It’s fun, yeah, but it has a net negative effect on the fun of the gameplay as a whole. A lot of the appeal of Halo gameplay comes from figuring out the right combination of weapons, equipment, and maneuvers to deal with the various combat encounters. Weapons are powerful in their intended roles, only two can be carried at a time. Equipment items can give unique advantages, but previously came with limited uses or lengthy cooldowns. Master Chief is fast and tough, but not fast and tough enough to survive if he walks into sustained enemy crossfire. The gameplay challenge comes from deciding how to best combine the abilities available to you, and getting it right gives you a clean, satisfying win over the assorted alien monsters.
That challenge, and the fun of overcoming it, has taken a big hit in Infinite’s campaign. The grappleshot is now the single best response to nearly every problem. Need to get somewhere quickly? The grappleshot will cut inertia to a tenth and pull half-ton Master Chief to any object, no matter how light or flimsy. Close range enemies approaching? The grappleshot will stun them and their friends and hits like a grenade. Vehicles attacking? The grappleshot will auto-hijack any vehicle no matter how it’s moving, even if it’s about to splatter Master Chief across the floor. All this from a single equipment piece with unlimited ammo and a short recharge, and which doesn’t take a weapon slot.
There are plenty of games in which a versatile tool can be used in many creative ways, but a good game will balance this by adding nuance and challenge into how that tool functions. The grappleshot is just point-click-win for most situations, even on Legendary, and that gets boring. I can increase the campaign’s challenge by limiting my use of grapplehook, but that makes killing enemies even less satisfying. Overcoming a threat doesn’t feel like an achievement if it was only a threat because I voluntarily handicapped myself. I’d much rather the devs just rebalance the grapplshot to be useful without being overpowered.
TL;DR: The grappleshot is fun, but makes the game less fun overall.
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I agree. I think the campagin is too dependent on the grapple. Without the grapple the entire campagin would be different
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You may dislike it, but that doesn’t really make it poor game design. I love it, and numerous gaming review sites talked about how the grapple was what made them like Halo campaign for the first time ever.
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Rebalancing the grapple hook would also mean to redesign the boss fights from the ground up.
They are tedious enough already on legendary, and without the current grapple hook, they would be pretty much impossible unless you can somehow glitch past them.
Outside of that, I think its fine as it is. I love to climb higher and higher onto places.
Yeah my main complaint about the grapple would be how they are required to fight certain enemies. Chieftains that leap like they have super thrusters and the super aggressive new hunters are really annoying.
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It also only takes one upgrade to super OP it with the stun effect. Game turns into easy mode when you can stun lock most tougher enemies in the game.
Edit: Although they shouldn’t nerf anything until after I’ve completed my LASO run lol
Agreed!
I had a really hard time with this when Infinite released. On one hand, hot DAMN it is fun. I really enjoy zipping around, and the new level of verticality it adds.
As far as military science fiction goes though? Pretty weak. I would much rather take the grappling hook system from Far Cry where you’re limited to locations where you can set up ropes. The grappleshot under cuts environmental storytelling… in the past the campaigns really made you follow certain tracks and showed you beautiful scenes along the way, but now when you can go literally anywhere, there’s less opportunity to “make sure” that we see something.
It really just encourages me to skip around the game, collecting things to check off boxes. I never felt like the banished limited my ability to move around the ring, or that I actually had to fight through them to get anywhere. Why follow the trail that leads to some marines and a firefight when you can just grapple straight up the mountain?
As fun as it is, I hope it isn’t around to stay for long.
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