The following is a series of ideas, critiques, and overall feedback for Halo Infinite’s campaign. What I’m describing below is undoubtedly a lot, and it would likely take a very long time for all of this to be developed, tested, and implemented, and while I of course hope that it all one day can be, I by no means expect any of this to happen any time soon. I know that the 343i team worked their butts off leading up to the Holidays, and that they needed that well deserved break, so this list just serves as my suggestions and ideas coming from my first month spent with the game. I hope that my suggestions, critiques, and ideas can help improve this great game down the line.
Campaign:
- Let Marine AI drive vehicles - this was a feature going back to Halo CE, and it should be in Infinite too, though we should be able to tell them not to drive our vehicle if we’re parked in the turret of a warthog and don’t want to be moved or something
- Squad system for marines - i.e. like in Halo 5, the ability to tell them to pick up certain weapons, mount turrets, or take positions based on where you mark - would make interacting with them a lot easier, more enjoyable, and better all-around
- Adding “reload last checkpoint” feature
- Adding the ability to replay missions - main story missions would be good, but also being able to replay the marine rescues, HVT missions, fobs, and smaller Banished outposts would be good too
- Respawning the player where they last saved from - so many times I’ll be out in the wilderness with a Razorback full of Marines and weapons, I’ll stop and come back, and when I do I’ll be on another land mass at a random FOB, nowhere near where I last saved, and with all my well-armed marines despawned.
- Making it so vehicles don’t despawn if you walk away from them for a few minutes - I’ve parked a Warthog at the foot of a hill, climbed up that hill to get a collectible or take out some Banished, come back, and the hog despawned after only a few minutes - the terrain was too rough to get the hog up there, so what am I to do in that situation?
- Weapon/vehicle lockers at FOBs that you can store weapons in that can’t be obtained through the weapon crates there - i.e. power weapons, Banished weapons, etc. (there are so many times where I took over a FOB but couldn’t do anything with a majority of the weapons I had at my feet - a place to store those for future use with an inventory we can manage would be good)
- Add the Repulsor to campaign - there are so many times where I’ve wanted to use it instead of the other equipment I have but just can’t - there’s so much potential for it in campaign
- ODST AI should be added to the campaign - they were an awesome part of Halo 2 and 3’s campaigns, even if they were reskinned marines, and they’ve been absent for far too long now - we even hear them referenced in audio logs so they should be there, they just add more depth to the universe and game and are badass simply put.
- Banished Phantoms need more debris when they explode - like H3, H4, ODST, and other past Halos
- The Chopper needs to be buffed to be able to destroy warthogs, ghosts, Mongeese, and Gungeese when it hits them at full boost, and should still deal damage to heavier vehicles as well like it did in Halo 3 and ODST
- Any ground vehicle (Warthog, Razorback, Mongoose) should be able to destroy deployable cover shields like they could in all previous Halo titles
- Allow multiplayer customization in campaign as an option (i.e. coatings, charms, MP Spartan armor, etc. like in MCC)
- Assassinations should be added for all enemy types (except hunters of course) as they were an awesome part of previous recent Halo games - they don’t really need a rework unlike MP assassinations, but regardless, they should return to campaign and PvE when they return for PvP in Infinite
- Zeta Halo would feel so much more dynamic and real if the campaign had dynamic weather and a greater variety of biomes - previous Halo games (like CE, 2, and 3) featured rings that had rainy swamps, snow-covered forests and mountains, dry deserts, and more diverse environments. It would be so nice if Zeta Halo could be given dynamic weather (like rain, sun, overcast, fog, etc.) in the current environments, and also be given more biomes like winter or desert areas, rather than just all dry forested highlands, as nice as those are.
- Hunter arm cannons being able to be ripped off of dead hunters in campaign - Halo 5 introduced the ‘Wicked Grasp’ Hunter arm cannon and its variant as turret-style weapons, and they were a really cool idea that I think could be repurposed in Infinite’s campaign: with how challenging Hunters are now, being able to rip their arm cannons off and use them as turrets with limited ammo would be a great reward for besting them, while also bringing back some cool weapons from Halo 5 at the same time.
- Halo 5’s weapons all featured unique ADS displays depending on the weapon and faction it belonged to, and I would love to see this return (albeit without the improved performance it gave the weapons) - add back Halo 5’s unique ADS HUDs for the Covenant, Banished, and Forerunner weapons rather than just having them all be the generic UNSC style ADS HUD