Armies and battles should be a vital part of Halo’s stroytelling. It reinforces the feeling of militarism, it can evoke a sense of grandeur and it also allows the player to have a power fantasy within the Chief without taken that element of ‘on the run’ that fan favourite Halo Titles have tried to push.
Halo Infinite is really missing this as it doesn’t really show armies. The best case of having a battle in Halo Infinite was in the opening cutscene with the destruction of the Infinity. That cutscene really struck me as brilliant as a Halo cutscene as it artistically looked like Halo, Humanity was losing the conflict quite obviously, it was on a decently large scale, there was alot going on that wasn’t just Chief killing baddies, it look a fan favourite villain and had them centre stage, it had you feel outgunned when even the Chief was defeated by Atriox. Unfortunately, that was the best that the Campaign had to offer with it’s presentation. Nothing got back up to that stage as you proceed to destroy a banished ship in the first bloody mission, there are no beaten up and battered marines with you (although I can understand this for the first mission and due to how the cutscene ended so I think that can slide), Atriox is replaced by an entirely unremarkable villain. It’s a great shame how that first mission set up what was to come in the rest of the Campaign rather than the opening cutscene of the game.
3 Likes
Seriously!
I was so stoked, bought a Series X and a new TV just to play the campaign, and the first night I played I was so happy! Then I discovered that the “cool part” of the game was literally just the first 30 seconds to one minute, and there is nothing remotely like it for the entire rest of the game… it sort of just limps to the finish from there.
Attacking the stronghold that is basically a giant prison block is about the closest Infinite gets to a “large” battle feel.
Even Infinite’s main vehicle sequence in the golden missions (the road) feels really lonely because it’s Hurst you, a scorpion, and a couple marines