I’ve literally just finished the campaign, watched a video covering story from my preferred YouTuber to make sure I didn’t miss and story details etc, which I haven’t…and I can’t shake this feeling after playing the campaign…
Underwhelmed.
I can’t put my finger on exactly the reasons why…but that just didn’t feel like an entire campaign in terms of the actual plot. It’s a big game and the campaign length itself is good…but the story itself…felt short? Especially for a game world that’s this size.
It’s definitely my favourite game since H3, the storytelling style and human element etc are fantastic, gameplay is superb, the references etc to Halo lore from past games and novels etc are awesome…but I can’t shake the feeling that this feels half-baked. It’s like if Halo:CE ended at “Assault on the control room” level.
I’m keen to hear what others thought of it, Imgoing to try and process this and figure out why this feels how it does.
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Honestly it reminds me of halo 5 where it quickly wraps up the old enemy then does a whole lot of nothing then tries to sell you in the new bug bad.
Nothing happens in this game. It’s just a lore dump on 6 months ago and an ad for the next dlc
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Far one.
This is really bigging me how I don’t feel like I’ve played a full campaign.
I didn’t find the campaign to be conclusive in any meaningful way, but it definitely is playing prelude to more content down the line. After all, Microsoft already filed a trademark for the phrase “Halo Infinite: The Endless”.
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I really liked the campaign and I have a feeling that this we’ll see this campaign expanded upon in the future as there are large areas on the map that you can’t go too.
I’m excited to go against Atriox in the next thing. I thought he was a really cool villain in Halo Wars 2, and he was pretty badass here as well for his admittedly limited screentime.
I liked Escheuram as a villain and it was satisfying to take him down in this battle between warriors, I really liked Weapon and Echo 216. I enjoyed the gameplay loop and how they did the open world without absolutely swarming me with things to do and giving those side tasks a good motivation to do them
I did not like Harbinger. I thought her deal was completely rushed and while I know what her deal was, I still feel like I don’t for some reason. She was just completely unsatisfying and had the annoying boss battle imo.
The environments could have used a bit more diversity but over all I really enjoyed having the similarities to the place we were introduced to halo in. I just wish the linear missions didn’t look so samey and I would have appreciated a dessert or arctic environment in the open world
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It felt like an apology to Cortana (who, was killed offscreen UGH). Not to mention it abandoned Cortana storyline also.
I know a lot of people are riding the f2p and open world aspects of it, but it felt bland. Bunch of missing characters so they could “fix” their mess.
It was “fun” until I had to go around the map.
….
ODST kept you in a certain mode for its “open world” however Infinite doesn’t achieve that. Not to mention all the side stuff means nothing. Literally a way to fill the world in a pointless way.
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Big Spoilers In This Reply
I enjoyed the campaign and the characters it introduced, but you are correct in the fact that it’s lacking. I feel like it’s slipped into the same place that H5 did, with the player needing to read multiple novels or watch 3 hours worth of videos to explain how the game starts.
The first scene, with the infinity being destroyed. This could easily have been much longer, or even made into the first level of the game, akin to The Pillar of Autumn in HCE, but with the end being chief cast into the void. It just feels like the infinity gets attacked for the sake of being attacked. There’s no buildup or context to it.
There needs to be more cutscenes/flashbacks of Cortanas deletion/confrontations with Atriox. They could have added some terminals for this or expanded on this in the opening scene.
While a small point, there’s 0 indication of how long chief was in space for, until you find weapon. Just a simple ‘Six months later’ before Echo-216 picks you up would have sufficed. It confused the hell out of me at the first time I watched it.
Who the hell is harbinger? And who are the endless? The game doesn’t explain a great deal about them, even with all of the forerunner artifacts that you can collect (I’ve listened to all of them and there’s still very little explanation). If the game wanted two different enemies, it needs to be a longer campaign with adequate explanation of both. It’s disappointing to see a formidable enemy get 0 backstory, then get beaten and ultimately forgotten at the end of the game.
The bosses are all major bullet sponges, which sucks -Yoink!- for such a diverse set of characters. The only rewarding boss is harbinger, because it’s the only one that isn’t a complete bullet sponge. On legendary her attacks are crazy strong, but you don’t spend 20 minutes whittling down shield just to be met with 78 million hp to continue chipping at. This makes it more an arena manipulation/timing boss. Unlike the hand of Atriox brothers, which are just a spam fest. That is honestly the least rewarding boss I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with, in any boss fight-style game I’ve ever played.
All in all, good campaign and great story. Lacks exposition in a lot of places and the bosses are mostly unrewarding to fight.
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Absolutely boring and pointless campaign.
- 343i said “y’all want more master chief than in halo 5? Fine, you’ll not only get him, but no other character in the halo universe will be present.” Absolutely failed
- Go here go there, retrieve this retrieve that…… Boring
- Obviously 343i focused on multiplayer (and it’s a good multiplayer) these 6 years. And the “open world” concept. But the actual plot? Another cliff hanger and another inconclusive story.
- Why kill Cortana? And why outside of a video game?
- Also, no cutscenes. Where were the cinematic cutscenes? Nothing but audio and holograms. So stupid.
I could go on and on. Overall 343i has 1 good campaign (H4) and 2 decent multiplayers (H5, Halo infinite). 343i gave up on the game story and are milking the novel sales.
4 Likes
I agree with all of the above.
Completing it the first time while exploring the island in-between main missions was fun and felt like a complete game.
BUT, after doing a Forza rush, and only doing the main missions. It makes it so clear how much was actually recycled. Half of the areas all look the same and give a unfun bland experience. The area towards the end where the Grunt Birthday Skull power seed doors are is the same area in the beginning when you find the weapon. Its supposed to be two different areas.
I’m also pretty unsatisfied with vehicle forcibility in terms of the main missions. The Road is the only mission that forces you to use a vehicle. The rest not so much. While you can spawn vehicles with the FOB, most of them offer just a means to get to the mission location… The tank is completely useless in this environment. Too slow and too big to fit in 90% of the areas. The wasp while fun, is too weak in armor and weapons. I would constantly have to spawn a new one after doing 1 distress mission or having a encounter with a pair of banshees on just normal difficulty. It also takes a million shots to kill a banshee with the wasp on normal.
After typing this, the realization that the next installment will take place in the same location this game ends is daunting. There was no indication of anyway off zeta halo or even to the other side of the ring. A pelican isn’t going to get there and using a teleporter is so bleh. Doubt the UNSC even knows the infinity is destroyed and won’t be sending a fleet of ships. Also not really looking forward to another “robot” enemy being woken up which is what the endless seem like. Would prefer a new organic alien species.
I love the open world aspect of this game. The story wasn’t as awesome as I’d like it to be but for the direction it was going it wasn’t to bad. The last 2 Main boss fights where super underwhelming. Especially the last one, all she did was teleport while I lasered her with the sentinel beam, kinda lame. Bosses as a whole boil down to throw a coil at them. Wouldn’t hurt to be a little more creative. Overall it was fun and a good step up from 4 and 5. If 343 continues to add on to this with more areas and stories it could be a masterpiece.
P.S. Bring in the flood
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It skipped the important part of “what happened to Cortana” early in the game.
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I only just finished the main story and I agree it does seem quite short but I didn’t really feel as underwhelmed as you did as it seemed like it was laying the foundations of a much bigger story and tidying up some loose ends to me. I am fairly confident we may get some story DLC with this title. Like we got with ODST in Halo 3.
You have to take into account how much development time would of gone into the open world and all the side quests.
Agreed.
I really don’t know what the takeaway from the last 3 games is supposed to be other than to replace out of date software.
I liked it a lot, but it’s marred a bit by Cortana still ultimately being disrespected as a character by 343. I was hoping they’d sneak some reference to the logic plague or her rampancy to contextualize her betrayal in 5, but it essentially boiled down to her forgetting the power of teamwork.
Truthfully, I just feel sorry for Josh Holmes and Chris Scherlf. They worked tirelessly to make Cortana’s story and send off in 4 were treated right and the writing staff at 343 since then just pissed all over it and couldn’t even pull out a half decent reason why in Infinite.
This campaign was definetly all over the place in many parts BUT I can definetly take this as an apology for the mess ups before. Fact is: 4 and 5 exist so they had to do something to continue and this I can accept.
HOWEVER they could’ve just made a story about the 6 months before, the whole UNSC HQ being destroyed on earth, Chief and Halsey building the new AI and the infinity ultimately getting destroyed with Chief getting thrown into space as the end of the first game of the new series. This could’ve been the second game of the series which would have made the impact of the reveal of the Wespons identity (even tho they say it at the first meeting already lmao).
Doing all the side content really helps to exstend the duration of the campaign. Listening to the recovered files and artefact logs are great!
It would feel short if one did not explore the ringworld or liberate POWs. I get that, but length wise I think it was yes on the shorter end however, the quality of gameplay was higher than usual and the visual storytelling was a home run.
Pacing wise, the introductory cutscene could have been longer or they coulve have done a Halo 2 with splitting the game into after and before with a few missions being “Flashbacks” to the Infinity going down. Perhaps even playing as Fireteam Taurus in those moments.
Thanks for the replies all, interesting to see what others thought and how a lot feel the same in that it feels half done.
Lmao barely even a good multiplayer. Core mechanics are solid but progression is awful and there’s very little content.
They could have solved this issue with a basic recap in the beginning or slowly revealing details of what has happened between 5 and now through character interaction, but they decided to parse it out in audio logs spread throughout the game world to pad game.time instead.
That’s because there’s no real plot in Infinite other than to undo Halo 4 and 5.
They really couldn’t do much better than what’s here, in my opinion. Halo 4 and especially 5 made too many bafflingly poor narrative choices and dug a deep hole that required a full game just to get out of.