It all felt a bit underwhelming, and very rushed. Halo 5’s demo was amazing compared to the graphics we saw for Infinite, and it is supposed to be on a more powerful console.
The intro with the cylinder thing and the armour looked amazing, and that technology (in game, for the Halo universe) looks way more advanced than anything we had in Halo 5. And the voice of Cortana - strange that Cortana was not mentioned in the footage at all, or even referenced, being such a big part of Halo 5 and the end game - not to mention the entire marketing for the game. It doesn’t look like we will be fighting ‘Cortana’s Covenant’ after all. I really hope they don’t dump that plot point and come up with some absurd reason as to how they got Cortana back, or why her plan didn’t work. I know not many liked Warden Eternal, but you can’t just dump a character who can control the Forerunner domain and Prometheans because you ‘we want to take the game in a different direction’.
Not sure what to think about the grappling hook, reminded me off Titanfall (which I love) but I don’t know if that says ‘Halo’. The weapon style looks cool, especially the Reach style AR. That 20 shot gun looked ok, not really sure what it would replace or why it has been added. The new plasma style brute weapons were not my cup of tea. Brute weapons are supposed to be fierce and powerful - like the Spiker and Brute Shot, plasma weapons don’t fit well for brutes weapons, in my opinion.
The ring itself looks a bit strange - I know it is suppose to be broken and damaged, but parts just look like minecraft. Also, how would the ring do that? The ring can’t surly create an infinite amount of resources that push up out of the ground? Where did all these giant pillars come from? Something definitely seemed to be missing - you are on a Halo ring, so are the Banished, they have ‘control’ - are you really telling me that a Halo ring has no other life forms on it? No sentinels, flood, Prometheans? Is it really that all these banished are just waiting for you to come find them? I saw that it was alluded to that all the UNSC basically gets killed off at the start, but really? Why do that? Why kill everyone? Let me guess, the Infinity was destroyed in the fight - that ship that was the backbone of the UNSC in Halo 4 and 5, and was more powerful than a Covenant Super-Carrier, probably taken down in one sweep, and now lays in pieces on the ring.
I did like the interactions with the pilot and chief - finally a marine angry with chief for wanting to continue the fight no matter what. It is interesting to see this from a marines perspective, who has lost the battle and wants to go home. But then as Chief went around the map, it was silent, no radio chatter or anything. You would think the pilot would be in your ear giving you directions, or telling you where the objective is. Or just adding dialogue, like every other Halo game. I am sure that each Halo game to date has had some sort of radio chatter or dialogue whilst you explore a level, or at least from other characters. I know there is an exception with ODST - but you know what I mean. If this pilot so desperately wants Chief to do his thing so they can scavenge and go home, I would expect to hear from him at least a few times. Even a sarcastic ‘are you done yet’ would be good.
The whole story is still intriguing, as we now know it has been 100 or so days since they ‘lost’. Which from the looks of it is just between the banished and the UNSC - still unclear why they both headed for the ring, but hopefully we will find out. Maybe the ring was suddenly discovered and all factions under the threat of Cortana wanted to use it to stop her? The battle for this better be a playable flash-back or lengthy cutscene, don’t pull anything like we had with Jul’ Mandama in Halo 5. Plot points and main characters need development, not a 30 second death scene.
The enemy encounters where cool, very much Halo there - good to see the brutes again in a main Halo game. The new brute drop pods do look interesting as the door can damage you, and they explode? That’s cool. I like the feature that you can pick up an explosive barrel and throw it, that will be fun to use. The flying suicide grunts are an… addition… - but they did seem to be over used, and sort of just ‘there’ for each encounter - not like you kill the leader and then they wip out the grenades. One thing that stuck out was the Jackals, is it me, or did they seem to be all shield and nothing else? You couldn’t see through the shield, and it more or less covered their entire body - in Halo 5 you can see their arms and feet - and shoot them. But here it looked like a blue ball with a gun.
The new phantoms seemed very clunky, almost like they had been taken straight from Halo Wars 2 - not the cut scenes, the actual game play bit. I really hope they don’t just abandon the Covenant and replace them. Similar to how Destiny 2 had the different variations of the Vex - fighting different factions of familiar enemies is cool - and better yet, they could fight each other. Just like the Prometheans and Covenant did in Halo 5.
No mention of the flood, but the game was preceded by a ‘Mature’ rating, which could mean that the flood are in the game. Unless there is more swearing, violence and blood, I don’t see why this is not a 16. I think that’s why Halo 4 or 5 didn’t have the flood, because they wanted to market to a younger audience, and adding the flood would have added more gore and violence, upping the rating from 16 to M. I am no expert, but I have some knowledge of how the pegi system works.
As for the big bad brute, I couldn’t understand what he saying half the time. However, it does sound like he says “The ARBITER and the Banished share the same goal” or something along those lines. Again, I really hope they don’t have some stupid explanation that now the Arbiter is an enemy working with the Banished.
The biggest downfall was the textures and graphics, it seemed very Halo-2-Anniversary. Which is not what I was expecting. If this was an alpha build or a beta, I think they still have a lot of work to do.