Or it was all a dream that insult-hurling grunt had during the end of Halo 3. Maybe The Weapon was secretly an actual tiny woman in Chief’s helmet and the Pilot was 343 Guilty Spark’s cousin, and they’re both plotting to unleash a fifth faction that’ll fight the Endless and the Banished while Chief tells Blue Team that they still can’t be in any other Halo game besides 5 because they’re cramping his style. Or we can just throw an entire new style of Halo away again, start from scratch, and… I don’t know. You could build something amazing off of what’s been established here. Even a middling crowd pleaser like Infinite has the potential for greatness. That way I at least rest assured that what’s being built isn’t a bridge to nowhere. I just want Halo to become consistent about anything other than its inconsistency. I’m not even asking for my preferred style of Halo gameplay - if I want that, I’m better off with the modding efforts being made with The Master Chief Collection. Instead, it’s the ability to summon supplies and allies before diving into a mission that changes things for the campaign, letting you stack the deck in your favor.ĪLSO READ: Wolfenstein: The New Order Still Has One Of The Best FPS Stories Ever Those abilities are a blast, especially the grappling hook, but only really change things up at a higher skill level than the average person is going to reach. Halo 4 was lithe and quick, but a bit shallow Halo 5 was so deep it overwhelmed more casual players online, while only offering a middling attempt at squad tactics in campaign Infinite is pretty much Halo 3's enemies but with a boilerplate open-world and Halo 4's sprinting and built-in armor abilities. If there really is another pivot coming, that will make three games' worth of “actually, nevermind!” retcons, not simply in story either, but also game design. Halo Infinite is one giant fix-it fic that tosses any existing Reclaimer Saga fans aside to please part of the fandom that realistically won’t ever truly be happy unless Bungie gets magically reinstated as the franchise developer. Gears 5 delves into dangerously sensitive topics like mental illness and toxic masculinity, and it stuck the landing perfectly. We could’ve had a new generation of characters like in Gears 4 and 5, who could've have had a consistent narrative throughline despite a more drastic series of narrative choices. ![]() ![]() What benefit is there to establish new threats and effectively waste the player’s time for 10 to 20 hours merely to re-establish a status quo that honestly hasn’t been the status quo since the original Xbox.ĪLSO READ: Unreal Tournament Deserves Better From Epic Why else structure so much of the campaign like a series of tutorials and content types made for easy copy-pasting onto new sandbox environments. It really felt like that was the plan in general. Surely, with enough feedback on the repetitive sandbox design, needless progression system, the overwrought means of retconning Cortana into once again being an ally, and the main antagonist not being present for the campaign could all be addressed in future DLC. As much as I found Infinite’s story campaign to be one of the weakest in the series, I had hopes that at least, with time, it could be improved. ![]() In fact, if I’m being honest, an actual reboot would’ve made more sense than Infinite’s actual premise, which tries to retroactively tell the story it skips instead of charting a course for a new one.ĪLSO READ: More Games Should Merge Like Hitman World Of AssassinationĪnd now, if reports are to be believed, Infinite is being abandoned, outside of multiplayer seasons. Then Halo Infinite skips essentially an entire game’s worth of story to jump ahead to… another reset so divorced from the last two storylines that established characters barely get a mention in audio diaries. Then Halo 5 did that in half-measures, with clearly cut and rewritten story arcs, including tossing out the villain of Halo 4 for a generic new antagonist for most of Halo 5 until turning a fan favorite character into the antagonist. Halo 4 felt like an ending to Master Chief’s saga, with Spartan Ops clearly meant to establish new heroes to replace him. It’s always a bold new idea that could work, but then it either pulls up short somehow or never gets to go anywhere. If the Star Wars sequel trilogy was a barely planned outline, then Halo has just become a series of soft-reboots that never take the time to deliver. Don’t get me wrong - I actually really liked Halo 4, and despite its thematic issues, Halo 5: Guardian’s gameplay felt amazing, but at three games into the “Reclaimer Saga”, I just don’t see what 343 Industries is thinking.
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