I feel compelled to liberate the Forward Operating Bases even though they're non-essential to main quest progress. Yes, there is that hoovering the map of icons feeling to Halo Infinite. I can feel some readers recoiling in horror at the phrase. What else is gained? Halo Infinite has a dash of the Ubisoft open world about it. Flip that switch and the disco ball comes down for a quick bout of bust-a-move - or a Brute's mouth. See that Elite riding that Ghost over there? Grapple onto it for a quick jack. It's a happy chaos, Master Chief dishing out super solider-powered death even as Grunts deliver their sometimes hilarious one-liners. Halo Infinite's combat rocks, I'm delighted to report. And when in combat, no enemy is ever out of reach - use the grapple hook to snag a pesky sniper and whiz over to it for a quick melee kill. The grapple hook means you can build your own entry point to combat. Say you're approaching a Banished-held Forward Operating Base - you'll do this a lot. Much has been made of Infinite's grapple hook when it comes to the multiplayer side of things - it's just as much fun to use in the campaign, and does change how you think about combat. It's back to basics but with new tools that feel wonderful to play with. Actually, it's better than that: this is the best Halo combat has been since 343 took over the mantle of responsibility from Bungie. The gunplay, too, feels reassuringly familiar. It feels like home, one you've been trying to get back to for some time. Halo Infinite makes significant changes to the Halo campaign formula, yes, but it is rooted in the familiar. I think it's fair to say the studio's work with Halo campaigns up to this point has been divisive. Rather, I'm delighted 343 has looked to the past as it reimagines Halo's future. 343 may as well scream 'remember the Silent Cartographer level everyone loves? This game is like that!' down your headset. There is even a moment in which Master Chief surveys the battlefield from inside a Pelican, ready to leap into action. Slide around in a Warthog, UNSC soldiers marvelling at your air time - it truly is combat evolved. Eventually you land on the ring and take the fight to the Banished forces - Grunts, Jackals (those bloody snipers!), Elites and Brutes all report in for duty. It starts off with a fight against the Covenant - or an off-shoot called The Banished - on an alien warship that orbits a mysterious Halo ring. Its colour palette and art style rekindles memories of Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo Infinite quite clearly harks back to the Halo of old. As Master Chief's chirpy new Cortana-like AI would no doubt say, let's start with what is gained. Is it a good one? My time with Halo Infinite can be broken into two parts, much like Zeta Halo itself: what is gained by this seismic shift to open-world-ness, and what is lost. As a Halo fan schooled on the way Halo used to be™, it's an initially jarring experience. This time Master Chief - and 343 has smartly made sure Master Chief is the playable character throughout the entire campaign after the backlash to the much-maligned Agent Locke from Halo 5 - can go anywhere, any time, and take on side objectives in the order the player sees fit. Halo Infinite aims to capture that feel, but spreads it out across a chunk of a Halo ring. Some of the series' most famous levels feel open-world, have that magic to them, but under the hood they're missions in the classic first-person shooter style, with a beginning, middle and end, loud and quiet waving up and down with the start and end of each fight. Halo campaigns have also been linear affairs with the illusion of open-worldness. 30 seconds of fun in a bowl of a combat arena, the golden triangle of shoot, melee and grenade in perfect harmony with the player and controller - and then, chill. Like a Pixies song, Halo campaigns have always been about oscillating between loud and quiet. I mean the kind of spark that surprises and delights.īecause in going open-world, developer 343 has opened a can of worms. Not the Guilty Spark - that relentless chatterbox can do one. I've played Halo Infinite's campaign for a handful of hours now, taking in its first four missions and a generous dollop of exploration, and I'm still searching for that spark in the in-between places. Open worlds live or die on those in-between spaces, don't they? What is the value of an open-world littered with objectives that are clearly displayed on a map screen, if there is nothing between the objectives to stumble upon, to lead you off the path of least resistance? What secrets will you uncover on this broken ring, if there is no sense of mystery to their discovery? Halo Infinite's campaign is about the spaces in-between.
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