Reconnecting with Halo

Turns out I still like Halo.

I suppose this day had to come sooner or later, the day when I bid my old, dusty PS4 farewell and purchase a new, sleek, next-ish gen console with a fan that isn’t slowly destroying my hearing. And in a last-minute twist I’ve switched my allegiances from Sony to Microsoft, because they lured me in with the sweet, sweet promises of Game Pass. Which also means I’m one step further towards the future of owning none of the media I play, watch or listen to, but hey, that Hi-Fi Rush looks pretty cool right?

And you can’t have an Xbox without Master Chief grumbling about needing a weapon, so the very first game I downloaded for my new console was Halo Infinite. Exclusively the multiplayer mind you, since I ducked out of the story around Halo 4, when the writers realised that there was actually no story left and reverted back to the Covenant being bad again. Right off the bat Infinite has reined in the “just add more detail” mantra of 4 and 5, with the Spartans in particular befitting hugely from some cleaner designs.

In many ways Halo Infinite is still Halo, with grenades being flung about the place at the merest hint of an enemy, teammates accidentally running over their allies, and getting called slurs while someone teabags you – though this time its written in the text chat rather than screamed over a mic, so I guess we can call that progress? One familiar friend I sought after in every match was the Battle Rifle, because while Halo puts the Assault Rifle as the poster child of the series, the BR is my go-to gun on the battlefields of multiplayer. I hung onto that thing like my life depending on it, because in the majority of matches I played, it did.

To give credit, Infinite has made some quality of life changes which might have appeared in Halo 5 but I didn’t play that one, so they’re new to me. Allies and enemies now have either a friendly blue outline or a not-so-friendly red outline, meaning your chosen colour for your Spartan can now be shown in team games. That outline also highlights players, which aids in identifying far-off foes with even a small sparkle being emitted when they’re aiming straight for your cranium. Weapons, vehicles and power-ups are not only now marked on the map, but also have a timer over them to help newer players learn where the hotspots of conflict are likely going to be. Your fellow Spartans also shoutout (in the most generic voice they can muster) key information, such as alerting you when an enemy is using a powerful weapon. Topping it all off – since this is a competitive online shooter that released after Apex Legends – you can now helpfully ping enemies for the convenience of your team.

I’m having fun relearning skills that I haven’t used for years, balancing the violence triangle of guns, melee and grenades that takes me wistfully back to what I’ve always enjoyed about the series. But what I think separates Halo from other first-person shooters, mainly your Call of Dutys and your Battlefields, is the lengthy time to kill. Everyone has a shield which needs to be destroyed first before you can land that juicy headshot – power weapons can obviously insta-kill, but they’re the exception that proves the rule. As a result, getting dropped on by the enemy isn’t the fast track to death that it might usually be. This places less of focus on sight lines and twitch reactions (which is good because my reactions aren’t getting faster) and more on how you use that triangle I mentioned earlier to take down your enemies.

What definitely isn’t in that triangle is mobility, because the game has a goddamn grapple hook and only lets you use it a limited amount of times if you happen to spawn with it or find it on the map. Yes, I know having a grapple hook as a core part of the player’s moveset would likely create some major headaches in the balancing department, but my counter argument is that shooting yourself through the air is really, really, really fun and I want to do it a lot more. Once again the ghost of Titanfall 2 haunts my dreams and damns my soul.

That obvious misstep aside, I’m glad that I can leave the series on a high note instead of the wishy-washy mess that was Halo 4, because this isn’t me re-becoming that devout Halo fan I once was. Instead, this is more of a quick dip back in to nail some people with sticky grenades, ride gunner in some Warthogs and hear Jeff Steitzer’s voice when I get a double kill. That isn’t to say I’ll never go back to it (I’ll very likely will), but my attention has already been wrestled away from Infinite with the ’80s drenched murder mystery Paradise Killer – thanks Game Pass.

If you like the grapple hook in Infinite's multiplayer, you should still play the single player, and pretend the story is just bad fan fiction. There, you can use and abuse the grapple hook to your heart's content, and it's excellent. It's like 90% of the reason I loved playing that game, even though the rest of it is kinda bad.

The best thing about Halo Infinite is that every time I dip back in, I have a great time. I decided I needed the santa hat from the winter mini-event, and the matches were mostly competitive. I feel like I can competently be part of the team, and it still looks and feels great.

The worst thing about Halo Infinite is that it rarely gives me a reason to dip back in. They just opened a new season, so I plan on craning my neck through the menus at least, but the rewards are so dang boring that I’d just rather play something else. Season 2 just feels like a colossal misfire that pushed a lot of people away, myself included.

@justin258: I‘ll likely go back to Halo Infinite’s campaign someday, though Game Pass has given me a lot of game to chew through so it might be a while.