I think it’s important to note that I never would have started up a second solo campaign playthrough of Infinite- much less attempted a LASO run- if it weren’t for the existence of the Scorpion Gun. This is the first LASO I’ve ever dared to try on a Halo game in all my 20 years of playing Halo, and I know I can’t be the only one. That seems healthy for the game, no?
Is it unbalanced?
Well if you’re not playing on LASO- maybe, sure. If you choose to go out of your way to pick it up and pursue the experieince of using it. But when it comes to LASO, this is not a very balanced mode to begin with. If you’ve played Halo Infinite LASO, you know that just acquiring that Scorpion Gun is (for most people) pretty dang hard. You also know it’s not actually a game-killing gun; you’re required to change it out constantly so that you can keep using grenades, you can’t melee with it (necessary for regenerating shields in LASO), it’s not very effective in certain tighter spaces, and you have to be careful with your inventory as you could easily accidentally lose it forever. In other words, LASO is still hard as heck even if you get the Scorpion Gun, BUT it becomes slightly more accessible. Which goes a long way.
Is the Scorpion Gun hurting the experieince
Supposedly this has an adverse affect on the speedrunning community- but this feels like a patronizing assertion to me because the speedrunning community already has caveats for speedruns that do and don’t use glitches or exploits- sometimes very specific ones. Another supposed problem is that it makes the LASO achievement too easy, but- even if that were an opinion generally agreed upon- plenty of people have already gotten this achievement while using it, meaning it will be unfair for future players to not have access to this. The simple solution for a person that thinks it ruins the game: don’t use it. This solution is preferable to removing it completely, because removing it hurts the fun for others.
Is it fun?
Anyone who has used the Scorpion Gun knows it is a lot of fun to play with inside of Infinite’s sandbox. Removing it gives the impression that there is a bureaucratic design process which doesn’t allow for the kind of “happy accidents” which can add fun and engagement for both players of video games and viewers of Bob Ross paintings. Isn’t the point of making the video game to make something which is fun for people? Why take away an optional feature that is fun for people- intentional or not?
I know this is projecting, but the news that it would be removed gave me the impression of a robotic voice chiming “Alert, a game mechanic has been detected which was not approved or certified by the chain of command. Sterilize immediately.”. At the end of the day, isn’t the whole point of this game to create as much fun for as many people as possible? (I know the real point is to make money, but can’t we at least try a little bit to maintain the illusion? It’s not like the Scorpion Gun will hurt profit margins- if anything I’d assert that it helps.)