H5 had us jumping on and off different planets with tons of characters, in and out of random wars
H4 introduced Spartans without explanation
Overall I don’t understand why the covenant are back
Am I going to be able to understand the story of Halo Infinite without having to go through all the extra lore?
edit: very excited and feeling positive overall but really feel out of the loop in the halo universe
343 said this will be a soft reboot and a good place for newer players to jump in, so hopefully that means we don’t have to read every bit of extended lore in order to know what’s going on
I’d like to think that 343 has learned their lesson in terms of letting the game story stand on its own without requiring outside knowledge. They seem to understand what went wrong with 5’s story and to a lesser extent with 4’s (although I mostly enjoy 4’s story). It wouldn’t really be a soft reboot if you needed to know everything beforehand going in. Although my guess is that prior knowledge will lead to a richer understanding of the story. It’s not gonna be Breath of the Wild level of soft reboot but will hopefully be closer to that than Halo 5’s mess.
> 2533274883561809;3:
> I’d like to think that 343 has learned their lesson in terms of letting the game story stand on its own without requiring outside knowledge. They seem to understand what went wrong with 5’s story and to a lesser extent with 4’s (although I mostly enjoy 4’s story). It wouldn’t really be a soft reboot if you needed to know everything beforehand going in. Although my guess is that prior knowledge will lead to a richer understanding of the story. It’s not gonna be Breath of the Wild level of soft reboot but will hopefully be closer to that than Halo 5’s mess.
Halo 5 wasn’t a mess. How dare you.
Tbh the main thing that worried me was people in the forum identifying the Palace of Pain in Infinite’s box art. Something I was unfamiliar with until I did some research. I’m also not too sure who the characters of the banished are apart from Atriox
I think that it’s essential that Infinite is designed as an entirely accessible jumping-on point for the series. Halo 2-Reach had the benefit of riding a ubiquitous tidal wave of familiarity and fanfare established by CE all the way back in 01, but the brand hasn’t been sustained to that standard for the last decade. It’s been a declining IP for years, consistently shedding industry attention/acclaim and fans along the way.
Infinite has to be good enough to bring lapsed players back, but it also has to be good enough to bring entirely new players into the picture. It can’t afford to take for granted that players will have any substantive knowledge about ancillary details of the extended lore like H4 and H5 did. It has to go the CE route of making sure everything works and stands on its own.
I’m guessing this would be MS’s main directive for 343 with regards to the story. Back to basics. For people super invested in the Reclaimer arc that H4 and H5 have been piquing, it may be disappointing to see this. But for casual fans, new players, and people nostalgic for “classic Halo,” I think it’ll play a lot better.