She constantly titters away with jokes and asinine comments. She’s an irritatingly quirky AI companion who lacks Cortana’s much-needed maturity. The Weapon is one of the game’s rare low points. It combines close encounters with powerful enemies, found artifacts, and interactions with The Weapon. The story plays out at a satisfying clip. This is all while combating the Banished, a band of mercenaries that broke off from the Covenant. With The Weapon in tow, Chief sets off for answers. While she has memories of Chief giving her this task, the Spartan is unable to recall it. There, they discover an AI construct known as “The Weapon.” She had been instructed to contain Cortana, who had gone rampant between Halo 4 and Halo 5, and delete herself after doing so. Chief looks up, right, left, and down to calibrate his sensors, and his first words are reminiscent of the Halo of old: “I need a weapon.”įrom there, the duo crash onto the damaged Zeta Halo ring. Soon we’re reliving Halo: Combat Evolved once more. Then, he re-routes his power to getting Chief’s suit back up and working. After remaining stranded around the remains of a defunct Halo ring, the pilot brings Chief aboard. The story kicks off with Chief as he’s found drifting in space by UNSC Pelican Echo 216’s pilot. That’s all after an emotional beginning, where players meet Master Chief once more after all these years. Players land on the new Zeta Halo ring, which acts as the new open-world landscape in which they’ll complete a variety of missions to advance the story. But t’s still a very familiar narrative for Halo fans, with some surprising yet welcome changes along the way. This one is a lot less frustratingly obtuse, thankfully. Much of the excitement that comes from jumping into Halo Infinite’s campaign is continuing the convoluted Halo 5: Guardians’ story. This is an extremely 2021 Halo, and I think it’s going to win over both lapsed players and diehards.Available on Amazon Halo Infinite review: Story I was incredibly worried at first that 343 wouldn’t be able to resist the siren’s song of other major publishers, but the restraint here is appreciated.

If I had one piece of advice for people on the fence with Halo Infinite, it would be to not worry about the open world and embrace how it’s handled here. I just hope they continue to iterate on the reward system, because it really has the potential to be the best multiplayer on the market with a few tweaks. All of the same arena shooter foundation translates well, and the moment-to-moment gameplay is great. While we covered multiplayer extensively already, it’s important to at least mention it again before we close up shop on the launch version of Halo Infinite. This also extends to some of the aforementioned bunker zones in core missions, which are sometimes a little too similar with their layouts. One unfortunate byproduct of this is a completely re-used boss fight, among several minibosses that do not feel unique in the slightest: a Borderlands-esque “it’s this unit, but it looks a little different” move. That’s in part because 343 isn’t above re-using some things in the campaign, a tactic that’s subtle at first, but becomes more obvious as you progress. The potential here for Master Chief to be badass is at an all-time high, and the amount of weapons in the game doesn’t feel too overwhelming - notably because a few of them are reworked clones of each other with more power and a different paint scheme. Swapping between a grappling hook, clambering up a ledge, punching a grunt in the face, then quick-dodging a barrage of energy grenades is satisfying. While the control system to swap between them is cumbersome at first (and requires several d-pad presses), you eventually get used to it, and the potential for style videos is all the better for it.

Halo infinite review