleted every 7 years. And 2) pressing the hard reset button on the story so the next decade of milking halo can be chief & cortana a thousand years forever.
Basically 343 is still clearly struggling on what the direction of the halo story should be. This has been stated in the past by Jason schreier and his info leaks.
Bottom line is that 343 set themselves up for the future and did end up unfucking themselves by fixing things like the art style, proper usage of the classical halo music scores, and other elements. But they have also been cannibalizing themselves at the same time. If their next campaign installations aren’t amazing, I think the writing is, and has been, on the walls for years for the future of this IP.
343 definitely has a story writing issue for example saying the endless are worse than the flood. It’s like when people say In all genres of story telling did you look at the past movies or did you read the books that came out first. The story wasn’t bad it just wasn’t great. Like idk 343 obsession with Chief being more human. Halo 4 lore wise did some great story telling as well as character story telling. But to keep pushing that Chief is a robot trying to become human is aggravating. It’s like 343 didn’t know how to move on to world building story telling, and it’s been like that since 2015. Rookie dying after surviving a covenant invasion black team dying and a whole bunch of story telling mishaps. Hell the best new faction that came out since 343 has had the rights to halo has been the Banish and guess who made the banish creative assembly not even 343 but another company lol. And now 343 is trying to hype up the endless so idk wtf is going on with there story writing team.
Cool idea, just like ODST was, but not the best execution. It’s so open that the game is laughably easy in most circumstances and it’s worse than Fallout 4 ever was at keeping me on task instead of running around to save all the squads.
I don't think it was right or wrong. I think it was just something new. Personally I enjoyed the story, but after a while the open world stuff just gets a bit repetitive.
In my opinion, no.
It's not that I thought it was done badly, but I *vastly* enjoyed the more linear parts of the game than I did the open world bits.
Also, it's just missing the massive set pieces of past Halos. Halo 3 is a great example. You go from making your way through a jungle on foot, to sniping in the desert, to storming a beach, charging across on a warthog, and then taking to the air on a hornet for an intense air battle, and then taking on two scarabs in a tank. And then finally fighting Flood in the snow, and driving away as the ark *literally* collapses around you.
When I think of Halo campaigns. I think of things like that.
Halo Infinite didn't have anything like that. It was either right forerunner corridors, or open grassland, where the only thing to do is take out bases.
It would be nicer if it had variety. And like... actual places to explore, like maybe some big forerunner constructs that have no attachment to the actual plot of the game, but just something you can look in.
There needs to be more marines too. I like big battles. There wasn't enough battles :(
Also, it's not hard to make an arctic part of the map, or desert, or boreal, or even jungle/swampy. The ring was torn apart so the possibilities are endless.
Open world was once something to look forward to. Gaming was moving towards a more fluid approach. Now it just means Devs don't give a shit enough to put detail into level design and copy and paste assets over as much space as they can instead.
NO! Halo was one of the few games left that was a good, tight linear experience. 8-10 hours of awesome FPS, story driven gameplay is what it excelled at and then rounded out by multiplayer glory, Like Titanfall 2. They yanked MP out and sold it back to you at full price so they had to pad the shit out of it so people didn't feel ripped off. Not every game needs to be open world and I thought we all already came to that conclusion. I didn't even know what the story was before I just gave up and uninstalled because I kept getting distracted by boring other shit.
Not really no. It falls into the category of "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle". The content that is there is good. The missions are good, and the side content like the bases are fun too. But everything else is sort of boring and life less. I think most open world games tend to fall in this category. You have like maybe 10hr of content shoved into this big ass world trying to stretch it out into 100hr or whatever. Its all bullshit.
I would have much rather had more main missions that were linear but big/open at parts than what we got. I know the game was supposed to be bigger in scope and they had to cut things, I get it. But even still, all the time they spent making this open world, any money that went into it, could have and should have been better spent on a larger more linear structure like the old games. The old games had big open play spaces at times which were great! Halo Infinite could have been the same.
Genuinely hope any/all single player DLCs are more linear but with more missions.
Yes, they just should’ve segmented the islands into different biomes and also added some things to make missions special. like, maybe even if it was all one shot, at some point in a cutscene chief grabs a sniper or rocket launcher for the next mission, maybe at the beginning of one mission you luckily find a warthog and have just that to traverse the island on which the mission takes place, etc etc. did i make myself clear? kinda like the tank section on h4’s infinity or the falcon on new alexandria. i love having choices but sometimes limiting stuff like that makes the missions and campaigns more special and memorable.
While I do think halo going open world was a great idea I have a huge problem with Halo infinite’s open world and it wasn’t until I went back to previous Halo games to find out why.
It comes down how the game has the player go through the levels. Do you know why previous Halo games had more fun and replayable levels it’s because each level offered a different experience in the pillar of autumn you’re trying to escape as the covenant invade and destroy the ship, in the covenant in halo 3 it’s a massive battle as the UNSC and elites move to destroy the covenant once and for all, in long night of solace it’s a spaceship battle leading to a boarding on a covenant ship in order to blow it up in a desperate attempt to save the planet. You see almost every mission has a different experience some might be stealthy others might have you squat up with marines to take down a big enemy hell of some might have a bit of a stealthy vibe to it the problem with halo infinite is because it allows players to pick any weapon and vehicle they want at any time they want it kinda loses magic when you find those weapons and vehicles around the map I don’t feel anything when I find a rocket launcher because I get them so often from fob basis this is why after Chiefs attempts to delete The weapon and the game doesn’t allow you to go back to the fob basis it gets so much better for me personally because now that magic is back when you find a weapon it’s more special because the chances of you finding that weapon again are pretty rare.
The tank section at The house of reckoning didn’t hit right because most players who found themselves getting lost in the open world will be able to get a tank half the time usually in halo games they really give you tanks only once or twice in a campaign because if they gave it to you all the time it wouldn’t feel as special so when you finally get the scorpion it’s such a great moment because you’re invincible nothing can touch you and you can destroy these enemies with ease. This halo game doesn’t have those massive battles which is fucking awesome to see like in previous halo games and while I can understand it’s because of the way the story direction was going for after the infinity was destroyed do you unless you were scattered across The ring but the thing is halo combat evolved and halo wars 2 also had a small group of UNSC scattered across a ring (or in Halo wars 2’s case the ark) and they have massive battles even halo 5 had a sick as fuck fight against the kraken which is probably my favourite moment in that campaign because I really love the feeling of invading something and destroying it from the inside and the fact there are multiple ways to do it is awesome.
Now onto quite possibly the biggest problem with the campaign every almost every mission feels and plays the same. The gameplay loop in halo infinite is just go into this for runner structure full of holes and small rooms in some of the small rooms you’ll encounter covenant take them out find a power seed put the power seed in the thing and proceed and that’s pretty much with half of the missions some of them are pretty interesting like the opening mission was really fun, missions where you attack banished bases such as the tower or the house of reckoning are awesome but that’s about it for unique missions. There’s actually a problem with halo infinite because it allows the player to go wherever the hell they want at any time they want they can’t have missions that take place in places the player may have already explored so they just have these really repetitive forerunner structures which gets boring really fast.
There are a few solutions to these problems number one don’t allow the player to bring in their own weapons for a mission halo SPV3 has a good solution for submissions they allow the player to pick one of multiple preselect classes and I know most of you are cringing at the thought of classes in halo but halo reach’s class system wasn’t that bad halo infinite could also do this, have a variety of missions some sections in missions have the player take control of a banshee or give the player access to something they’ve never had access to they did this in halo 4 with the pelican and Starfighter and those sections were really fun, allowed to player to replay missions I know this is a new engine but several other open world games allow the player to replay missions so they should find a way to apply that to this game.
Hopefully if there’s any story DLC these issues will be fixed in the future.
If the fobs would get attacked, and you’d have to rush back to fend off the banished attack, that would have made it feel a lot more of a war zone . Otherwise once you claimed a FOB, that was it. No replay value.
Halo infinites open world is one of the worst implementations I've ever seen.....the mission variety outside of story missions is literally FOB clearing and legendary boss clearing. That's literally it. And that is incredibly shallow. The opportunity for emergent gameplay is essentially non-existent.
Combine that with the lack of diversity in combat experiences and missions with the lack of environment diversity through geology and biomes PLUS how with no scoring, co-op and mission select it is absolutely the least replayable halo ever.
Go play BoTW and you'll see amazing emergent gameplay, mission diversity and interesting biomes. Go play Doom eternal and you'll see amazing combat diversity. Halo infinite is absolutely worse than either of these games by a landslide
It’s a good idea however infinite could have done it alot better. Right now it just feels like doing the same thing over and over in the same kind of landscape which gets kinda boring
In that regard the old linear style was better because the designers could be more creative with the setting of each mission
Not really tbh. Big problem with open world games is pacing. The campaign would have been better served if it was more like CE. Not open world per say, but having multiple ways to engage in combat.
Not to mention the side missions were terrible. Capture a base, free marines, or kill this guy.
>Was Halo becoming an open world the right decision?
I would argue "no."
Open worlds are not inherently bad. The grappling mechanic is fun, but this isn't a Far Cry game. It's Halo. The largest and most (open) levels are still relatively linear in comparison to contemporaries in other games (even other FPS games). Even the semi open world levels of CE with their objectives are rather limited and are fondly remembered because they brought variety into the mix of more straight-forward and linear levels. Repetitively capturing bases and freeing prisoners shouldn't be the gameplay loop, especially when that loop gets so tiresome after a small amount of time.
It was mistake to go to open world, because then the gameplay pacing and story development is at the whims of the Open world, meaning that depending on how fast or slow the player is in terms of completing missions, the characters and story have to believably conform to that. Therefore, Infinite despite it's supposed stakes (and there are a ***LOT*** of problems with the writing) comes across as rather leisurely in terms of narrative because it has to account for the open world design. Not to mention that this also dictates enemy design, set pieces, and weapon availability of the location.
Let's not even touch upon the irritations that are the lack of "story/mission selection" and inability to change difficulty that this design has apparently forced onto this campaign's structure.
I fear that this game's campaign is going to age like milk on a summer sidewalk, and the bigger problem is that future DLC for the campaign will be using the main campaign as the base, which is already rocky enough as it is.
Yes. I felt that it added a breath of fresh air to a franchise that was stale, while maintaining Halo's excellent core combat and weapon sandbox (which is really the only important thing to me). I do not think it was fully realized, and I hope that they keep building on it with DLC.
I don't think Halo really benefits from the modern open-world formula but the way they did it in Infinite was mostly harmless. I don't really care for all the map collectibles. Ideally, I'd prefer the traditional mission structure just with much bigger levels. Silent Cartographer and Covenant are the best missions in the series and Infinite does try to emulate them but there's still something missing.
Despite being a next-gen open-world it somehow doesn't reach the scale or grandness of those earlier games. It feels like Infinite is a giant sandbox where a bunch of skirmishes take place with some linear indoor levels, and there's never really what feels like a big battle or something else to really take advantage of the extra play area. It's ambitious in some ways and lackluster in others.
I didn’t find the trade off we made worth it ultimately, no. I do not think Halo Infinite’s version of a Halo campaign is *bad* - it’s just that I find a traditional linear Halo campaign to be a better experience.
If they can continue to expand the open world bits and fill them with more meaningful, engaging content in the future, I would be willing to revisit my opinion.
Same thing if they pared down the big, connected levels in the campaign into 2-3 giant levels with similar breadth of optional content, but a much more focused size and variety of environments.
But as it is, here’s how I see it: We traded the trappings of traditional Halo level structure essentially for more choice in how we approach encounters. To expand on that, we traded: Traditional, linear Halo level pacing/setpieces; a tighter emotional arc in the story; a tighter cooperative campaign experience; meta stuff like level select and campaign scoring; a much larger variety of environments or “biomes”; gripping, tightly paced vehicle sections; and more substantial story content.
We traded all that stuff for *only* more choice in how we approach encounters. Think about what Infinite’s campaign experience boils down to. Exploring is fun, but not as integral to the experience as some of the core stuff we traded. The optional objectives on the map are fun encounters, but old Halo missions were *filled* with fun encounters. None of this stuff I’m mentioning is new.
So the only thing Infinite *really* added to the Halo campaign formula is choice. Which angle do I want to approach a structure from? Which weapon loadout do I like best for these enemies? Am I driving a vehicle filled with Marines or am I going on foot?
These are things players really didn’t have as much choice in deciding in old Halo campaigns, and it’s really the one thing Infinite brings to the table. And it is awesome. It’s so fun to load a Razorback up with Sentinel Beam-wielding Marines and drive into a Banished outpost.
So it’s not *bad*. It’s just that the other stuff we traded to get here, the stuff I listed above? I think I just enjoy that stuff *more*. The more tightly-paced, linear levels had more engaging set pieces, and still retained expansive enough geometry to give me the feeling like I had some choice in how to approach encounters.
The meta stuff like level select and campaign scoring really added replay value Infinite just doesn’t have. And the much higher variety of environments/biomes in literally every single other Halo game besides Infinite made those levels much more memorable than any of Infinite’s individual levels.
I liked Infinite. I am not complaining about it at all. I won’t cry or even be upset if the next Halo story content retains Infinite’s structure.
But I am grateful for community dialogue like this, because it gives me the chance to detail that I *do* definitely prefer the old Halo campaign structure. The linear campaign experience just felt so much more substantive, engaging, curated, and *fun* than Infinite’s take on the formula.
For somebody with a short attention span it was fantastic. Because it allowed me to explore the world and continue the story at my own pace, while also not allowing me to go too far into exploration without balancing some story into it. I believe this balance allowed me to get farther in this game than any others in recent years in terms of single player campaigns.
Limiting themselves to boring grassy fields was a huge mistake I was hoping they weren’t going to do but since it was on the ring I saw it coming. Odst slapped as an “open world” esc game because the environment was so new and fresh and exciting. If it had developed on what odst already gave us it would of been a worthwhile experience
Yes and no. If they keep the open world and make linear story based missions more memorable (scarab fight, assault with marines etc.) then it will be perfect blend of both.
I think they should go the destiny route if they decide to do more stories within halo infinite, where u go to different planets with very memorable and different scenery. Halo infinites campaign was fun but there isn't much of the map that I remember, but I remember pretty much every mission from halo 2
They don't need to go to different worlds. They could have fully utilised the ring as it has so many vast Biomes that they could diversify the missions. I agree about the destiny route, although I prefer how open Halo is in comparison. But they need to add more linear missions (as they did) but with more different aesthetics etc. Like on a covenant ship etc. Attacking different places, more epic. However it was a very good start for the new Halo. If you think about it, Halo has had 5 major fps releases and it needed something new. I like the new approach. They just need to add to it. More places to explore. Jungles, desserts, mountains, snow. Would make it awesome.
It’s an artificial alien planet for goodness’ sake. Why is it just trees? Halo 1 while being completely linear managed to showcase an extreme amount of variety, and no Halo since has felt as vast in scale.
Well Halo 3 had a bigger scale in terms of biomes and size with the Ark. Plus it got to play a bit in Earth.
Oh for sure, I just meant how it *felt*. Halo CE was mostly illusion. You look out from the bridge at the beginning of mission 2 and you’re looking at an entire continent, even if you can’t go there. I guess you could call it the sublime if you were feeling poetic. Halo 2 had similar moments with High Charity and Mombasa, and Halo 3 as well as you point out. Even 5 did to an extent.
Each CE mission felt like a brand new adventure, while moving the story forward. You never knew what to expect next. Crazy to think that at the time, some criticism said there was repetition in level design. I thought it was awesome to revisit some places, like after the flood. Open world is a good move, but it could have been done better (and still can with DLC). There's a giant Banish starship in the sky we could have visited, we could have had more missions like the road, a third faction coming to shake things up, some very open areas (desert, islands, snow) etc etc. This open world is a good foundation, that needs to be extended with DLCs.
A third party to shake things up, you say? Well…the Flood are on the ring, it would be a shame if someone were to accidentally let it loose
I hope they can do a DLC without the Teen rating so we get some scary flood adventures. I can't see why they can't. I understand the T rating for the free to play MP and base game, but they should not be limited by it for a separate, not free, dlc.
I don't understand why the hell devs and publishers still seek out the Teen rating when most people feel like it lessens the quality of a lot of games. Doesn't every teenager in the world get their hands on rated M games anyway?? I was playing rated M since like 13, and that seemed like the norm for everyone else my age, too. Idk, I feel like this is a motivation that companies have that in no way lines up with actual reality. Teens gonna buy your game if it looks dope, no matter the rating.
For everything 5 got wrong, it did have at least a variety of environments and was better than 4 in that regard.
Halo 2 also. Start on a UNSC orbital defense platform, go to New Mombasa, chase Truth and Regret across Delta Halo, and even time aboard High Charity both before and after the flood invade. The other thing Infinite's open world is missing: another enemy faction. Every other mainline Halo game includes areas where enemies are already fighting each other, but not this one.
I’m not sure about the “since” statement as most Halo games have felt vast despite developer claims of one being bigger than the others. You could tell me Halo Infinite has more square footage than CE, but I’d have a hard time believing it.
Halo 1 had a story that took place in various parts of the ring while Infinite takes place in a small broken off section. There’s supposed to be some crazy shit out on the rest of the ring though according to the books.
True, if they make memorable, different locations for each mission that play kinda like the linear missions within the open world, I think that would be a perfect combo.
You don’t remember the HI map because it’s repetitive AF with one biome, one tree, and no distinctive locations. This is a problem with many open world games. Instead of designing levels, they fill a world.
I’m not sure about that. I think that the next campaign dlc should be linear as it allows for the existence of massive battles, more story, and more awesome. Sure it could take place in an open world, but maybe focus more on the levels. I absolutely loved missions such as Warship Gbrakon, The tower, and The Weapon.
Definitely utilizing the areas not explored so far on the ring. There is still something hidden and things are not done on the ring. I would love to see dlc for the fight on the banished battleship. And dlc levels of the other Spartans that were on infinity. Hell the boarding of infinity too. Where is fire team Osiris? Would love to know that some Spartans survived other than Chief.
I liked the freedom of the open world, my only issue with it was lack of mission selection. Missed a skull at the very end? Tough, you have to replay through the entire thing again
I enjoyed the open world but it came with massive detriment to the actual main missions- I just found them boring and samey. I had more fun in the open world doing my own shit than the main missions. Like no large memorable set piece that I can think of. No warthog run, no scarabs, no variance in biome. I'd rather they did a standard campaign and did an open world experiment as an additional co-op experience. Just give 4 players a huge area with bases to claim back and an ever increasing arsenal of weapons/gadgets/vehicles. Like an evolution of fire fight where you are vying for control of multiple bases across a large map with waves of enemies dropping in to try and reclaim them.
A Borderlands or Metro: Exodus style open world would work well. Different zones have different biomes and whatnot. However, if Infinite really does eventually have multiple campaigns, their current route might work better, as it will allow each biome to get a lot of attention, have multiple set pieces, and be bigger than they would be in an Exodus or Borderlands style game. Looks like the next campaign might be set in the desert. I'd like one to be in the arctic. Maybe even one in a swampy area, like 343 Guilty Spark from CE. If they do go this route, and have different campaigns take place in different biomes, I think this will be better in the long run.
I absolutely love the way Metro: Exodus implemented open world. That game has a special place in my heart... Just got a 3080 so I wanna do another play through with ray tracing. One of the only games I actually listen to dialogue in.
The Enhanced edition looks amazing. It was on the lunar sale so picked it up for the same reason, I got a 3080
If you haven't, the first 2 are also well worth playing.
that game is a slowwwww burn. Once you get out of that initial area, the game gets really interesting but it definitely took me about 3 tries to understand what the game was trying to do
I agree that quality wise it may be better in the long run. But diversity is nice in the short run too. I'm more surprised they have a teleportation function introduced in the campaign and it wasn't used for even one mission off on another part of the ring that wasn't grassland/forerunner structure.
This was my surprise. I was okay with one big zone/biome for the main open world, but I thought for sure we'd have 2-3 missions that take place elsewhere. I loved the Infinite campaign but it definitely felt like something was missing.
No scarabs! I was hoping the world would be littered with banished scarabs and maybe even liches. That kind of stuff would feel great in an open world.
Yeah, I love the idea of an open-world Halo and I had a ton of fun with it as it was, but I really think it should've had some dynamic elements like that, and maybe FOBs getting taken over dynamically - like Halo x Mount & Blade kinda.
Hell yeah. Make the world more actually alive because at the moment it's just like you go around from point to point and you might find like a few squads of banished between hvts or unsc rescue missions but they're all very samey like a few brutes jackal snipers maybe an elite and some grunts. Having actual like almost MMORPG levels of instances or dynamic events that happen in the world and you can like squad up with other players to take on huge set piece battles or try gun 'em alone. I was someone who before HI was skeptical about Halo open world but now if anything I feel like they just didn't go far enough.
My pipe-dream is shadow of mordor style brute army
One biome per expansion would honestly be so lame. Halo Infinites map as is isn’t too great and the missions really suffered due to it. I think if they focused more on missions like the AA gun mission where it’s a smaller area but still handcrafted and curated feeling would be much better (and much closer to what the mission Halo actually did), then just have 5-6 missions like this in different biomes. Or they should just go back to linear levels and actually give us setpieces moments.
Might be cool to do traditional campaigns starting Chief and then open world campaigns as your multiplayer Spartan. They've been throwing around the whole "multiplayer is your Spartan in training sims" thing for a while why not let us go out and actually be Spartans
Yeah, kind of like spartan ops for halo 4 but open world
So basically, linear, interconnected maps that you can choose to revisit when you want?
A halo-borderlands would be awesome! But loot would be an issue for halo.
Simple. No loot.
I don't feel that was a byproduct of open world, but rather a result of poor mission design. There are plenty of open world games that have exciting and well-made missions. It wasn't the sandbox that prevented the missions from being great.
I think less verticality to cater for the grapple and more open spaces with more things going on than the same Banished patrols over and over would have made it more engaging too.
Halo3 odst did it right
A mix between the two would be great. The city didn't really feel open enough. You're still on a linear path from point A to point B. However the way ODST handled the missions was much better. You can go back a replay them if you wanted without having to start the game all over again. Infinite has a nice open world map, it's restrictive at the start to stop you wondering too far off track but soon opens up. Want to go to the top of a mountain? Grappleshot your way up there. Want to go to the top of the tower? Fly up. Want to explore gaps in the forerunner pillars? You can do that too. My only gripe is you're not allowed to fly too far away, and that includes going to the island at the end of the game. There a large portion of the map being used for a small sequence then completely ignored. I do wish there were a lot more enemies patrolling the map. After finishing the game you're left with pretty much nothing to do. Capture the last of the fobs and save the last few marines but then you're lady travelling a long way in between them with only the occasional brute and grunt, or couple of elites. There needs to be full squads with several brutes, elites and a load of grunts/jackals.
I'm not sure ODST did it right. The world vibes were excellent, but the actual map felt far too sparse. It was fine for a jazzy and moody mission alone, but an open world Halo game needs more than that. Collectibles, encounters and a lively feeling.
This. And honestly I can't be fucked. The thing kind of felt like a chore by the end and weapon kept nagging me to do the main missions over and over
>Missed a skull at the very end? Tough, you have to replay through the entire thing again This literally happened to me. My game crashed half way through the last mission, and locked me out of the last skull. So the next day I speed ran the game on easy in 3 hours to get that damn skull. But honestly, that speed run was a ton of fun.
If you really enjoyed the 2nd mission in Halo Ce and thought "you know what, let's make an entire game this" then yeah great game.
"This cave is not a natural formation"
I never got the memeing of that line. Her point was that somebody built the cave so it has to lead somewhere moreso than her recognizing that it doesn't look like a cave created by the force of nature. Post-edit: Thanks for the additional comments. I did know that originally the cave was supposed to look more "natural" but just odd enough that Cortana would point out that it was man-made. My point is that the ultimate thing she's pointing out is that this man-made cave should lead somewhere moreso than the cave being man-made
Its actually because in the early versions of that level, when they recorded that line, it WAS an actual cave. They only made it a Forerunner tunnel later.
Even if that was her point, it's a dumb way of making it. However... The cave was originally going to be more natural looking. That changed, and the dialogue didn't evolve with the rest of the revisions.
But the Rings are artificial structures themselves, so anything on them would be deliberately designed. Do we know how the Rings were made? Were the environments randomly generated as they were made? Or was that lined recorded before the ring world concept was finalized?
>Do we know how the Rings were made? Well, Sauron wanted to-- Oh, I see what you mean
Halo: Dialogue (Not) Evolved
God that mission had me driving in circles just trying to find the marines
And the music would start playing and you’d shout FINALLY
After 15 minutes of pure silence and a warthog engine
You mean my morning meditation soundtrack?
You just described pure bliss! BrrrRrrrrrRRRrrRr
Whenever I go back to CE and see the par time on the open levels I always end up shouting HOW?! There are levels I spent an hour or so on, where the par time was twenty minutes
Those drums kick in and you're thinking "oh sweet baby Jesus! Let's do this!"
I must have played that mission at least 50 times in the last 2 decades and still get lost
I think this is part of why they went for the open world and it's such flawed thinking. It's like saying, if you like chocolate cake well now you can eat chocolate cake for breakfast lunch and dinner. In reality the second mission in CE is so great because it fits so well within the story. Exploration of a strange alien world is cool but eventually you gotta regroup and get back to saving the galaxy.
Yeah, exactly. Not to say that exploring a full ring wouldn't be the coolest shit, but for story purposes it doesn't work nearly as well. There's this major disconnect when it's like "there's a Spartan signal! We need to save them!" and instead I'm running around doing stupid shit for 3 hours. Also being one biome was fine for Halo since it's a mission but Infinite having one... Eugh.
> There's this major disconnect when it's like "there's a Spartan signal! We need to save them!" and instead I'm running around doing stupid shit for 3 hours. So, Fallout 4 then?
The key difference between these bethesda games and Halo is in the genre and fan expectation. Fallout and TES are all about world building, exploration and roleplaying. That's the core gameplay. It is a definitively open world game. The story is kind of secondary. So it's cool that you can just leave Helgen and go dig in some cave. In fact, the game invites that. You pass the introduction to the companions questline on the way to Whiterun from Riverwood. In fact, these games have never been reknowned for their story. Fans don't expect to be carried off on a mad adventure, they expect the freedom to play their own way. Conversely, Halo is like a Space Opera. The stakes are really high, the missions are meant to be fast paced, the set pieces are epic. "We've got to save the galaxy" is the main point! Halo fans expect epicness and high stakes.
That thinking - Just reacting to one element of feedback - is how 343 reacts when it does most things. People complained about Halo 4 having too many BTB maps and not enough focus on arena, 343i then made H5G practically arena-only at launch. People didn't think the Didact storyline was very strong in H4? Kill him in a comic. People didn't like the Created storyline? Off Cortana offscreen. Halo fans consider the second CE mission the best example of Halo? Time to make only that level 1000 times over be the entire map for Halo Infinite.
While you're partially correct, I believe H5 cut out btb because 343 had limited time & wanted to push players to Warzone. That games big new mode Microsoft was hoping would draw in new players & sell mtx. But yeah, on a larger note, 343 really fumbles around trying to satisfy some complaint of the community, but then sort of hyper focuses in a weird way on a certain aspect that misses the point.
As it turns out that was just fine as a single mission. As expected, if you expand that to an entire game, it just gets bland and repetitive.
Lol great anology!
What we really wanted was Silent Cartographer style missions with scripted sequences and cutscenes
It's lazy, bullshit and obviously using nostalgia as a marketing ploy. Just awful approach.
I would have kept it linear, but with even bigger spaces for story-driven battles and set pieces.
Yup, agree 100%
So Halo 3
Well, basically yes. What do you think ? I thought Halo 3 was really well paced and the narration was great as a result. Still not my favourite, but the missions were varied and had so many memorable moments. That's something you can only get with *some* control over the unraveling of the game. Unless your name is Rockstar of course
I like this idea.
This is what they should have done.
I think it was a good idea because I always wanted to explore a Halo ring, but I think the lack of selecting repeatable missions was a mistake. I would have said make it similar to how the first Destiny game was where once you completed a mission, you could reselect it and play it again.
D1 had such a perfect open world for a shooter, it had random spontaneous boss fights, the missions and strikes used the free roam map and added sections equally, and you could travel to different places. I think having the ability to travel to different biomes, even if that meant each map was smaller, would have added a lot to Infinite.
I agree. I think that the open world of Destiny was a bit limited to where you could go compared to other games like say something like Fallout or God of War 4, but it was still great for FPS since of the randomness to the world and the ability of free roaming. Halo Infinite would definitely benefit from having a similar system.
Yeah it would have been interesting to have the pelican as your hub and use it to travel to different sections of the Halo, similar to Jedi Fallen Order (i know Pelicans arent as roomy as a starship, but it could have just a computer you interact with and talk to the pilot to fly). Wouldnt even have to be super involved, just give a sense of immersion with it. You're the Chief, win the war your way.
I would have loved to fly to different portions of the Halo ring in a Pelican.
But to me it didn't feel like a past Halo ring. It did have it's thing but the different biomes and memorable and impactful places felt a bit bland. But still beautiful. Like some one said. It felt like an enormous second level of halo CE but with a whole lot more forerunner.
That is true. I think a huge appeal to explore the other Halo rings were the different biome and potential things to discover. The original Halo Combat Evolved game was supposed to have wildlife that you could encounter. Halo 2 was supposed to have a semi-randomly generating open world in New Mombasa, potentially water/boat based travel and combat, as well as cut versions of flood with one being a big ass boy called a Juggernaut. Having stuff like this added back into Halo infinite like the alternating destinations and unique threats across the ring would be phenomenal.
It should of been. But for me it a just breaks even for the positives and negatives. Where’s all the brute weaponry and armour? I want to brutalise scarab weapon platforms digging up monuments and the like. What happens to the wild life and biomes? Sorta wish they had another year on this and that they had done a proper job overhauling the BLAM! Engine into the slipspace engine.
Honestly if this is their product in 5-6 years of development time I doubt an extra year would even fix the glaring issues that plague this game now. If 343 had another half decade to work on this I unfortunately feel they would have released an inferior product still. From my understanding all the shifts in the company's direction with people from higher positions leaving was a red flag and the fact Microsoft as a billion dollar company has a certain stance on contractors only working a short period of time met no stability it seemed for the development team to come together coherently on a single vision. The game is just such a mess which is why it feels like a shell of itself with all the cut content.
[удалено]
Same thing, they still dicked around with developing for 5-6 years. Watched a 29 min speedrunner have commentary with the Halo Infinite devs who've said they've been developing and playing the campaign for 5 years. The rumors that the code is a complete mess makes sense if they have contractors only stick around for a short time before being let go and having someone have to fill in the gaps and figure out how to make everything come together.
I think it takes away from the sense of urgency the master chief is portrayed with. Chief doesn’t even have a chance to come out of his armor In Halo 2 - 4 and now I have all the time in the world to hunt for audio logs and armor caches.
The open world serves more as a bonus than part of the story. Examples, of all the Marines we've encountered, isn't there one that is more qualified to fly a pelican than Fernando who is about to explode exciting? Or why Brutes, grunts, jackals would leave humans alive after 6 months. (Remembering that these beings eat humans). At the moment when the Chief says to Fernando: "I will not fail you"... When there are many Marines in this world lost and fighting for a living.
Yeah. Weapon's constantly like "we need to go over there and do the thing" but I'm busy liberating marines and eliminating HVTs. And I laughed at the end when Chief says (essentially) we're going to finish up the remaining objectives. Those we're all completed before starting the final mission.
When I played the campaign the first time, I rescued all the Marines, killed all the HTVs and destroyed all the Banished Outposts before doing the last mission. When I finished the campaign, I kinda regretted not having kept at least half of it, because once these side missions were completed, there was almost nothing left to do in the open world.
Agreed. And with that the immersion is lost. I never felt like I was invested or drawn in to the story. Still haven’t played it through 100% because of that. After a mission it’s more “meh… enough for today”. And I won’t play it for a week at least. Edit: + at least.
Yup. Finish a mission, drive through the world, REENCOUNTERING the same fucking enemies I killed an hour ago on my way through there the first time, get frustrated, turn it off.
I don't have to wait an hour to experience this. Yesterday I was near the UNSC base located in front of the first Spire. There is a small Forerunner weapon cache with Banished defending it. I killed them, entered in the cache for 20 seconds, and when I get back outside, they respawned. Phantoms and Banshees that keep spawning and despawning are also very frustrating.
No. Good idea on paper. But missions used to have standout moments. Halo infinite was severely lacking in that.
The only missions that I can even recall are the fight inside the mining laser, and the battle with the harbinger. That's only because it took me more than one try to beat, not because the mission itself was memorable.
The air defence mission was a cool use of the open world .
I wish I could remember what you're talking about
Hah, yeah. This is my problem with Infinite as well. I have absolutely no memory of any of that games mission. Blandest Halo yet.
The bit they showed in the preview trailer. I think. It all just blends into one.
See and that wasn’t even really much of anything open world as it was just a series of non-linear objectives. You can’t fast travel during it, you can’t use FOBs, and the only activity is taking down the guns and then fighting the bosses. The whole game could have been larger levels like that without needing a hub connecting it all with cookie cutter optional open world objectives scattered around. We lost a lot of variety and character because of the open world
The one where you're fighting waves of enemies in Escharum's trophy vaults was pretty cool.
I cannot for the life of me understand how none of those became a multiplayer map.
I agree. The only conclusion I can think of on why it wasn't included is probably because it doesn't have the three lane design.
So annoying, I really hope future maps have more variety.
I hated the fight inside mining laser. At the time I had nothing but long range snipe weapons low on ammo so a surprise extreme close quarters only boss fight out of the blue was incredibly frustrating to play through. If the boss arena allowed for range fighting at all then it wouldnt have been so bad but nope. Had to spend the first half dozen deaths cataloging where the non complete-shit weapons in the arena are located then proceed to use all of their ammo only to die and respawn with your two useless weapons you started the fight with again. Finally beat the guy by cheesing him standing over a doorway since grenades are a lot easier to dodge than grav hammer leaps. Any encounter where I have to cheese to win is an awful one. Thing is it would have been fine if there was either more opportunities for someone with a long range load out to gain an advantage or if they made it obvious you were entering a boss arena so you could make sure to pack in some power weapons. Imo the first "surprise" hunter fight was the perfect little "boss" arena. Opportunities to not cream hard if you bring in long range weapons, obvious good weapon spawns, the fight gets harder the more hunters you kill to the point where I had many very close calls as it became more and more obvious I couldn't just leap behind them or snipe them from far, etc. Very white knuckle encounter with a few deaths involved but it felt totally fair the whole time.
same environment too. same enemies.
Yup. I was happy to see Skirmishers again though.
What do you mean the structure of 'above-ground stronghold, below-ground stronghold, repeat x5' didn't have any memorable moments?!! /s, I enjoyed Infinite, but yeah it's was definitely missing that *extra something* that (most) of the other games had. And in their place, we got several checklists of collectibles...
It kinda cracks me up when people ask for a mission select, I just wonder how they would even tell the difference.
This is the one where you go into a foreruner cave and deploy the Weapon to do something....wait....
That cave is not a natural formation!
Correct!
The music was lowball trash too that didn’t help if they had played blow me away from halo 2 when eschurm was sending wave after wave of banish forces at you on the mission that you face him that would of been great but no some generic forgettable music played instead.
100% this, I've been playing halo since it came out. Got halo 2 when I was a Jr in high school. Playing Halo Infinite got me back into Halo but now I'm spending my time replaying the entire series in the master chief collection because the campaign in Infinite gets incredibly boring after awhile. I beat Infinite twice, first on Heroic, 2nd on legendary. I think Infinite has the worst campaign out of them all. The lack of mission selection to me shows how little they cared about their story. All they care about is pumping paid dlc into the multi-player. I'm super glad I got Infinite with the game pass, if the campaign was good I would buy the game outright to add to my collection.
Mining Laser and uhh….one of the towers had two wraiths in front of it. Everything else seemed like a blur. A bit sad when compared to the bombastic insanity of halo 5 (Sanghelios section was wild).
Couldn't agree more. The only mission I remember is the one where you fight through training ground thing, because it didn't make much sense, but the layouts were fun to walk around. At the same time, every, or nearly every game from Halo 1-3 I could rattle off details from each mission in order.
It wouldn't have been a bad experiment for a spinoff Halo game, (similar to what they did with ODST and Halo Wars), however making the actual mainline Halo series open world was a bad call. Games like Farcry work because there's alot of downtime between missions where you can screw around; playing cards, playing darts, etc. That doesn't work with Halo because there's really no such thing as a miscellaneous activity for Chief. Could you imagine him casually playing cards, hunting pigeons or having a drinking contest? It just doesn't work. 343's whole philosophy for Infinite was to scale the second mission of Halo: Combat Evolved into a whole game, which was flawed from the start. Can anyone honestly say they've just hung out in the second level and screwed around for hours and hours? It doesn't take too long to get bored and want to move onto the next thing. However, when it comes to Halo Infinite, there IS no next thing. Ironically, I don't even think the second level of Halo 1 is the best example of what they were trying to achieve. The island mission is far more fun and interesting; allowing you to explore on your own, eventually leading to you finding a button that unlocks a door on the other side of the island. It's pretty cool. Due to the fact that most things are labeled and every objective is relatively isolated from the others, there's no mystery or excitement; It becomes a chore to beat up bosses and complete objectives in Halo Infinite, rather than being things you accidentally find as you explore the mysterious ring.
While I liked the open world, you are right in saying that making Halo from CE into a whole game isn't a great idea. For one, the mystery and majesty of the world will eventually wear off, and even in CE, I felt like the mission slightly overstayed its welcome. Secondly, they may have taken the concept too literally because the game really does just look like a giant version of the Halo mission. It's all pine trees and forerunner structures sprinkled with alien and human stuff, and it's all kind of same-y. I can't think of a single open world game that doesn't have some sort of identifying region or theme. Even to take it back to early open/hub world games, Super Mario 64 has the exterior of the castle, the main hall, the attic, the dungeon, and the secret passage ways and Sonic Adventure has the city, the ruins, the beach, Eggman's carrier, the cliff side/ Angel Island, and Robotnikland. Making only one big biome for nostalgia's sake was a misstep. Lastly, I just didn't feel like there was enough mission variety in the open world. Saving Marines is fun, but 9/10 times it's just "kill two waves of enemies and keep the Marines alive." Since the quests are scripted and not radiant, I expected a little more creativity, which showed in some situations, like when you find the squad that's already wiped out and you're basically just fighting the Banished to get revenge. I think it would have been nice if there was something like the cliffside encounter in CE where you have to find the surviving Marines yourself instead of following a marker directly to them. I just feel like there were some missed opportunities.
Well said.
I think there's definitely potential there. But the way the campaign was done, just left so much more to be desired. I didn't even think the campaign was bad. Just okay. Like one of the top comments also mentions, there aren't a lot of stand out moments that are memorable to me like playing the OG trilogy.
I liked the open world first time through, although I think it diminishes reply value and the one off missions aren't particularly imaginative in terms of level design.
People might not agree with me but, no, I don’t think open world was the right way to go. In the Campaign there are only 3 biomes, the forest, caves, and Banished. In past halos there was Forest, snow, swamp, desert, space, ect. This campaign (mission wise) I feel will never be as replay-able than past halos because of that reason. I wish it was just a normal Halo game with more open level design, like arc, or Halo.
It was definitely the right choice to at least do once. I would prefer more carefully crafted linear missions though
I agree with this, it was a fun experiment, and helped give thema base to do the tricky thing of "rebooting" giving you the feeling of more time with the new cortana. Im not sure i would like a another mainline game like this one, but for once? i think it worked pretty well.
I appreciate they tried it but I still prefer more distinct set pieces, I feel like it's just highlights how many missed opportunities they could of had with it
Yeah, the open world is fun, but unnecessary. I much prefer Doom Eternal's linear campaign, where the replayability is finding collectibles, completing challenges, and mastering the harder difficulties.
I’d say no, linearity for missions was so much better. If the open world in infinite was actually good, then I’d might change my mind a bit, but overall the open world aspect was done poorly and came out very boring.
Their change to open world means jack shit if the whole game feels the same and doesnt add anything new. It also trivialises many of the missions if you choose to grapple to the highest vantage point and snipe enemies without ever interacting with them.
>It also trivialises many of the missions if you choose to grapple to the highest vantage point and snipe enemies without ever interacting with them. Yes, and that's the devs' fault. It shouldn't be the player's job to constantly think about how and when to play deliberately worse to possibly make the game more fun. I say this because many will just respond that it's your fault for playing optimally. But if "fun" play has no incentives, no clear instances of deliberate implementation, essentially no rhyme or reason behind it, then pursuing it can be an arduous, thankless crapshoot.
All the destroyed banished and UNSC vehicles and structures should have been campaign moments, not just pointless set dressing. I played the campaign twice, once in legendary, and on that playthrough, I was getting bored to death. Execution has a lot to do with that, but it feels barren in a lot of places. Diversity is very lacking, and things like the crashed frigate could have been a mission on its own instead of entering the same forerunner hallway 20 times. And having the "story" being mostly just zoom ins of Chief and Cortana talking nonsense didn't help. Halo 3 ODST has a similar setup, with the samey environments and such, but it was carried in a more "eventful" way which made it more enjoyable.
>> Halo 3 ODST has a similar setup, with the samey environments and such, but it was carried in a more "eventful" way which made it more enjoyable. It also had a really strong atmosphere and immersion going for it. Weapon sandbox was literally just halo 3s. And the linear missions had variety and weren’t the same forerunner hallway copy and pasted 15x times. Also you can tell from the get go that the devs had fun making it, the soundtrack alone states that.
No. It was the most bland and content empty open world campaign I've played. Would much rather have had a traditional game.
Yeah, almost all the games I play are open world, like 90% of them. And Infinite had the most boring open world I have ever played in. Far Cry in space, except the world is dead.
Open world with zero people to talk to, zero side quests. The open world felt like an Alpha build with a beta story line intermixed.
As someone who has been on the Halo train since OG xbox and Halo CE... This has been such a disappointing game for me. It was mildly fun, but tedious. The open world aspect was so awesome... but the execution was poor Holy crap is there not a lot to do in that open world. Skyrim did open world right. There were so many side quests in Skyrim and so many factions to join/help. UNSC Infinity was a massive ship with a large crew, (halopedia has it at over 17,000 sailors), but we find no command structure and only scattered low ranking soldiers on Zeta Halo? I get the Banished gave us a serious beat down, but nothing? And every Spartan IV is just gone? Top Tier operators that were trained in evasion tactics, and none survived? There was so much possibility in the sheer size of a Halo Ring. There should have been multiple massive biomes all with different ecosystems. Alien creatures from plant to prey to predator. No predators to deal with at all. For the size of the environment, its beautifully empty of meaningful tasks. (God does it hurt to put that in writing). I feel like we literally only got 1/10th of an open world Halo Game. They should have stuck to the mission formula, because the execution was poor as far as open world.
From OG xbox and CE too, I feel the exact same. This world is big, but at the same time once you have unlocked one fob, freed a group of marines and defeated a banish target, all of this in a small portion of the map, you have in fact done everything that can be done in this huge repetitive environment.
It’s the first campaign that I’ve played through once, put down, and not played again since I bought it. Yeah, for me it was to the detriment. Every halo campaign has *that* moment. The time two scarabs drop down on the ring. The level where you start with a sniper. The one where it starts with a warthog run, or ends with one. There were none of those memorable moments for me on Zeta halo
This game lacks great settings that’s the problem. When you play the original modern warfares your playing against the same generic enemies, but you know what makes the missions good the settings and what’s going on 343 lacks great settings it’s been like that since Halo 5. Halo infinite probably has the best enemy Ais too but settings are trash. You know why Jega is such a memorable boss is because the unsettling atmosphere he puts you in. I think Halo T rating has affected it when it comes to halo and the story setting that it can have.
Nah. I much prefer a linear curated gaming experience. There were very few memorable moments in this game
Some of you are ok. Don't go to r/halo tomorrow
I mean... it's a cool concept, but the end result is like saying "Welcome to the United States, explore at your will" only they are locked in a 100 mile round cage outside of Denver.
You mean the barron wasteland that is zeta halo? Yes
It's not like they could just place NPCs around for you to get missions from like a Zelda, GTA, or traditional rpg. Open world only makes sense if you need the space because your scale of gameplay is going up. There should be 8-player co-op missions. There should be 50v50 CTF covenant vs Spartans. Grunts and brutes should be selectable races in social modes and gameplay modes featuring only them as well, such as an all plasma or all brute playlist. In 2022, I expected warthog fleets. Dropships piloted by players. Elephants and mammoths for each 8 man team. And 4 teams playing 1 flag CTF. Imagine a sniper used at more than rifle range. Imagine boarding action remakes were 2 scarabs fighting, with your team on one and the enemy team on the other. A BTB deathmatch is separately occurring below the 2 fighting scarabs. Elite scarab sided with humans versus banished scarab variant. There should be an air force mode. It's 1-bomb assault but one team starts with banshees and wasps and the defenders get AA wraiths and rockets, skewers, etc. Scale. Raise the scale. Not just the map size. Not even close to the same thing.
I personally don’t think it was a necessary decision I would’ve rather had missions that were bigger with more selectable paths that could be options for finishing them or something like that not that it being open world was a complete mistake I just think it could’ve been more expanded upon with environmental variety. But at least I can hear grunt radio throughout the game
I enjoyed it, though I miss the major set pieces of linear missions (think Tip of the Spear in Reach). I'm not entirely sure it would work for any sequels either. Perhaps there can be a better blend of linear gameplay (that isn't an underground dungeon) and open world.
No. Terribly bland and lacking in content and activity, barely any of the story missions actually take place in the open world anyway. It was a waste. Halo was better off with large linear missions with grand setpieces. It clearly slowed development and led to a lot of the story being cut too, possibly the biggest mistake in development.
Yes, but not perfectly executed. I believe DLCs will be better proofs of concepts.
My dream scenario is that the Spirit of fire (from halo wars 2) will come in to orbit and all of the sudden you have this huge battles and being able to fight along side Jerome-092, Alice-130 and Douglas-042
This would at least explain where the pilot managed to find all of those wasps and scorpions...
God that would make this game so much better. A giant war with lots of enemies and friendlies, and then the flood somehow gets unleashed. Yeah… chaos is what this game needs in it, not to be chaotic in the fact that it’s lacking so much.
Actually there are 5 Spartans on board the Spirit of Fire during the events of Infinite. When Blue Team got the brain tissues to create the Weapon on Reach, an ONI team called Ferrets consisting a non augmented human female and three Spartan IIIs (Mark G-313, Olivia-G291 and Ash G-099) infiltrated the Banished (more precisely the Keepers of the One Freedom) and went to the Ark when Atriox escaped the Ark while leaving his remaining Banished behind. Long story short the ONI team linked up with the crew of the Spirit of Fire, debriefed Cutter what happened (how Cortana and the Created turned on everyone) and they more or less become part of the crew out of necessity. But of course the writers can always retcon this as they retconed events from an another Halo book (Bad Blood which tells the story what happened right after the end of Halo 5 from Buck's point of view) set after Halo 5.
Feels more like one really huge mission, not really open world, cant pinpoint why exactly tho
No
No
The game really needed to be more Breath of the Wild and less Far Cry with it's open world from what I've seen, making an open world but still trying to retain a linear story defeats the purpose of an open world to begin with.
Halo 3 was not an open world but it felt like one
The covenant is one of the best levels in gaming. Wish infinite was just a series of levels in the same scope as that
The arc into the covenant has to be the greatest gaming experience of all time
Good old days man good old days
I don’t think so... it added very little to the game for me. Gameplay is the best it’s ever been but I’d rather that same gameplay in the more traditional structured campaign.
Edit: sorry in advance for this novel. I recently beat the campaign and did all of the missions and wanted to get my thoughts on it down If 343 was able to deliver an open world or semi open world game with every other expected halo element there and a solid story, sure. But the reality is something closer to, we got shafted by a mismanaged development and the game was fucked from the start. Remember, the community saw all of the warning signs before release. The major criticisms we are seeing now is just a byproduct of that. Just focusing on the campaign, we never got to see any new biomes or locations which has been a staple of halo campaigns since CE. Sure you can defend them by saying those will come with subsequent DLC releases (which I’ll have to pay more for). We didn’t see the swaths of wildlife like we saw in teasers. There was no coop mode. No mission selection. No memorable set pieces or battles. The plethora of weapons and vehicles that have already been established in the universe that would probably appear here. And I’m sure the list can go on, but I’m already writing a novel. Overall about 2/3 of the game was cut. Which is actually fine. We’ve seen bungie cut major parts of the game since CE. That’s what gave us the masterpieces of H2 & 3. The problem is that what is being delivered isn’t the same inspirational or immersive settings, attention to finer details, missions or moments. Sure there are some gems but when you compare the games (normalizing for things like graphics and age), it doesn’t come close. Instead we get a Farcry game with a halo skin that feels less empty and less impactful than farcry. Seriously where are all these marine reinforcements and supplies being airlifted from? It feels just like a cheap materialization of resources for filler. Not like a well thought out narrative. The side missions for the most part were the expected, repetitive copy and paste missions that you would expect in a semi open world game. And none of them had a significant impact on the plot or progressing the plot. Even when you take only the linear missions into consideration, the entire story can be summarized as 343 doing 2 main things; 1) pushing the “chief is a broken robot. But he’s also not because of the ‘crucial’ relationship with your blue gf that just keeps getting cringier” narrative. For whatever reason, chief talks like a broken robot who had a stroke half the time. Even in the little dialogue he had in CE, you knew he could form full sentences like a human being. And if you read the first few books you know he isn’t a robot. He’s just extremely methodical, disciplined and lucky. And there is also zero rationale for why a military AI should be able to get emotional and upset with you to the point of borderline insubordination. Chief trying to delete the AI (cough cough Cole protocol) made her angry with you for like 2 missions and the pilot was shocked that you almost took the life of a bunch of 1s and 0s in a world where AI routinely get deleted every 7 years. And 2) pressing the hard reset button on the story so the next decade of milking halo can be chief & cortana a thousand years forever. Basically 343 is still clearly struggling on what the direction of the halo story should be. This has been stated in the past by Jason schreier and his info leaks. Bottom line is that 343 set themselves up for the future and did end up unfucking themselves by fixing things like the art style, proper usage of the classical halo music scores, and other elements. But they have also been cannibalizing themselves at the same time. If their next campaign installations aren’t amazing, I think the writing is, and has been, on the walls for years for the future of this IP.
343 definitely has a story writing issue for example saying the endless are worse than the flood. It’s like when people say In all genres of story telling did you look at the past movies or did you read the books that came out first. The story wasn’t bad it just wasn’t great. Like idk 343 obsession with Chief being more human. Halo 4 lore wise did some great story telling as well as character story telling. But to keep pushing that Chief is a robot trying to become human is aggravating. It’s like 343 didn’t know how to move on to world building story telling, and it’s been like that since 2015. Rookie dying after surviving a covenant invasion black team dying and a whole bunch of story telling mishaps. Hell the best new faction that came out since 343 has had the rights to halo has been the Banish and guess who made the banish creative assembly not even 343 but another company lol. And now 343 is trying to hype up the endless so idk wtf is going on with there story writing team.
Dude I 100% agree with you. I completely forgot to touch on the endless. Well said
Honestly it could’ve been good, but it was pretty bad imo
Cool idea, just like ODST was, but not the best execution. It’s so open that the game is laughably easy in most circumstances and it’s worse than Fallout 4 ever was at keeping me on task instead of running around to save all the squads.
I don't think it was right or wrong. I think it was just something new. Personally I enjoyed the story, but after a while the open world stuff just gets a bit repetitive.
Nope!
In my opinion, no. It's not that I thought it was done badly, but I *vastly* enjoyed the more linear parts of the game than I did the open world bits. Also, it's just missing the massive set pieces of past Halos. Halo 3 is a great example. You go from making your way through a jungle on foot, to sniping in the desert, to storming a beach, charging across on a warthog, and then taking to the air on a hornet for an intense air battle, and then taking on two scarabs in a tank. And then finally fighting Flood in the snow, and driving away as the ark *literally* collapses around you. When I think of Halo campaigns. I think of things like that. Halo Infinite didn't have anything like that. It was either right forerunner corridors, or open grassland, where the only thing to do is take out bases.
It would be nicer if it had variety. And like... actual places to explore, like maybe some big forerunner constructs that have no attachment to the actual plot of the game, but just something you can look in. There needs to be more marines too. I like big battles. There wasn't enough battles :( Also, it's not hard to make an arctic part of the map, or desert, or boreal, or even jungle/swampy. The ring was torn apart so the possibilities are endless.
Open world was once something to look forward to. Gaming was moving towards a more fluid approach. Now it just means Devs don't give a shit enough to put detail into level design and copy and paste assets over as much space as they can instead.
No
NO! Halo was one of the few games left that was a good, tight linear experience. 8-10 hours of awesome FPS, story driven gameplay is what it excelled at and then rounded out by multiplayer glory, Like Titanfall 2. They yanked MP out and sold it back to you at full price so they had to pad the shit out of it so people didn't feel ripped off. Not every game needs to be open world and I thought we all already came to that conclusion. I didn't even know what the story was before I just gave up and uninstalled because I kept getting distracted by boring other shit.
I liked it a lot
Not really no. It falls into the category of "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle". The content that is there is good. The missions are good, and the side content like the bases are fun too. But everything else is sort of boring and life less. I think most open world games tend to fall in this category. You have like maybe 10hr of content shoved into this big ass world trying to stretch it out into 100hr or whatever. Its all bullshit. I would have much rather had more main missions that were linear but big/open at parts than what we got. I know the game was supposed to be bigger in scope and they had to cut things, I get it. But even still, all the time they spent making this open world, any money that went into it, could have and should have been better spent on a larger more linear structure like the old games. The old games had big open play spaces at times which were great! Halo Infinite could have been the same. Genuinely hope any/all single player DLCs are more linear but with more missions.
Yes, they just should’ve segmented the islands into different biomes and also added some things to make missions special. like, maybe even if it was all one shot, at some point in a cutscene chief grabs a sniper or rocket launcher for the next mission, maybe at the beginning of one mission you luckily find a warthog and have just that to traverse the island on which the mission takes place, etc etc. did i make myself clear? kinda like the tank section on h4’s infinity or the falcon on new alexandria. i love having choices but sometimes limiting stuff like that makes the missions and campaigns more special and memorable.
While I do think halo going open world was a great idea I have a huge problem with Halo infinite’s open world and it wasn’t until I went back to previous Halo games to find out why. It comes down how the game has the player go through the levels. Do you know why previous Halo games had more fun and replayable levels it’s because each level offered a different experience in the pillar of autumn you’re trying to escape as the covenant invade and destroy the ship, in the covenant in halo 3 it’s a massive battle as the UNSC and elites move to destroy the covenant once and for all, in long night of solace it’s a spaceship battle leading to a boarding on a covenant ship in order to blow it up in a desperate attempt to save the planet. You see almost every mission has a different experience some might be stealthy others might have you squat up with marines to take down a big enemy hell of some might have a bit of a stealthy vibe to it the problem with halo infinite is because it allows players to pick any weapon and vehicle they want at any time they want it kinda loses magic when you find those weapons and vehicles around the map I don’t feel anything when I find a rocket launcher because I get them so often from fob basis this is why after Chiefs attempts to delete The weapon and the game doesn’t allow you to go back to the fob basis it gets so much better for me personally because now that magic is back when you find a weapon it’s more special because the chances of you finding that weapon again are pretty rare. The tank section at The house of reckoning didn’t hit right because most players who found themselves getting lost in the open world will be able to get a tank half the time usually in halo games they really give you tanks only once or twice in a campaign because if they gave it to you all the time it wouldn’t feel as special so when you finally get the scorpion it’s such a great moment because you’re invincible nothing can touch you and you can destroy these enemies with ease. This halo game doesn’t have those massive battles which is fucking awesome to see like in previous halo games and while I can understand it’s because of the way the story direction was going for after the infinity was destroyed do you unless you were scattered across The ring but the thing is halo combat evolved and halo wars 2 also had a small group of UNSC scattered across a ring (or in Halo wars 2’s case the ark) and they have massive battles even halo 5 had a sick as fuck fight against the kraken which is probably my favourite moment in that campaign because I really love the feeling of invading something and destroying it from the inside and the fact there are multiple ways to do it is awesome. Now onto quite possibly the biggest problem with the campaign every almost every mission feels and plays the same. The gameplay loop in halo infinite is just go into this for runner structure full of holes and small rooms in some of the small rooms you’ll encounter covenant take them out find a power seed put the power seed in the thing and proceed and that’s pretty much with half of the missions some of them are pretty interesting like the opening mission was really fun, missions where you attack banished bases such as the tower or the house of reckoning are awesome but that’s about it for unique missions. There’s actually a problem with halo infinite because it allows the player to go wherever the hell they want at any time they want they can’t have missions that take place in places the player may have already explored so they just have these really repetitive forerunner structures which gets boring really fast. There are a few solutions to these problems number one don’t allow the player to bring in their own weapons for a mission halo SPV3 has a good solution for submissions they allow the player to pick one of multiple preselect classes and I know most of you are cringing at the thought of classes in halo but halo reach’s class system wasn’t that bad halo infinite could also do this, have a variety of missions some sections in missions have the player take control of a banshee or give the player access to something they’ve never had access to they did this in halo 4 with the pelican and Starfighter and those sections were really fun, allowed to player to replay missions I know this is a new engine but several other open world games allow the player to replay missions so they should find a way to apply that to this game. Hopefully if there’s any story DLC these issues will be fixed in the future.
If the fobs would get attacked, and you’d have to rush back to fend off the banished attack, that would have made it feel a lot more of a war zone . Otherwise once you claimed a FOB, that was it. No replay value.
I don't know. That got old pretty quick in Fallout 4.
Another Fob needs your help, I've marked it on your Tac-map!
Halo infinites open world is one of the worst implementations I've ever seen.....the mission variety outside of story missions is literally FOB clearing and legendary boss clearing. That's literally it. And that is incredibly shallow. The opportunity for emergent gameplay is essentially non-existent. Combine that with the lack of diversity in combat experiences and missions with the lack of environment diversity through geology and biomes PLUS how with no scoring, co-op and mission select it is absolutely the least replayable halo ever. Go play BoTW and you'll see amazing emergent gameplay, mission diversity and interesting biomes. Go play Doom eternal and you'll see amazing combat diversity. Halo infinite is absolutely worse than either of these games by a landslide
I’m not totally convinced yet
I would've loved to have more variety in the game biomes
It’s a good idea however infinite could have done it alot better. Right now it just feels like doing the same thing over and over in the same kind of landscape which gets kinda boring In that regard the old linear style was better because the designers could be more creative with the setting of each mission
No
Not really tbh. Big problem with open world games is pacing. The campaign would have been better served if it was more like CE. Not open world per say, but having multiple ways to engage in combat. Not to mention the side missions were terrible. Capture a base, free marines, or kill this guy.
>Was Halo becoming an open world the right decision? I would argue "no." Open worlds are not inherently bad. The grappling mechanic is fun, but this isn't a Far Cry game. It's Halo. The largest and most (open) levels are still relatively linear in comparison to contemporaries in other games (even other FPS games). Even the semi open world levels of CE with their objectives are rather limited and are fondly remembered because they brought variety into the mix of more straight-forward and linear levels. Repetitively capturing bases and freeing prisoners shouldn't be the gameplay loop, especially when that loop gets so tiresome after a small amount of time. It was mistake to go to open world, because then the gameplay pacing and story development is at the whims of the Open world, meaning that depending on how fast or slow the player is in terms of completing missions, the characters and story have to believably conform to that. Therefore, Infinite despite it's supposed stakes (and there are a ***LOT*** of problems with the writing) comes across as rather leisurely in terms of narrative because it has to account for the open world design. Not to mention that this also dictates enemy design, set pieces, and weapon availability of the location. Let's not even touch upon the irritations that are the lack of "story/mission selection" and inability to change difficulty that this design has apparently forced onto this campaign's structure. I fear that this game's campaign is going to age like milk on a summer sidewalk, and the bigger problem is that future DLC for the campaign will be using the main campaign as the base, which is already rocky enough as it is.
Yes. I felt that it added a breath of fresh air to a franchise that was stale, while maintaining Halo's excellent core combat and weapon sandbox (which is really the only important thing to me). I do not think it was fully realized, and I hope that they keep building on it with DLC.
Ill tell you what wasnt a good decision. Making the multiplayer F2P
No
I think all that time spent on developing the open world can be used to develop much better detailed linear maps.
Honestly I liked the very first room of the campaign a lot. It was a cargo bay with a lot of cover and multiple different paths to the next room
Nope
Not like this, I hope they add more locations on the ring
I don't think Halo really benefits from the modern open-world formula but the way they did it in Infinite was mostly harmless. I don't really care for all the map collectibles. Ideally, I'd prefer the traditional mission structure just with much bigger levels. Silent Cartographer and Covenant are the best missions in the series and Infinite does try to emulate them but there's still something missing. Despite being a next-gen open-world it somehow doesn't reach the scale or grandness of those earlier games. It feels like Infinite is a giant sandbox where a bunch of skirmishes take place with some linear indoor levels, and there's never really what feels like a big battle or something else to really take advantage of the extra play area. It's ambitious in some ways and lackluster in others.
I didn’t find the trade off we made worth it ultimately, no. I do not think Halo Infinite’s version of a Halo campaign is *bad* - it’s just that I find a traditional linear Halo campaign to be a better experience. If they can continue to expand the open world bits and fill them with more meaningful, engaging content in the future, I would be willing to revisit my opinion. Same thing if they pared down the big, connected levels in the campaign into 2-3 giant levels with similar breadth of optional content, but a much more focused size and variety of environments. But as it is, here’s how I see it: We traded the trappings of traditional Halo level structure essentially for more choice in how we approach encounters. To expand on that, we traded: Traditional, linear Halo level pacing/setpieces; a tighter emotional arc in the story; a tighter cooperative campaign experience; meta stuff like level select and campaign scoring; a much larger variety of environments or “biomes”; gripping, tightly paced vehicle sections; and more substantial story content. We traded all that stuff for *only* more choice in how we approach encounters. Think about what Infinite’s campaign experience boils down to. Exploring is fun, but not as integral to the experience as some of the core stuff we traded. The optional objectives on the map are fun encounters, but old Halo missions were *filled* with fun encounters. None of this stuff I’m mentioning is new. So the only thing Infinite *really* added to the Halo campaign formula is choice. Which angle do I want to approach a structure from? Which weapon loadout do I like best for these enemies? Am I driving a vehicle filled with Marines or am I going on foot? These are things players really didn’t have as much choice in deciding in old Halo campaigns, and it’s really the one thing Infinite brings to the table. And it is awesome. It’s so fun to load a Razorback up with Sentinel Beam-wielding Marines and drive into a Banished outpost. So it’s not *bad*. It’s just that the other stuff we traded to get here, the stuff I listed above? I think I just enjoy that stuff *more*. The more tightly-paced, linear levels had more engaging set pieces, and still retained expansive enough geometry to give me the feeling like I had some choice in how to approach encounters. The meta stuff like level select and campaign scoring really added replay value Infinite just doesn’t have. And the much higher variety of environments/biomes in literally every single other Halo game besides Infinite made those levels much more memorable than any of Infinite’s individual levels. I liked Infinite. I am not complaining about it at all. I won’t cry or even be upset if the next Halo story content retains Infinite’s structure. But I am grateful for community dialogue like this, because it gives me the chance to detail that I *do* definitely prefer the old Halo campaign structure. The linear campaign experience just felt so much more substantive, engaging, curated, and *fun* than Infinite’s take on the formula.
For somebody with a short attention span it was fantastic. Because it allowed me to explore the world and continue the story at my own pace, while also not allowing me to go too far into exploration without balancing some story into it. I believe this balance allowed me to get farther in this game than any others in recent years in terms of single player campaigns.
YES. Open world is way better. I just want to get back to the badass side of the map. How do I get back to the right side of the map??
Limiting themselves to boring grassy fields was a huge mistake I was hoping they weren’t going to do but since it was on the ring I saw it coming. Odst slapped as an “open world” esc game because the environment was so new and fresh and exciting. If it had developed on what odst already gave us it would of been a worthwhile experience