My title is a bit misleading as I’m not a novice when it comes to playing Halo. I’ve been playing since the original CE debuted and playing MP with my best friend for 17 years.
What I am a novice at is Halo Infinite’s progression system. I found it too confusing during season one and wrote it off completely and have just been playing Team Slayer and ranked with my old-fashioned mindset (if it ain’t ranked, it didn’t happen), eagerly awaiting the arrival of Team Doubles.
When season two hit, I decided to give it an earnest try and I must say, for the most part, I’m enjoying myself. I bought the premium Battlepass and I’m still not sure what I bought/got from it but I’ll figure that out in time.
I’ve been focused on completing the challenges, playing lots of Last Spartan Standing, and gradually realizing the how and why of certain unlockables. I’m still not sure why certain armor coatings don’t work with certain armors even when they’re the same classification (i.e. “epic”), and there could be a much more friendly user interface that’s more transparent about the information being offered. For example, there’s no way to see the challenges you’ve completed after you’ve completed them. Once the post-game screen is gone, you can’t go back, out of curiosity and see what you’ve accomplished.
In general, I like that I have to play certain game modes in certain ways to gradually unlock items. It gives me a deeper appreciation of guns I’d never use and play styles I’d never consider. Playing Last Spartan Standing has also made me better at other game modes. What I don’t like is that I can’t play Last Spartan Standing with a friend. That seems needlessly beholden to the “Lone Wolves” canon of the season. But I predict that will be remedied in the future. Last Spartan Standing is a mini battle royal and clearly a precursor for something larger (at least I hope it is).
As far as the core game mechanics go I’d say this is one of the better Halos. Running, gunning, nading, and the advent of equipment all feels as good as ever and unlike other shooters you actually have to earn your kills.
I’d like to see more challenges related to the other game modes. I think there should always be challenges for team slayer, for example. This is a selfish request as it’s my preferred game mode, and I’d like to play it while still advancing in the battle pass (and I mean more than the “play any match” challenge we get).
All in all, I’ve had an enjoyable experience learning how the battle pass actually works, learning how challenges relate to it, and how to unlock certain armor items. I do worry that the battle pass has way more tiers than I’ll ever be able to complete. The only flaw, as I stated earlier, is that you can’t play Last Spartan Standing with your friends, you can’t quite track your challenge progress, and it’s not always clear what unlock corresponds to which armor core.
Thanks for reading all that, if you did. See you on the battlefield.