Nice spot for a picnic, if you're not too busy saving the universe. That ring on the horizon is physical, interacting with the sun and casting long shadows across itself. Forests are thriving with wildlife, grass sways in the breeze, and Forerunner structures feel suitably imposing. Infinite is a gorgeous game, omitting the overdesigned characters and environments of 343's previous games to create a well-considered evolution of Bungie's visuals. Enter a mission, and you're guaranteed it'll be some combination of pine forests and pristine Forerunner structures.ĭon't get me wrong, it's a beautiful forest. Because the story needs to take place within this small chunk of Zeta Halo (less an expansive ringworld and more a modest national park), missions can't break off into desert vistas, frozen valleys or dense urban warzones. The Forerunners must have loved their trip to Seattle, because Infinite's world is all minor variations on the same Pacific Northwest environment. Halo Finiteīut Halo Infinite is still an open world, and even when it guns back into a more traditional pace in the latter half, it can't escape that structure. It's here where all those toys you may have unlocked can finally come into play-one final effort at an open world Halo, before Infinite sort of gives up on pretending to be an open world entirely in its final hours. There's perhaps one mission that makes use of the open world structure, a mid-game level that tasks you with crossing kilometres of space to infiltrate Forerunner beacons fiercely held by Banished forces. Loading a Razorback with rowdy rocket-toting Marines never gets old. Why cling onto a long-range Sidekick variant when a mission just tossed you into a pit of beefed-up Elites? Powerful weapon variations can be acquired by taking down high-value targets in the open world, but levels are constantly throwing completely different challenges in your face.
Main story missions are tightly controlled and rarely let you just rock up with a tank. See, Halo doesn't lend itself well to a drip-feed of unlocks. They're fun, but incidental-and while the larger strongholds provide a more structured, traditionally 'Halo' challenge (shut down a refinery, demolish a weapons cache, punch through a blockade), I rarely felt the pull to break off from the main path to devote time to them. While heading to your next plot beat you might find a squad of marines to rescue or an FOB (bases from which to fast travel and summon weapons and vehicles) to capture.
Instead, these activities feel more like diversions between main story missions. This isn't Far Cry: Ringworld-in fact, you'll find the open world to be surprisingly small. But while your AI sidekick (more on her later) immediately floods your map screen with icons, don't be fooled. Introduced after two more traditionally linear missions, Infinite introduces you to the open-ish plains of Zeta Halo. That grapple is also essential for exploring Halo Infinite's open world. Playing with my regular Halo buds online is still a blast, but I'm quickly burning out of Infinite's arenas. The game's first limited-time mode only exacerbated problems (opens in new tab) with an uninspiring cosmetics pool and frustrating challenges, and while 343 says it's listening, these are errors free-to-play games learned not to make years ago. It's incredible stuff (opens in new tab), but one that's hindered by limited modes, somewhat flat weapon balancing, and a progression system that straight-up sucks. I'm only looking at Infinite's campaign in this review, but that's only because we've already been playing multiplayer with the rest of you for the past month.
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