Halo Infinite's Weapon and Vehicle Arsenal

Games Halo Infinite
1

Am I the only one who’s frustrated and annoyed with all the “variants” of weapons and vehicles in Halo 5? It just seems so pointless to use a default version of anything when there are more powerful versions of that item that trump it in every possible way.

I honestly believe it would be far better, and more fun, if we were just given new weapons and vehicles to use rather than reskins.

Here’s some examples. Instead of an Carbine with a Needler reskin (Blood of Suban), why not just bring back the Needle Rifle? Instead of an “Oni Scorpion”, why not just let us use the Grizzly tank? Instead of having a stupidly broken Spartan Laser (Selene’s Lance), why not let create a brand new weapon to take down those ultra-powerful vehicles? Maybe some kind of shoulder-mounted railgun cannon? Wouldn’t it be baller as hell if we could use a Cyclops or even a Colossus instead of just reskinned Mantises?

Let us use the vehicles featured in Halo Wars 1 and 2, Halo 2 and 3, and the arcade Halo games (Spartan Assault). I know it’d be a dream come true if my friends and I could fly around in a squadron of Hawks or Kestrels. Don’t impose such strict limitations with our options 343. Let us use the Vampire, Gremlin, Mastodon, Hawk, Revenant, Chopper, Locust, Wolverine, etc etc. The Rhino, Cobra, and Blisterback would be great for some specific gamemodes too. And please give us a two-man Jackrabbit to use, the Mongoose is just a meme.

The vehicular combat in Halo 5 is bland. The flying in Halo has always sucked. Halo should really take some pointers from Battlefield about vehicle controls. The small additions you made are interesting, the Phaeton is tons of fun and being able to use an Anti-Air Wraith for the first time ever is honestly amazing. But the fact remains that most of the vehicles in Halo 5 are reskins, and every single one of the default versions of these vehicles are irrelevant. You can’t even fly a Banshee without it getting sniped or zapped from the sky in the first two minutes of you using it. The problem with all the variants is that none of the default versions are usable because of how weak they are. It feels like the default versions are made weaker to make the variants appear stronger, which is a facade in and of itself since Selene’s Lance can easily destroy anything in the game. None of this would be an issue if there weren’t any variants in the game. There’s even room to bring in new vehicles. I mean, just make a Covenant equivalent to the Mantis called the “Ghoul”. Give it a heavy plasma cannon, fuel rod cannon, and a shield and there ya go. Now we can have killer Halo mech battles online.

Now I know that there will be some who say, “Well what about balancing? What about resources?”. As for the balancing, it shouldn’t be difficult. Some vehicles will counter others, and no vehicle would ever be alike. The Wasp and Hawk are similar, but not identical. A Wolverine and Anti-Air Wraith would of course counter air vehicles. Honestly wouldn’t it just be awesome to be able to use all of the vehicles we’ve seen throughout the Halo games in a singular experience? And for the resources, I’m no game developer but wouldn’t it be possible to just port over the design or “skeleton” of a vehicle we’ve seen before and just give it a graphical update? Lots of people clamor for the original art style anyways right?

And the weapons aren’t much different. Bring back the Brute Shot, and the Mauler. Give us back the Needle Rifle, the flamethrower, Spiker, and Plasma Launcher. Maybe even let us use those plasma crossbows the Elite Enforcers in HW 2 use. Balancing these weapons wouldn’t be a nightmare. Because in the end, does it really matter if some weapons might be too similar? Not every weapon should be used in competitive play. Just let us have fun using our favourite guns.

I hope I’ve sparked some imaginations, I know that I’m not the only one who wants to use a Colossus in Halo Infinite. (Also first-person flying and driving would be wicked, wouldn’t it?)

2

I actually prefer variants but I do agree that a lot of the halo 5 ones kinda eliminate the need for a default. If 343 sticks with multiple weapon and vehicle variants I’d like them all to feel different in their own way. Your example of having a grizzly instead of an oni tank might be one of the best ways to handle this. We get 2 tanks but they’re different enough to be their own thing. The way some of the loadout weapons were handled would work too, having default guns then some spec ops variants or other versions made for different scenarios. Another example I could think of would be adding the gauss sniper along side the standard sr sniper but the gauss might be more anti vehicle, or having both the spnkr and pilum but the spnkr is more anti infantry while pilum is anti air. Give each thing a purpose rather than several op versions of a basic weapon. How ever I do like blood of suban a lot and would like that variant to stay

3

The point of the more powerful variants is to be more powerful. In war zone you can use them but in regular arena they aren’t even in there except unique gametypes. I do get your point though and I would say there are pointless reqs that make very little changes to the weapons ie closed fist, fury but the more unique ones like blood of suban or non nornfang and ad victoriam can stay BUT I’d rather the needle rifle comback and the blood of suban be a suped up variant of that to detonate on vehicles

4

I’m not a fan of all the crazy variations either. If WZ exists in Infinite I hope there aren’t tons of variants, and if there are I hope they aren’t ridiculous like nornfang, please for the sake of balance.

5

Me and a couple of friends actually had a similar discussion on stream one night, we talked about how 343 could “Organically” add onto the weapon sandbox while getting rid of the req variants (Except for the two variations of the Hunter cannon). One of the ideas that I brought up was, Old school weapons, such as the Reach AR, Combat Evolved AR, Classic magnum, Classic Shotgun, and the halo 2/3 BR. Of course, each weapon variant would have it’s own ups and downs in terms of performance. For example, the CE AR would have a wide, static reticle, with large amounts of spread, and rounds that deal less damage, but the gun itself fires much father then the other AR variants, It would dominate in close quarters scenarios, but still under perform due to the clip being emptied in just a few seconds of sustained fire. The Reach AR on the other hand, could perform specifically for dealing with un shielded foes, with it’s unique ammo type, Shredder rounds, which would tear through flesh, but would deal little to nothing against shielding. The Halo 5 AR would serve as a sort of buffer between them, with a medium clip size, decent fire rate, and rounds that deal more damage to shields, and are still capable of dealing head shot damage. I think that my point has been made, if anyone wants a full list of the weapon types that I was envisioning I can try my best to articulate it into writing.

Semper Fi, Semper Vigilans,
Ad Victoriam et Ultra
Panther Company

6

Im not really a fan of weapon/vehicle variations, in H5g for one they made the regular models kind of obsolete.

I would rather have pretty basic vehicles in competitive modes and in cooperative/singleplayer modes there could be more powerful vehicles like the grizzly as example.
Though even if grizzly were to made an appearance I would still like to see that one scorpion level that Halo games tend to have.

7

The REQ variants are simply upgrades, but in Arena gamemodes, they’re generally missing. You’re right, why have the Sniper Rifle when the Nornfang is better? But how frequent will you be able to have a Nornfang in your hands compared to a regular Sniper? Considering that the Sniper Rifle is the most common out of the 4, you’ll have it in your hands more often than an End of the Line, which you’ll have have more often than an Arrow of Time WHICH you’ll have more often than a Nornfang.
In Warzone, that situations applies pretty much everywhere, but regular weapons shouldn’t always be discarded because you have obviously better versions. A regular version still has it’s effectiveness and it’s not because it’s a regular weapon that it’ll be beat by REQ weapons 24/7.
However, in Arena, you can’t call weapons. You can only get them from preset locations. And whether they have or not a REQ variant is more likely to be a no than an yes.

failed-strike of coers unles u av a spanker praime ul obliviusli beat a reguler roket launchair (likely) failed-/strikeHowever, if there’s something that’s pointless, it’s the vehicle variants, specifically, the Tundra, Urban, etc. They’re literally a coat of paint. The only variant I give an excuse is the Corp due to it’s campaign appearance because the Meridianesse (w/e) hate the UNSC.

8

Bring in as many Human, Covenant, Forerunner (and even maybe Ancient human weaponry??) weapons as possible without butchering other aspects of the game.
THAT or swallows add modifications that you can unlock in Campaign, either by finding, doing certain mission parameters, complete heroic etc etcs Take note from Metro Exodus. But I really want Halo to be Halo, find back to its identity also through weapons.

Say, some weapons were changed from game to game due to gameplay reasons, others were chaged becasue of a different variant due to canon- in universe reasons.
The Needler have been one handed only and dual wieldable.
Bam! Add the original and the one for dualing could be smaller and shoot faster for example.

Same for vehicles, cram in as much as possible, balance gradually, especially for MP. Instead of wasting resources and time on cramming in BS like microtransactions ( which os NOT only lootboxes)!!!

9

I have to agree that some of the awesome vehicles and mechs introduced in both Halo Wars would be completely AMAZING to use FPS style, especially Sgt Johnson’s. And some weapons/vehicles should be kept out of like arena and used only in like warzone/firefight and vice versa (maybe).