Game – Halo Infinite

Games Apr 30, 2023

Time to Complete - ~20 hours
Time to 100% collectables - ~29 hours

NOTICE: Normal difficulty

Quick statement about the playthrough time… Well it is pretty short. By that I mean for a open world concept type of game. It would have been a big enough world if this game was released back in early to mid 2010’s. however it was not and it with many other games starting to take on large scale open world style gaming, it is inadequate when compared. However, when putting it in the scope of Halo franchise, then would be safe to say it is fair enough.

The time to complete collectables. Took about 15 hours, campaign, about 10. The remaining 5 hours was trying to figure out how to get the most out of my poor old GPU, a gtx 970. It does not have enough vram, and no amount of adjustment could fix that issue. More detail about that in later section.

The Main Game –

It is short and sweet, stop the banished from achieving their goal at all costs. While having Cortana linger in the background, slowly uncovering more details about what and why she did what she was doing. Or in short, trying to steer a bit better, given the mess Halo 5 was.

Everything takes place immediately after the ending of Halo 5. The infinity is near a ring and is destroyed by the banished. Atriox created the Banished in opposition to the Covenant. He did not like how him and his fellow brutes would be sent to their death all while needing to be controlled by entities that were not on par with him. On par being in relation to a brutes history of strength and brutality. Well, that and the false cause that was being pushed. He a brute though and while smarter than the average is still one at his core.

As the Infinity is being raided and destroyed by Atriox, Atriox fights the master chief, wins and throws him into space where he was presumably dead. Master Chief was lucky though… and this time only had to wait 6 months out in the cold depth of space until being found by Echo 216. Whose name is only given at the end of the campaign, so won’t spoil that bit. Echo 216 was able to reawaken Chief by shoving a massive cable into him to jump start him like a car. He is a machine after all. This time a bit too literal of a machine lol.

In the six months that have past, we are now shown that the halo ring the infinity was near had been badly damaged somehow. Yet the banished are still here and seeking to obtain control over the ring. A warship that EMP’s Chief and Echo 216 also happens to be in the area. Of course, Chief isn’t going to let it go so does what he does best, grabs a pistol with a single bullet and heads off to destroy it.

While he enters and explores the ship, it was a clear notice that the warship was going to be a major push to achieve success in capturing the halo ring. John, however, halts their plans. Working his way through to the cooling chambers and destroying them. As he destroyed these cooling lines, Escharum, takes a peek and gets a bit invigorated by the sight of Chief. Happy rather than angry about the entire situation. Since while losing the ship is a great loss, a greater win is knowing he has the chance to take down the universe’s greatest hero. As a nice gesture though, he lets Chief know that they will claim the halo ring, repair and use it for their plan.

While Echo and Chief head to the ring to finish a war and answer some questions, a distress signal is received. Both are unsure what it is but being a spartan, he is insistent on checking it out to save it, be it a trap or not. At the source of this signal, it’s where one of the purposes of the halo ring is, storage and saving of a mass many species are stored. Stored for later use to repopulate the galaxy after the rings are fired to stop the flood. Some basic halo lore put into simple terms to keep it somewhat short. At the center of this room where the signal is distressing from, an AI is found. One that looks remarkably similar to Cortana yet named `The Weapon`. This Ai is basically a clone of Dr. Halsey, which was possible and explained through outside book lore. TLDR, blue team during shadows of reach obtained brain samples of Halsey. The weapon AI’s purpose was to infiltrate the halo rings security system, play some shenanigans to bait Cortana, then once Cortana was there, lock and confine her there for retrieval. Chief would then complete the retrieval, bring this sealed Cortana back to Infinity and have her deleted. As many have guessed, that was not what happened and there is no more Infinity with many other plan changes. This Weapon AI mentions that Cortana is deleted, yet she herself was not for some reason. The weapon AI was supposed to be deleted automatically upon completion of her objective. Another mystery to uncover by the end of this halo.

They make their way to the surface. On the way up they find a dead spartan and at the surface see that a cylix is empty. One that is supposed to contain the Harbinger. The banished had set her free, with more questions added to the backlog about what is going on. On the surface Chief makes way through several Banished forces, then gets another signal, this time from UNSC. This sets the ground for reestablishing UNSC on the ring as the game progresses.

With this new signal leading them to a place called The Tower, a place that is meant to interrogate its victims brought to the place, also run by Chak Lok, Chief makes it known that he gon get some Soon™. Entering into this facility, a Spartans armor is found, a Spartan named Griffin. The armor was removed from him with him being at the top of the tower in a torture/interrogation device. Chok Lok is here to say hello… or should it be farewell. Anyways, Griffin is freed from the pain of the device only to die, but before he does is able to convey some important info about the banished. They are uncovering a place called The Conservatory.

Somehow the banished were able to modify a mining laser type weapon to mine through Forerunner metal, which is known to be near indestructible. After disabling it with a bit of backlash from an unhappy Brute named Brassus. Chief makes his way down to The Conservatory. A monitor is spotted and is spouting some words about the Harbinger being free while her exile was absolute yet she is now free. Short lived as she is being torn apart by some enemies and quickly falls out of sight while claiming she will not expose the location of `The Endless`. Curiosity killed the cat, and Chief heads down to where the monitor had fallen. On the way down, it would appear the nonsense being spouted wasn’t such nonsense after all as the Harbinger is communicating directly with Chief, like a whisper in the ear. Once at the bottom more whispers happen. Then shortly later the Harbinger is encountered with her going off about how the reclaimers are not the truth, she is the truth. And this truth is the endless, the endless shall be set free to climb to the top, not the false reclaimers. Sort of a conspiracy nut that is expressing that the Forerunners were all liars and full of lies, hiding the truth behind `The Endless`. She also shouts about how she is going to do a reformation of this halo ring. Instead of using the arc to repair it, the reformation would do what she wants. Details about speed not really known but the process is shown and expressed. Same end goal as having the Arc repair a ring though.

Chief heads over to the Spire. At the top of the spire, a sub monitor is shown with open arms. Even explains that the reformation is happening but needs a certain chain of events to happen first. He takes a brief leave and in that time Chief rushes to disable said process. The monitor returns with some not so open arms and believes that John is there to cause harm. Typical Monitor fashion has him attacking and failing to win the fight. During this time the weapon AI was unable to disable everything and was met with resistance from The Harbinger. To top things off, this spire has come to a halt, so John does what he does best and jumps out the window into Echo’s Pelican. The weapon AI narrows down what spire this interception was coming from and off they go.

Things are not so easy though and the banished have a few anti aircraft cannons deployed and ready that prevent the mission from proceeding further. Simple work for chief though as he simply goes and destroys them along with banished forced with ease. This is where the real goals of the banished are officially revealed. During the disabling of these anti aircraft cannons, the head big man himself, Escharum taunts us about how the place they are at is The Auditorium. Claiming that The Auditorium is where the endless are stored, with the Harbinger there with him and having the same goal. That goal being to use the reformation to repair the ring, then free the Endless, not fire it. Ending with a threat of 2 Brute Spartan killers that are on their way to take Johns head. Obviously, John looks a bit dumbfounded as he easily wipes them from existence and proceeds onward. There was a wholesome human moment for Chief connecting with Echo on some reflection of the past actions chosen.

Proceeding into the command spire that was the apparent source that interception came from to stop the reformation. Well, the Harbinger beats them to it and locks them out from being able to do anything. Plan B, head to a few other spires to collect information from their data to get a raw access key built from their pulses to hopefully put an end to it, third times a charm right.

Harbinger has been keeping a hidden gaze and during the data collection phase of plan B, it was a trap where Harbinger is going to attempt to use the Weapon AI in an attempt to start the spires and proceed with her plan. This doesn’t stop them from pushing onward though and with a raw data key potentially recreated they head back to the main spire, underneath it and into a place called The Nexus. Which the Nexus is shown to be a command center for the Spires located around the ring in simple terms. With the Weapon AI connected to The Nexus, The Harbinger attempts to take control. In response, John tries to initiate the deletion of her to prevent such an event from occurring.

With the deletion sequence being `Red Flag`, `034`. And `Samuel`. Red Flag meaning operation Red flag, a top secret planned operation that was meant to put an end to the 27 year war against the covenant. Yet was unable to occur due to the fall of Reach with the UNSC being pushed back to Earth. 034 and Samuel in reference to the first Spartan 2 to have died in battle… a spartan that died protecting John himself. It was a loss that weighs heavy on the Chief, changing him as a person to the core. The weapon AI counters this deletion initiation with John not understanding how she was able to break protocol. The Weapon AI responding with sadness of not understanding why Chief does not trust her and tells him that she was able to obtain the sub monitors encephalon. All this effort was for nought though as The Harbinger informs them that what she wanted to use the reformation for is already being done. Oddly enough, the reformation isn’t being used to repair the ring. Her goal is different than that after all. The Harbinger wants to reform The Silent Auditorium. A place that has no information stored about it. Something that the forerunners had tried to hide, relating directly to The Endless.

On the way out, they back to the surface, deactivating the spires was finally able to be done. Which makes the words of the Harbinger all the more ominous. It would have appeared she was wrong, and it was not too late to stop what she and Banished were doing. As they were just about to leave, The banished stalker finally makes his appearance, taking Echo 216. Chief is frantic and tries to stop it but is unable. Followed immediately by telling the Weapon AI to open a portal to wherever he is being taken so he can go save him. Linking back to earlier connection moments those 2 just finished having for why he is more determined than usual to save him at all costs. Even though Echo is being used as bait to lure in Chief, Chief simply does not care.

Teleported to The Repository, John gets taunted and sent coordinates to where Echo is being tortured, The House of Reckoning. Quickly Chief fights his way to there. Peeking through a window on the way, The Silent Auditorium is revealed with Banished heading towards there. Bigger concerns are of the essence though. Making his way to and through The house of Reckoning, he is met with resistance from Jega 'Rdomnai. Jega 'Rdomnai being the one who had taken Echo 216 moments ago. Chief slays him in battle to push onwards to the exact location of Echo 216 with Escharum waiting patiently for his arrival. Upon Escharum’s defeat, Chief shows compassion towards him in the form of a warrior peace, since they were two sides of the same coin, both fighting for their people. Different perspectives and end goals yet similar on a more core level.

Finally, The Silent Auditorium is upon us. The place of Cortana’s death. The place where everything started and ended in regards to Infinite. A place where the questions posed up to now are finally answered. In the fight with Harbinger, she says that she has what she wanted, she found the Endless. With the next scene showing an unexpected person releasing the Endless.

With that is it finally concluded, ending on a sneak of what the next halo chapter will be… It is quite a ride. There is still many many more details left out to explore and encounter first hand though. It is quite a lore packed game. ~~including legendary ending and all audio log details that could easily make this section about 3x or more longer lol~~

Gameplay & Optionals –

First person shooter that started it all. Halo goes back more to the roots with a more modern implementation of features. Features such as clamber, slide, run ect. All flow so nice together with a highly enjoyably fluid gunplay. It is about as fun as Halo Reach gunplay. Only that Halo Reach has more and better guns. If the full line of Halo weapons were brought forward… then that would easily rank it higher.

Campaign is for the most part open world. The player is able to go around and seek out a multitude of activities. Activities ranging from destroying Banished towers, discovering skulls, capturing FOB locations, taking on Banished bases and more. Most of these map shown activities are optional and do not need to be completed. A player can rush directly into story missions if uninterested.

What makes a big shift from other halo games to now is the implementation of RPG elements. Not just adding a more expansive and open world map. It is very basic and primitive RPG elements but nonetheless they are here. Spartan Cores are found and collected on the map and can be used to upgrade armor abilities and base shields. Every upgrade does help, they are not game breaking or shift things drastic to a certain meta. They are also not needed at all and playing normally through missions would otherwise be like previous games, shoot first point later and kill all the enemies = win.

Audio logs add to the lore and help explains some things that are confusing at first. Such as the Banished or simply more intel about the world. They are worth finding and listening to. Skulls are the usual, however, simply finding them is all that needs to be done. No need to carry it to end of a mission, just need to find them on the world map or specific mission.

In a few of the missions there are mission exclusive skulls and intel. Missions can be replayed by hovering over them and selecting replay. With the replay option, it is possible to change difficulty, select enable or disable skulls for said mission as a usual halo game has it set up.

At a FOB, a player can summon weapons and select vehicles to use. The more optional objectives completed grant more points, with the points more stuff becomes available. Along with special variant weapons that are only obtained by taking out specific marked targets. Upon these targets’ death, a special variant of said weapons can be summoned at any FOB. There are also some marines around them that, if a vehicle is summoned in, they can hitch a ride with you for better or worse.

There is multiplayer and forge. They are a bit out of scope of this review and a player either loves or hates it. With multiplayer, it would be more enjoyable with all the traditional halo weapons instead of the limited ones available here. Time will tell if they get released or not though.

Sound and Visuals –

Sounds and OSTs are up on par with other Halo entries. They are enjoyable to listen to in the background when they play. Especially when a more original Halo theme esque one starts up. Really sets the mood and helps with immersion. No real complaints, except that more halo OST playing throughout the open world would have been welcome. Understandable why it was not though. A option to increase or decrease frequency would have been appreciated.

Visuals, I cannot really give much information on. When the textures rendered and worked, it was great. Even if it was at everything low. Final score below is determined by other videos showing max/ultra. For me, my gpu is too old to properly handle the game. It is playable and for the most part was 60 fps with some areas in the open world to dip below 50 for a bit. Not often did that happen. A few of the missions are standalone rendered areas that are separate from the open world. In these areas everything looks great. However, in the open world it is very demanding. The moment I was in the open world, most textures rendered as far LOD. It’s a shame. Could be a mix of poor optimization, and low end gpu by current standards. 4 gigs of vram simply is not enough no more for demanding open world genre games. Looking at the streams and videos of others that can render the game properly, would have been nice to view and give a proper appraisal.

Overall and Final Thoughts –

Honestly, it is a game that I do recommend to others. If there is any sense of halo fan left after 343’s… legacy has tarnished the franchise in comparison to hay day, do play it and give it a chance. There is a lot of lore and on the initial playthrough, was only moderately impressed by it all. Only after looking over everything, collecting and listening to all the lore did I realize how well it all does flow together. Looking forward to the next installation.

There is severe mismanagement with 343. As shown with the release and launch of their Halo games. It is usually constant let down and sadness that ensues. I will still refuse to purchase a new Halo game at full price until things hopefully change. The story has gotten a lot better. Especially when compared to Halo 5. Even though Halo 5 does have good lore… if locke was removed. There was severe amount of restructure around halo 5 and halo infinites games, further feeding into the mismanagement and drama behind the scenes. Original trailer Craig enters chat lol. Sadly, it will probably be another `make a book to continue the story then release next game that takes place immediately after the book`. Which doing this only further harms the franchise. It leaves people guessing and not understanding things without taking outside knowledge into the game to understand the story. Something that should not happen. The games should tell a comprehensive story that is contained within one to another. Outside source being the details and further relish for the fans to consume. If their games continues right when the last left off, things would be better. At least having a intro explaining/showing the time gaps between them for people to understand it all.

Characters (main) – 4/5

Characters (sub) – 4/5

Enjoyment - 4/5

Gameplay – 4/5

Visuals/Art Direction – 5/5 [basing visuals off of what ultra looks like from those with more capable hardware]

Music – 4/5

Story – 5/5