I figured out the problem with Halo Infinite's Story and Campaign. Nothing Felt ICONIC

Games Halo Infinite
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I figured out the problem with Halo Infinite’s Story and Campaign. Nothing Felt ICONIC. There weren’t those WOW MOMENTS like the flood reveal, secret of the Ring being a weapon, Covenant Civil War or Playing as the Arbiter.

  • Escaping the pillar of Autumn and first Landing on Halo and being the only survivor in the last lifeboat. ICONIC

  • Sneaking into Truth and Reconcilliation to rescue Captain Keyes and encountering the MYSTERIOUS design of Covenant ship architecture for the first time. Iconic.

*Going into the ring in the Pelican and Exploring HUGE Forerunner Tunnels and the SNOWY Canyons in Assault on the control room. ICONIC.

  • First encountering the Flood and making your way through the Facility, Finding helmet footage, then the Swamp and Library in survival mode: iconic.

  • Encountering High Charity, the COVENANT CAPTIAL. Iconic.

  • Playing as the ENEMY, the Arbiter. Iconic.

  • Halo CE and Halo 3 Warthog Runs. ICONIC.

  • Chief Crashing to the ground after flying in on a Forerunner ship. Iconic.

  • The giant hurricane-like Storm and Portal above Voi. Iconic.

  • Making a deal with the Gravemind to Stop the firing of the Ring. Iconic.

  • Landing on the Island in The Silent Cartographer and exploring. ICONIC.

*Giving the Covenant back their bomb. ICONIC.

First arriving on the ARK. Iconic

EACH of these levels had an interesting AND UNIQUE THEME and memorable experience that drove the story forward and felt mysterious and exciting. There is a sense of progression and meaningfullness to each level. Even the Later levels of Halo CE that were rehashed felt INTERESTING because it was night time and you had flood everywhere in 3 way battles while it was snowing and you had to contend with Sentinels and the second time on Truth had battle damage, flood, canyons and leaking fuel.

Halo Infinite had a whopping one new enemy type, no FULLY NEW vehicles, A Biome that just felt like a smear of grass, rocks, pine trees, and Hexagons, and the villains ( Escharum and Harbinger ) were not only forgettable but were NON-ESSENTIAL to the story.

HALO. NEEDS. ICONIC. MOMENTS. And I’m sorry to say but Infinite had none of that. We didn’t even get a proper follow-up from Halo 5’s events besides “oh hey Cortana is locked down and dead now cause she suicided to stop Atriox” ( which she didn’t ), which felt like an unlikely way she would perish and wasn’t even Fan-fic tier ( overall ) storywriting ( her dialogue was fine but the overarcing narrative was not ) let alone suitable for a AAA game.

Halo CE had The Warthog Run, 343 Guilty Spark, the Secret of the Halo’s and the Flood.

Halo 2 Had The Covenant Civil War, Gravemind, High Charity, Invasion of earth, the Covenant seperatists, the Return of 343 GS, the Brutes and playing as Arbiter.

Halo 3 had the Ark, Fighting through High Charity against the Grave-mind, Desert Biomes, a newly built Ring, Scarab Battles, The terminals and Another Warthog Run.

This is how you make Halo Great. Iconic Moments. This is the solution.

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It sounds more like preference. I thought Chief plowing through the House of Reckoning was iconic. A mission to intentionally bait Chief’s to challenge his skill. Sending waves of Banished to an arena with a full arsenal at your disposal. Knowing well that marines were sent there to survive until they died. No mission has ever done that.

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Halo has never had interesting campaigns: it’s very B tier action movie-esque. It has great FPS mechanics and some of the best music around. It used to be mindless fun you could have cooping with friends but alas.

For iconic you’ll probably want to hit Mass Effect, Bioshock, Half Life, Witcher 3 etc

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A wave based fight in an Arena is as generic and cliche as it gets.

343i must think this is WWE

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Ummmm Halo CE had an amazingly interesting campaign. So was Halo 2.

Mass Effect is fun but felt pretty generic storywise. and yea Bioshock had one of the best stories ever written, but that’s Apples and Oranges

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imo escharum’s arena was one of the most memorable set pieces in the franchise.

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I think you’re being a hypocrite. Halo literally is a game of wave after wave of enemies especially if it was fighting flood and if you’re playing Halo CE. If we follow your bland taste of new encounters being “generic and cliche”, we might as well say Master Chief surviving a fall from space once from every Halo game was “lazy writing and predictable”. No amount of luck will explain that.

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Escharum’s dialogue is written like he is some wordy anime villain that never shuts up and he just sits in his tower like bowser waiting for Mario with the pilot being princess peach.

It’s overly dramatic, cringe, implausible and hurts player immersion.

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Infinite should’ve had one of those, but with how the vehicles work in Infinite…well, I don’t think people would’ve liked that.

Overall, the campaign felt very lacking in events and variety.

Not really.
It was a bland Firefight level.

Escharum’s speeches also show that.

You actually went on an adventure through interesting areas with interesting events in that game.
The same doesn’t apply for Infinite.

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Well he was talking about his arena. Not the character himself. I also think he was a lame character. Just constant trash-talking and monologuing. But the idea of his arena for UNSC survival to the death is such a ‘Banished’ thing, its unique. Its Iconic

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yeah but there wasn’t enough to it to make it EXCEPTIONAL…

It isn’t anything 1000 other games also haven’t done already. nothing about made it unique.

Even the “Final Castle” in Super Mario World was better. lol.

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Not really.
It was a bland Firefight level.

Im sorry, unless you wanted Halo 5’s firefight, what firefight have you had that wasn’t bland? I personally think that mission was much more fulfilling than the rest. And it wasn’t even about the gameplay. It was the idea of the House of Reckoning.

As I said, it was a tower for the Banished to send UNSC forces to fight until they die with all the arsenal given to them. Like a hopeless arena for Banished entertainment. Nothing in the past games as done that.

You actually went on an adventure through interesting areas with interesting events in that game.
The same doesn’t apply for Infinite.

I can agree on that. 343i had more idea than they had imagination. Everything was just a dig site in Infinite with caves. I say the most interesting room in Infinite though was when you enter the room creating the Hex pillars to build the ring.

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If it was a MASSIVE structure like the tower from lord of the rings or Half Life 2 and had unique mechanics like platforming on the outside I would be impressed.

They need to take notes from Doom Eternal and it’s varied Environments.

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Now I think you’re being melodramatic. As I said, the tower was meant to be a survival arena. Not an unsingable fortress. Though I get what you are going, it wasn’t a unique action-packed scenario for you to remember.

Thats why I said 343i intended the idea of the tower better than the design. They just wanted it to be a sports murder house for the Banished. Also for the villain to purposely guide you to fight him. Nothing more.

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meh, that’s halo though. never really cringed at infinite’s dialogue as much as I cringed at halo 3’s.

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I don’t think 343i made the campaign to be specialized in eventful gameplay. Its why everything revolves around free roaming and the grapple hook, to “create your own events” which, I think is lazy.

But they wanted the campaign to me more explained for lore and current story. Which I think was their best focus if you consider the ending of Halo 5’s.

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LOL “squad leaders requesting a rally point, where shall they go”
“to war” LOL

How many times Miranda gonna tell me “If they fire this ring, humanity, all of life…” is she gonna say to me

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I’m not trying to say that Firefight’s bland or not bland, I’m saying the level is bland, and that it’s just a wave survival level.

It wasn’t interesting.
Maybe in its description (which I can’t remember), but like the other bases in the game, it was very underwhelming in appearance and function.

Maybe not, but other games and stories have had things like that.

It was one of the more interesting things, but that’s not saying much.

Which is part of the problem.
It shouldn’t have been where Escharum was fought, or they should have made things more elaborate.
As it was, it was as bland as most of the game.
Even getting to that place was bland.
Not to mention the inability to actually make it look like what you’re saying because of the game’s rating.

To make matters worse, the free roaming wasn’t even good.
It lacked variety, it lacked depth, land vehicles weren’t easy to use, the grapple distance wasn’t great enough, and trees were too thin and sparse to make grappling around as fun as it could’ve been.
Even if the grappling was better though, there’s not much interesting to travel to.

So, they make these descriptions of places like the House of Reckoning, and some other places, but when you get there, it’s bland.
Not immersive, not interesting and not different.

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I think you are incredibly pessimistic. I believe you just dislike it for the sake of disliking it.

I good amount of players enjoy the campaign. If you don’t then oh well.

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I think both Monitor fights were memorable. Enjoyed them lots.

Well designed bosses with phases and makes you use equipment and environment and most importantly: no Fusion Coil spamming.

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