Right now nobody besides 343i knows how Halo Infinites gameplay will look like. But many small clues could hint that HI might be an open world game.
I made a video to take a look at how possible that theory is. I tried to evaluate that by answering myself the following questions: What is the current state of the industry? Would an open world even fit a Halo game? And what could an open world add to the Halo experience?
I hope you enjoy this video and forgive me some spelling errors - I’m not a native englisch speaker 
Really looking forward to hear your thoughts on this
Kind of surprised you didn’t go with the Haybusa helmet for your logo.
At first I thought there was no way it’d be open world and didn’t really want it to be either but the more I think if it the more I like the idea.
I think it might be more Hub World based than a true open world - kind of like the new Hitman games or Destiny, your objectives and missions take place in an area (and it can be reused in multiple game modes), but you can’t go from one level area to another really, it has to load it in.
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> I think it might be more Hub World based than a true open world - kind of like the new Hitman games or Destiny, your objectives and missions take place in an area (and it can be reused in multiple game modes), but you can’t go from one level area to another really, it has to load it in.
Yeah this would also be a way to expand the current campaign gameplay. Honestly I would be a bit disappointed if we wait 5 years after H5G to have a 5 hour long campaign. Even if they use the classic campaignlevel style, there are hopefully some mechanics that get you playing for years. Even Reachs daily+weekly challenges that featured all modes helped pretty good in keep playing.
I don’t think HI should go fully open world. Open worlds are a tough thing to get right and don’t always meld well with the FPS genre. There’s only so much you can do in an open world before things get repetitive. RPG’s do well in open worlds because they have multiple side quests, level progression etc. FPS’s (specifically Halo) don’t necessarily fit in open worlds well because there’s no incentive to play for that long a period. (no leveling up, no skill trees etc.) to keep the player coming back to an open world. And I do not think any RPG Elements should be added to Halo.
A Hub would isn’t out of the realm of possibility though. Bungie made Mombasa Streets in ODST, and 343 had those non-Combat exploring missions in Halo 5. So I think a Hub could work. Maybe Infinity crashes on the ring and once you secure the crash site you get missions to go on.
But to me, just writing that made it feel wrong, I’d much prefer the traditional linear Halo campaign With some large open missions like in Combat Evolved.
I think that Halo should stick with a driven story. I hope it has Halo 1 and 3’s level design, few linear paths, and lots of open and large areas.