Today’s reveal for multiplayer actually made me excited for once about multiplayer. I am someone who prefers singleplayer and the fun of fighting the enemies in campaign, but I do love the multiplayer of Titanfall to which this draws me for since it seems like Infinite is slowly going to a sort of Pilots vs Pilots style thing since obviously Halo doesn’t have true titans. Due to what we know I am hyped but there is still ideas that I would like to be in the game. Also this will be only for multiplayer since my only thing for Campaign is that we haven’t seen the rest of Blue Team yet although the Megablocks sets reveal atleast Fred will appear.
Battlepass:
The Battlepass is looking on the up but I just wanted to speak of something for it. Since the multiplayer is free to play, I worry that the battlepass will be like the Apex Legends Battlepass, to where you have a generic Battlepass to which you start with, then the premium Battle Pass for the season. What i would want ideally is something to support the developers but also doesn’t feel like you’re being jipped the first time around, what I hope is that the Season 1 battle pass is free for everyone to earn things then the other battle passes are worth like 5.99 or possibly a certain amount of in game currency that can be earned with each season that pass. Along with the Free to play aspect in mind, I hope that with campaign, you could possibly get bonuses, like certain customization pieces relating to the game such as possibly Chief’s voice for Multiplayer, or possibly The Weapon or Harbinger as an AI choice. I just hope with the full game that you can get a bonus like achievement based unlocks from campaign, or with the main game itself also being registered you get possibly a freebie for a season Battlepass (Being that you have like some kind of credit given to you to unlock a Battlepass at somepoint for free).
The Academy’s potential**:**
With what we see of the Academy in the multiplayer trailers, I can see a lot of possibilities. We haven’t gotten to the flight but I have watched a few analysis videos upon the trailers and it seems that the academy will be able to be explored due to the parkour challenge frame in the recent trailer. Due to the factor of seeming like you can explore the campus some analyzers of the video compiled info from the offical waypoint post too and believe some kind of codex system might be implemented to help catch people up on lore in infinite since the playerbase will be expanded due to the multiplayer being free to play. Besides the factor of that, this leads me to believe there may be a small aspect of story for the Multiplayer academy, so I hope that there can be some kind of future expansion for some kind of story for your multiplayer spartan, possibly being like a 10-15 dollar DLC with it being small. I say a DLC like that because I like the idea of having another Noble Six style campaign where you play your Spartan you make.
Besides the story implications due to the challenges, I hope that the challenges are kind of similar to the MCC’s Challenges, although I hate competetive in the MCC, I do love the PVE challenges, in this case, PVE challenges could be through limited time modes that the offical post mentions or the multiplayer story DLC I mentioned. With the Campaign the challenges could possibly also carry over given there is no confirmed PVE mode as of now but I would prefer to see PVE challenges over PVP, just out of preference. Besides the possibility of challenges similar to the MCC, possibly with the Academy itself there are challenges in it using the training areas, and possibly through explorations in the same way as finding skulls, there could be in game challenges in order to unlock things.
Overall with the academy I can see many ideas on the horizon for it that could be added from story to possible rotations in map challenges to unlock items such as getting a certain amount of kills on the shooting range in a time limit, or a parkour challenge to get around the map the academy is based in. I just hope the Academy will be fleshed out, and I am excited for some sort of introduction of ideas like possibly a reference to the ANVIL initative which could tie into another hope of mine, or possibly having a sort of hub similar to the Metro Exodus train levels, which I say since Metro Exodus has a fairly similar level system that the campaign looks to have since I doubt that you can just explore all of Zeta Halo, I imagine it will be levels with open-world levels taking the bulk and you progress through that long level with side missions and main missions until it moves on. Given Halo has less of a chance for the tone setting scenes like Metro Exodus does, that could be The Academy as a sort of break area, with the campaign affecting it if you have it connected after the introduction to it all.
Later Additions 1: Playable alien speieces
Considering the Elite Season is right around the corner for MCC, I imagine it will bring new life for alternate playable models. Within Infinite, it could be introduced with the Anvil initiative being fully canonized, with an Elite character joining possible NPCs you can interact with in the Academy such as Spartan Commander Laurette presumably if its not just a menu. I imagine this would come about around Season 3 or 5 considering it would be creating new armors, designs, a slight change in hitboxes from campaign, and likely even more work that I am not considering. Besides playable elites, since we are getting a bigger focus on the Banished now I think may be a time to test playable Brutes even, which I imagine could be easier since they are a lot more human in design. In lore Elites would make the most sense as already they are allies of humanity, but are on the edge, especially since ONI is out for Rtas’s head presumably since he had to destroy Prowlers which are ONI exclusive vehicles, so possibly the aforementioned Story DLC idea I had could be based around that in order to delve deeper into the conflict, being only like 3-4 classic style levels. Meanwhile Brutes would be harder to fit in lorewise, but there is evidence of Brute Factions being fine with humanity such as the faction that appear in Troy Denning’s stories of Veta Lopis aka The Keepers of the One Freedom I could see other factions being fine with humans and possibly Playable Brutes could happen for a time, possibly being tested in a temporary game mode first.
I may come back to this with more at some point but mainly these are the three things I can formulate into more solid ideas for Infinite’s live service going forward and possibly for launch, but I just want to say, Infinite may be the best game to give Story DLC too whether its for campaign or multiplayer’s world, and with that idea, it could be a good way to monetize the game, using extra content to input that you don’t nessecarily need for the main story of campaign.