I sincerely hope someone at 343 reads this (please don’t quote this line and post pointless negativity below).
I personally enjoyed the story and found that the Master Chief’s character development felt like a natural progression from Halo 4 and 5. The end was a bit abrupt but I know that’s because more will be coming.
The core game play of Halo Infinite’s campaign was great, but it felt like some of the mechanics needed more refinement.
In the open world you effectively have unlimited access to shiny new vehicles, weapons, and marines, with zero in-universe explanation. It leaves the player frustrated and asking questions like:
- Where is the pilot getting these vehicles from?
- How do the weapon crates at FOBs infinitely generate new and different weapons, including those that aren’t even UNSC weapons (yes there is a small dialogue piece from The Weapon when you kill your first HVT, but that’s not really enough)
- Where do all the marines at FOBs keep coming from?
The UNSC is defeated, there is no reinforcements or new equipment that can be flown in from an orbiting frigate, there isn’t even a “UNSC Command” coordinating the deployment of existing troops on the ring, so none of this makes any sense.
I would like to offer a few suggested changes that I believe would address these issues as there is no point complaining without offering solutions. There are two tiers of potential changes. Tier 1 is mostly superficial but would at least make some attempt to acknowledge these issues. Tier 2 would make fundamental game play mechanics changes to address these issues (maybe this could be made into a different game mode? Mythic campaign?)
Tier 1:
Just acknowledge these things with some in-game dialogue. Perhaps whenever you unlock a new vehicle for the FOBs the pilot calls in and says something about discovering a stash of X vehicle in a downed frigate or something, when more marines are unlocked for FOBs, have some dialogue there too to explain it in some way.
Let me also just throw in here that a little in-game acknowledgement from the Chief and/or the weapon when you listen to an audio log for the first time would be nice. Many of them directly address the story at hand (unlike past games where audio logs and terminals were largely disconnected lore building exercises).
Tier 2 (My personal preference)
Include increased dialogue from tier 1, but in addition make following mechanics changes:
- Marines are finite. The ones you save are all you get. You can unlock better equipment for them through FOBs/valor, but they don’t just spawn from nothing. As an extension of this, you would need to manage their deployment between the different captured FOBs. Again, there is no “UNSC Command”, it’s just the Master Chief, so he’s the one calling the shots. Perhaps in later campaigns we’ll see Captain Lasky and Halsey again, but for now the Master Chief is the highest ranking enlisted member of the UNSC on the ring.
- As an extension of the above, the banished should re-capture any FOB that isn’t actively garrisoned with marines for a certain amount of time. This is still a war. The Banished may have the upper hand, but they shouldn’t be just sitting back and watching the Master Chief take back all the bases (which is exactly what the game presently makes it feel like).
- Vehicles should be finite too. Perhaps when you unlock each vehicle you get a fixed number of them, then if you find more on the map you can tag them for the pilot to pickup and return to inventory (and you could do the same with ones he brought you if you are done with them and they aren’t broken).
The overall goal here is to make the game play feel more like the story tells us it is supposed to feel like - a desperate fight for survival with the odds stacked infinitely against you. When you capture the first FOB Echo 216 says: “So what? You’re going to just… rebuild the UNSC… piece by piece?” and the Weapon replies “That’s his call.”, and that’s exactly what the game play should feel like. You can put as much or as little effort into it as you like but the results should show,
I’ll be interested to hear what others think of these ideas. Constructive feedback only please lets keep this civil.
