Was the open world worth losing so many key features at launch?

Games Halo Infinite
1

Legitimate question. There are many who feel that the open world doesn’t add that much to the game, considering the progressions of missions is linear. Honestly it’s at the point where every mission past Outpost Tremoneus could have existed as its own open-ended level instead of all needing to take place on one massive over world.

Think like Pelican Down, how you were locked into one “island” for a whole mission, but could explore that island to your heart’s contend. Except the whole game works like that, and the “Islands” are their own maps instead of all being one large one.

You could still have all the side objectives, like the FOBs, and rescuing Marines, assaulting Banished bases, finding collectibles etc. But those would be optional side objectives within the open-ended missions, you either do while you’re there to help gear up, unlock weapons for FOBs for the remainder of the playthrough, and upgrade MC or hunt for lore, or you skip and maybe do on a repeat playthrough.

The benefits to a system like this would be huge. All you would lose is the freedom to explore one big overworld after you finish the campaign, and Speedrunners would lose the ability to skip 80% of the game by glitching to The Road right away. You don’t even need to lose the “open world” feel of the missions, as the exact same level geometry could be used as is used now, simply broken up between separate maps/levels instead of all packed into one.

What you gain is: Different biomes for each location, coop at launch, mission replay at launch, less downtime between important sections of the game, a faster, more familiar development process meaning so much more content could exist right now than currently does in both campaign AND mp.

Like, it was a cool thought experiment, but it’s pretty clear the Open World campaign is the main reason Halo Infinite exists in such an unfinished state today.

I don’t think it was worth it.

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2

I just miss jungles, snow and desert. None of which exist in infinite :confused:

Interestingly enough they were all featured when they showed off a trailer for the game -rolls eyes-

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3

If the open world had more biomes and just more activity variety in general it might’ve been worth a small delay in some features I guess.

But I don’t think anything was worth a 8-9 month delay for Forge, so many missing gametypes, and no Co-Op for months, and even a theater that somehow feels worse than Halo 5’s.

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4

That trailer was just an engine tech demo, like the famous Halo 2 gameplay demo of 2003 where the entire level literally wasn’t even in the game, despite it being an actual demo they played on-stage. Apparently it was so broken if they derailed even a little bit off the path they took through the level it would have been a guarantee crash.

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5

My guess is that the original development team bit off way more than they could chew with the open world concept.

Joe Staten came in to rescue the game and ended up having to cut a bunch of content and add some traditional levels to the beginning and end just to get a coherent game that could meet a Holiday 2021 release date.

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But halo 2 did include a great mix of biomes and levels. Infinite has 2, forerunner and halo ring. Not to mention halo 2 had more factions of enemies lol
We didn’t even get beaches like the level zeta halo is trying to reflect from the old games

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7

Pretty sure halo 1 had a build where you could ride a mao. It’s not what they cut, it’s what they keep in. Infinite is too bare bones. Halo 2 was innovative and packed

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8

They took a risk and didn’t stick the landing, but hindsight is 20/20. I’d much rather have game developers take risks than play it safe in the long run.

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9

It wasn’t worth it, at least not as implemented.

But honestly halo’s narrative is so much better when its not stuck to a small area, which openworld inherently causes. Infinite feels small.

In CE you jumped all over the ring, as communicated by cutscenes and distinct biomes and forerunner architecture that varied level to level. Yes it re-used parts of levels, but it introduced new enemies, weapons, multi-faction battles, time of day changes, and even simply going in the opposite direction to mix things up.

Halo 2 jumps from from earth, to a gas mine, to a halo ring, to high charity.

Halo 3 goes to various urban and wild earth locations, to different biomes on the ark, to a flood infected high charity to a remake of a classic halo level with a new twist.

Halo 4 jumps around different biomes on Requiem, to a station orbiting a halo ring, to a forerunner caitol ship.

Halo 5 goes to various planets and locales.

Halo Infinite cycles around the same biome the entire game. If you’re not in the pacific north west its all very samey looking forerunner stuff, and some brute stuff. Cutscenes are all dark rooms with holograms.

Infinite’s world feels stagnant. There’s barely any wildlife. There’s no weather. Its unpleasant to drive in. Night time is too bright. The Banished don’t ever try to take anything back. High value targets are apparently just camping out in the woods for some reason, possessing special weapons they don’t exactly use.

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10

Nope, because it’s an empty open would.

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11

I think that overall the idea was ambitious but it didn’t play out well.

In fact, I think that it was doomed from the start. It sort of just… doesn’t make sense. Master Chief is a soldier, who thus far in the games acts on orders. An open world game is just counter to that. I think that this game could have been fun as an open world, and him being on Zeta Halo without seemingly any commanding officer I suppose could be an opportunity for him to choose himself what to prioritize, but the execution, the open world just didn’t do enough to immerse you in it… after all the hype I was amazed by the lack of environmental storytelling, equipment was just strewn around seemingly randomly. I should have known to expect this kind of thing from a game that relegated the majority of its in-canon revelations to AUDIO LOGS.

Sorry that turned very ranty very fast. I think that the open world approach doesn’t make sense for a mainline entry into the Halo Universe… but I could see it being really interested in an RPG style game where you play as an ONI operative. That would be a cool and logical way to give you access to the kind of progression that makes games like Far Cry fun to me.

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12

Nope. The open world is totally boring and repetitive…I spend most my time grappling or fast travelling because trying to traverse the terrain in vehicles is such a mundane ballache.

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13

Oh no. I don’t think the switch to the open world is the problem. Plenty of triple A studios can produce open world games every couple of years like AC or Farcry. The game was meant to be bigger according to the rumours but it wasn’t.

I haven’t followed it too closely but the issues seem to have been far more on the technical side and getting the engine to work. It has issues with 12vs12 on a small map and the UI. I think if they had done a more linear story it would have been a much harder sell. This is where the time was and is being lost.

Also they could have made the sub islands different biomes if they wanted and there is concept art with desert, alpine and snow jumbled together. But I think the impression of a single continuous area is better.

There’s also the storyline issues. This is very consciously a much more personal and small scale storyline than previous Halo titles. The fate of the Galaxy is never really at stake. That just leaks into how significant the proceedings are; regardless of the environment or enemies.

But yeah, the engine is the problem, not the open world and the game is better for the Open World.

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14

No, not by a long shot. The game is empty and bland. Love them or hate them, all other halos had a personality but Infinite feels like an empty sanbox waiting for a game to be added

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15

343i are on record as saying that Infinite is supposed to last 10 years, and everyone uses its F2P MP as the reason this would work out, yet they gloss over the Campaign entirely.

Open world games are far far easier to add expansions and DLC to. So just as an example, if they did this with Halo 5 they would’ve either had to add a different POV altogether, or they would’ve had to lengthen the story of Halo 5 in general. In Infinite everything builds up the open world itself, so new regions added would always enhance the experience and because a lot of stuff is just optional side content it does give them more freedom in terms of risks. I love listening to other people’s theory for DLC because basically they could do anything, which is why they went open world to begin with I’d imagine.

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I personally don’t think it was… There is nothing wrong with linear games. I feel linear games tell better storylines. Halo Infinite when it comes to campaign it’s Halo Farcry… Multiplayer I guess Halo Fortnight perhaps? Not saying I don’t necessarily like it. There is a lot of potential here. The mechanics and game play are spot on I think. The weapons are pretty good. What really needs work is the maps for multiplayer. I feel multiplayer can be way better with some better maps and more game modes. We need a social composer so we can select precision or auto starts… Input based matchmaking… Better progression system. Campaign some mission expansion packs to help better tell the story… But sadly odds are that stuff doesn’t happen soon enough.

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18

The one feature that I miss, is the play wherever without being hindered by needing to connect to WiFi first

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19

Knowing what I know now…. Definitely not. The open world wasn’t worth what we lost

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20

Honestly just happy with any continuation of the story. Was happy with the story told. Wish there was more but it had a pretty troubled development, not sure if I’d blame it all on the open world concept.

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21

I still can’t believe we can’t even replay campaign missions…that is just mind boggling. A huge Halo staple as far as campaign play is to be able to replay them, go for speed runs, skull runs, whatever… SMH…

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