That Campaign...DAMN THAT WAS FUN! Spoilers below

Games Halo Infinite
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I imagine there will be disagreement on this but I strongly have to say that the campaign was 343’s best thus far out of their Halo games. I’ll admit the side quests like any open world RPG were a bit of a slog at a point because they got repetitive. However, I really found that I loved the main story. I somehow succeeded in avoiding every spoiler related to the campaign so I was peeling the mystery back 1 thing at a time having played dedicated my gaming time to playing every Halo game and read each book up till now (that took time). I loved how Shadows of Reach demonstrated how The Weapon was created.

I loved the mystery around what happened to Cortana, or where was Atriox. And holy crap, The Endless?!

SPOILERS BELOW

Halo can’t kill The Endless? Bloody hell 343, give me the next chapter, please! Dosiac destroyed? My jaw literally dropped when I saw Cortana do that and all I thought was, “girl, you just screwed up, hard!”

The gameplay and art direction were stellar, the enemy AI was a challenge without being Halo 2 levels of impossible to defeat. Sometimes I felt like I was an all powerful killing machine, other time I was legit freaking out, and that’s good. Summarize below

What I loved: the characters were colourful and fun, destroying Banished Bases was amazing, the main story and mystery was great, the graphics were beautiful (played on PC with max settings), the art direction was amazing and felt correct after years, the overall gameplay was really nailed down feeling new but not wrong, the niches each of the ammo types fit into had really good fits and all had a use at certain times. Wildlife was a nice touch, it felt like an honour to Bungie considering they always wanted to put wildlife on their halos but the tech at the time made it impossible. The details of how The Banished behaved such as Elites clicking on their shields when under attack, which rewarded stealth because you might be able to get one with his shield down.

What could be improved: I’d love to see more characters and more UNSC if there are any out there, the target hunting and marines/FOB captures got old after a bit, I’d love to see more settings in the future with different biomes, the checkpoints were not consistent at times in the main story causing me to start very far back when I died, would be great if I had to defend FOBs from Banished attacks from time to time (not constantly as this would get old extremely quickly, just occasionally). Lastly, I need something to do post game. I’ve unlocked everything by doing all the main questline and the side quest and just forgot 1 target to hit. But now I have all these weapons, all this territory, all these vehicles and nothing left to do. This is an issue RPGs hit (it’s not unique to Halo Infinite), you unlocked all this legendary weaponry well screw you, there’s nothing left to do with it! If there was a New Game+ mode that would help, but it would fly in the face of the story being that Chief rebuilt the UNSC on the ring. Maybe carry over weapons and vehicles only? Boss fights, saving Marines, FOBs, and bases are reset?

Where I hope the story goes next: who are the Endless? If we saw some Created remnant or ruined guardians it would be fun, does the Chief contact Earth? What ever happened to Installation 09 in Halo Wars 2 and Ellen Anders (it got intercepted by a Guardian but then what)? Are there Flood on this ring, too?

Overall, I know some love this campaign and some hate it. Put me in the love category. I thought it amazing, one of my favourite Halo’s.

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I really enjoyed the “reset”.

There are still heaps of questions and loose ends from tying up the mess that H5 was leading into… but hopefully we can touch on those in future content.

Loved the Weapon. The Pilot was so much better than I was expecting from the trailers. The Banished and the Endless still have stories to tell.

Looking forward to what comes next.

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Yea I was very ambivalent when 343 said they were doing a soft reboot. A cardinal rule of storytelling is always finish what you start, and while H5 was not perfect at all, it left loose ends they need to be filled. I was worried that we wouldn’t see. I still want to see some conflict from The Created war, but I think 343 handled the reboot well. Lots of questions, all will be fun to explore, and I agree on Esparza. I thought he would get on my nerves, but I ended up liking him a lot.

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siv’e played through campaign many times and enjoy it each time, be nice when replay mission comes in.

Do wish was more dynamic weather like a thunderstorm, blacker night time & maybe some snowy parts.

But yeah, liking it and looking forward to The Endless

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one of the worst halo campaigns ever and a truely bad open world game.

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I thought it was alright. Definitely less bonkers than Halo 5 and less overtly dramatic than Halo 4. It’s just very hard to entertain myself with the campaign once I’ve got 100% completion in one of my save files and all of the achievements. I just wish there was more to do, or at least more ways to interact with the current sandbox. I understand things like Online Co-Op Campaign and Mission Replay are currently being worked one. But there are other things that 343 could do to make the Campaign sandbox more entertaining.

  1. Allow Players to Request Covenant vehicles from FOBs (I.E. Ghost, Wraith, Banshee, Chopper)
  2. Allow more vehicles to be added to the sandbox, including summoning from FOBs.
    -Examples: UNSC Vehicles-Warthog w/Gauss Turret, Mantis, Pelican (like in Halo 4), Hornet (like in H2A Multiplayer), Falcon (like in Halo Reach)
    -Examples: Covenant Vehicles-Anti Air Wraith (like in Halo 5), Locust (like in Halo Wars/2), Prowler/Spectre (Like in Halo 2A/3)
  3. Put in more varied open-world encounters. I imagine a fair number of players would enjoy seeing the Banished Scarab as a Borderlands 2-esque raid boss. And there should be a huge reward for getting through the encounter, like 750 valor points for example.
  4. Bring in more Weapons to the game. People miss the classic guns like the Carbine, Fuel Rod Gun, Spartan Laser, DMR, SMG, etc. Also, make them summonable from the FOBs too.

These are just a few ideas I had to make the campaign more interesting, especially after the end game. Thoughts anyone?

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Would be great if banished randomly re-captured fob’s, falcon and mantis would be great, falcon especially, it’s fun going in with a razorback full of marines, an air option would make it better, some areas of the map needs more to do.

While we wait couple of years for dlc, it would be nice to see 343 expand current map a bit even if just adding new vehicles, weapons etc

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I like your enthusiasm! I enjoyed the campaign too. Generally, i was a fan of:

  1. Open world concept with the ongoing linear style missions.
  2. Gameplay! Armour abilities were also a great add on. I can’t tell you how many times the drop wall has saved my -Yoink!-. Although - they do make legenday play throughs much easier (compared to the other games), when used correctly.
  3. The stepped up forerunner architecture - beautifully designed, imo.
  4. I liked the variety of boss fights. Reminded me of Halo 2.
  5. Also the variety of enemy types, especially for the brutes. The charging brutes, the chieftians. Forces you to tackle them differently, which was great.

Like you, I would have much appreciated more:

  1. Biomes, as many others have pointed out. They’ve been a part of every halo game. The desert scene right at the end should have been an included mission imo, i heard it was until they cut that out.
  2. I share your sentiment about the repetitiveness of the side missions. There were some variations, and i liked the Banished Bases, but I’m sure they could have imagined different ways of tackling them.
  3. FOB defense is a very interesting idea.

Other ideas that might have made the game more epic:

  1. More weather effects would have been so, so awesome. A missed opportunity there IMO. Beyond cloudy, day/night and sunny. Things like light and heavy rain, snow (with the right biome), fog, etc would have added so much to the open world experience.
  2. More stealth options/considerations in game play. Possibly a stealth mission, or some kind of equipment (other than the camo thruster) that rewards sneaking. Assassinations, possibly. And some ‘noise’ mechanic, for example, more noise while sprinting etc.
  3. Possibly a flood mission - not a full scale outbreak, since that storyline has come and gone, but perhaps Chief needing to navigate a flood containment area.
  4. Old characters resurfacing – Lasky, Locke, Arby, Halsey. blue team etc. I’m sure they’ll do it in the future, but their complete no show throughout the campaign was a surprise, other than the audio logs.
  5. A better cliff hanger into the Endless - the campaign ending felt… incomplete. We still have little idea of who they are, or what kind of danger they might bring. They didn’t create the URGENCY of the mission, in the same way that the outbreak of the flood, or the invasion of the covenant did. Just random descriptions we’re left to piece together, and it doesn’t feel compelling enough. Even if they can survive a Halo burst, we’re not sure what their objective is, and they don’t immediately sound dangerous (although i am sure they are), it’s just that the campaign story didn’t bring that out strongly enough.
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