I loved it. Is it perfect? No. But I thought Zeta Halo was a great addition to the game. People make fun of it and call it Halo Far Cry edition but I disagree. I feel they executed it much better than that game. I never found it to be that repetitive really and I might have preferred it over the linear levels. I don’t get why people say the world is full of copy paste objectives when that’s not really true. They do change things up a bit with the Outpost and Marine callout missions. Also things like the Outposts had a story told around them and they had unique looking bases. Even something as simple as a Grunt Propaganda Tower had at least funny dialogue given to you by the Grunt, giving you a reason to find more of them. As for biomes, I get the argument that it’s lacking and it can get boring but I didn’t feel too bothered by it. I really enjoyed exploring the ring anyways. But more biomes would be appreciated.
Bruh it was Death Stranding. Chief takes a hike across Canada. Grapple spamming simulator to save an hour of time. The illusion of open space is filler. There is nothing out there but barren wastelands of rocks, dirt, and trees. It’s still linear, because you ideally want to hike straight forward over the mountains, since driving vehicles is slower and unreliable. I skipped as much as possible by spamming grapple, and the story made almost no sense, thanks to the massive time skip and 60% of the Campaign cut to ship it unfinished. Also world’s easiest LASO. Not worth $60 at all.
I was honestly underwhelmed by the open world as I got later in the game. At first it was fun and being able to approach a situation from a few different angles was interesting. But once I upgraded the abilities it really just kind of felt like “walk/drive here, shoot this, pick up that, go to next spot”, Not only was there a lack of biomes as you mention but I honestly missed having spectacular battles. We know the Banished have Scarabs, but we didn’t even get a mission (even a linear one in a special area) to fight one. I’m trying to remember if I even found a Wraith in the open world outside of maybe once (usually just ghosts and the occasional chopper).
My overall opinion ends up being kind of opposite yours. I would’ve preferred a little more emphasis on well constructed linear levels and have those mixed into an open world hub.
Because when people think of open world in Halo, they think everything we saw in past games in one connected setting. Biomes, the factions interacting with each other, better visual effects (because the visuals from explosions in this game sucks), environmental changes etc. Nothing is alive in this.
Best example? The Marines and characters of the UNSC. Not only are they not present , but when Chief meets the Marines it’s “good to see you chief” like what? No mini cutscene addressing the situation? You dont see enemy factions or friendlies do any unique animation interactions like in Halo 3 and onward. Imagine the fire teams you saved actually had lore and story to provide. Or if they died in combat other Marines speak on it, or Cortana and have a funeral and/or lose our on unique dialogue.
Whatever story the bases have , are reduced to just recordings. It’s very barebones. The environment doesn’t really warrent the need to explore outside of getting cores and recordings. Hell, there’s nothing on the ring to trigger some response. Why can’t I just walk and find a non story bound control panel that alters a section of the ring? Or creates a light bridge?
Bruh the game is nothing like Death Stranding. You don’t see the Chief delivering packages lol. The gameplay and level design is much more fun than that game. The grapple was a blast and there wasn’t any invisible barriers which made exploration a lot more fun to me. I personally liked the story and I don’t know about you, but even with LASO being probably the easiest in the series, I still had a nightmare playing it and I died many times.
Also I forgot to mention, but you had the FOB system where you level up your UNSC and you get new guns/vehicles which made it have more replay value. Plus finding skulls was fun too.
The Weapon hacking every computer was the delivered packages
I might need a new controller after spamming grapple so much. I might even have carpal tunnel from it. There were tons of invisible barriers. Try jumping across gaps, and you’ll get sucked into the abyss unable to grapple anything. I ran into plenty of GO BACK timers, trying to explore areas early game. It wasn’t true open world like Breath of the Wild or Skyrim. It was forced area linear missions.
I just unlocked Cloaking Thrusters and basically flew past every enemy invisibly, and spammed infinite rockets, so I don’t know how you played LASO, but I felt like an unstoppable god. That isn’t how LASO should feel.
Having to restart a new Legendary campaign because we missed a skull in a mission we can’t redo was NOT fun
You literally have four environments the entire game:
- Halo Ring - totally repetitive with either it’s greenery or synthetic pieces
- Exterior banished bases
- Interior banished bases
- Interior forerunner
You have 2 environments, dirt, and metal. No weather, rain, snow, nothing. Could barely tell when it turned night.
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That was the campaign levels, I don’t think she hacks things in the open world.
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You can literally use fast travel and vehicles you know and also did you even play the game? There are literally almost no invisible barriers except for certain gaps on the ring when you try to get across and as for the kill timers, the only time I’ve literally seen that was going high up in the air and that was me using the FUSION COIL glitch.
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I’ve been recently playing and I have been using the tank gun glitch, that has helped a lot. But I have not upgraded everything yet so I wouldn’t know how easy it gets.
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Only thing I’ll agree with you on, we need mission select.
It isn’t that bad, but there were tons of missed opportunities and questionable decisions made. It just seemed like they were experimenting with it the entire time of development, then went around and randomly placed some things around the map.
And where are the animals like in the trailer?! 
Yeah it’s a real shame that a lot of things were cut and animals would’ve been awesome but still, I believe the final is still great.
Yes very disappointing to see those things not being in the game despite them being shown in the announcement trailer, I don’t think it ruins the game for me though.
Every single door and FOB?
Vehicles are worthless besides Wasp, but you get stalked by Banshees constantly wherever you go. I enjoy glitching games and sequence breaking, as well as speedrunning, so I ran into many issues. I even fell through the ground many times just from normal grapple EMP slamming, and had to restart the game because there was no kill barrier.
Tank gun is fun to use, but you can’t use it with grenades, melee, drop wall, or thrust. Using it with thrust locks you in crouch mode and you can’t run or anything. It’s super buggy.
Desperately. That’s a core part of Halo replayability. Mission select.
Id rather play silent catograph a 5383582th time than start the infinite campaign one more time…
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I still don’t think that’s fair to compare to Death Stranding of all things lmao. Also at least hacking FOB’s makes your UNSC stronger and you get new gear. That’s what makes them satisfying.
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I kinda agree, Wasp is good for fighting but sometimes it’s way too slow to get to objectives, especially with one certain mission, took so long I got kinda bored. Banshee is absolute garbage but at least it’s faster. Honestly the best option to get around though is using the Pelican glitch. I’ve encountered that grapple EMP slamming glitch at times but most of the time, it doesn’t happen. I usually just kill myself with grenades if that happens.
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Well obviously it’s going to be buggy, you’re not meant to use it. That was just a glitch people found and the devs decided to never patch it.
There are parts where you’re in a spectacular battle though. What about the area where you’re in the Mining Laser mission and you have to turn off the gun? Or the first mission where you’re escaping the ship similar to CE’s first mission?
Very much in agreement, the open world areas are something I very much enjoyed. I’m glad it wasn’t as “Far Cry” as I was expecting, too. I think the open world collectibles (audio logs) were actually probably my favorite part of the game. I enjoyed the linear story that was told, but I found the audio logs to be very riveting and exciting to hopefully explore further in the future. And, while I do agree that I want to explore more biomes in Infinite, I also really understand why the game takes place in one biome. We spent our time in one distinct area that had been disconnected from the main ring, it only makes sense that a singular area would consist of similar environments.
When the map Bazaar came out before the campaign was released, I was thinking we will have some city/urban missions as part of the “spiritual reboot” in a “semi open world”…… Nope, nada, just Washington state and British Columbia interspersed by repetitive black and blue hallways, all very linear… not impressed and replay ability, even if we had it, is meh at best…
Respectfully disagree. I found the campaign to be very replayable. Leveling up your FOB and finding skulls was the most fun for me.