As an Halo CE campaign fan excited about a Halo game for the first time for a while. Infinite is showing a commitment to returning to the classic roots of Halo which I’m very supportive of.
One thing that does concern me however is the weapon sandbox. In the recent multiplayer flight, it appears that Infinite goes the way of Halo 5 in making almost every weapon a precision weapon of sorts and viable at all ranges and in all situations. While for multiplayer I’m sure this means a more consistent battleground, I’m worried about how this will translate to a boring campaign sandbox.
Halo CE had HUGELY differentiated weapon types and roles, and it’s a huge part of what made the weapon combinations and combat scenarios play out so wildly differently depending on what you had on hand or available. The 8 minute campaign demo of Infinite on the other hand has almost every weapon shown be so effective and lethal that the player could simply steamroll through entire battles with a single weapon. This seemed very one dimensional to me and didn’t harken back to what made switching up weapons in classic Halo so fun.
What are people’s thoughts on this? What’s been done to ensure there is a healthy campaign weapon sandbox?
I don’t think the weapons in the flight are that versatile. Plus, we’re comparing a small slice of Infinite’s sandbox to a sandbox that had the CE magnum, probably the most versatile weapon in any halo game bar none. Seriously, the CE mangum absolutely destroys everything except at extremely long range. The only outlier in the Infinite sandbox is the commando, which is a definite jack of all trades and is reminiscent of the CE magnum imo. The AR isn’t as good as a BR at extreme ranges, the sidekick is definitely better up close and struggles at range due to low magnification and high bloom forcing you to lower your fire rate or miss shots. The plasma pistol may have a fast projectile speed but does next to no health damage, really emphasizing a focus on breaking shields, followed with a weapon switch, melee attack, or grenade to finish off an unshielded enemy. The pulse carbine is pretty weird, but it’s definitely not good at extreme ranges.
Keep in mind that all the maps in the technical test were pretty small. This makes the weapons all feel usable since the engagement distances are never that extreme. I think we will see the full extent of the sandbox when we get to play on some larger maps.
Well we have only seen a very small slice of the game, but I think with the world being open and more spread out, weapons will need a longer range.