So I have a bit of a gripe with the melee weapons in Halo Infinite, both the Energy Sword and Gravity Hammer.
It’s what I would call the, “quick melee.”
In previous Halo titles, Using your normal melee input as opposed to your weapon’s unique melee attack, would result in you just swinging at the regular speed of normal melee attacks with the same amount of lunge as normal melee attacks.
This added a sense of depth to melee combat, especially for Energy Swords in particular and is most of the reason why the “Sword Tournament” and “Castle Wars” custom games were so popular, especially in Halo Reach and Halo 4.
I was glad to see the Energy Sword not sniping people like it did in Halo 5, but was very disappointed that such key features were missing from the weapons.
While the normal melee attack might not have been as useful for the Gravity Hammer in past Halo titles, with the slow swing of Infinite’s current hammer, I feel like the hammer having access to a quicker melee attack would serve as a way to quickly back smack or finish off low shielded Spartans. That and seeing a heavy swing with no effect is extremely unsatisfying to look at and use, especially since “melee input” used to have your Spartan use the axe part of the hammer, which I really liked.
Of course I’m still having fun with the weapons, especially the hammer, but I feel like part of the skill in melee combat is lost here.
Without these options given to us, it would also make the game mode, Grifball (if that’s ever added) also feel really bland and stale for the most part.
So I really hope to see the classic and interesting “quick melee” be implemented with a similar amount of depth as Reach’s melee combat.
Please bring back the “quick melee.”