![]() Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is structured such that, more often than not, victory is within grasp. Most of these weapons, save for one-a functionally useless pea shooter called the ravager-are balanced to the point where you always have a fighting chance. A single-shot sniper rifle fires spike projectiles that kill enemies in one hit, even if you nail someone in the foot another shoots electric rounds strong enough to short out tanks. In addition to remixed versions of about a dozen-ish classic Halo firearms, like the rapid-fire assault rifle and burst-fire battle rifle, there are a dozen-ish more that are totally new to the series. Multiplayer shooters live and die by the strength of their guns. Yes, this is a publicity still, but it adequately captures the feeling of Infinite’s frenetic big-team battles. That’s in addition to an industry de rigueur battle pass, which begets sweeter and more frequent rewards if you spring for the premium version. (The campaign is available for a standard $60 or as part of a $10-a-month Game Pass subscription.) As with most games based on such a model, you can supplant your avatar, a 26th-century supersoldier known as a Spartan, with various cosmetic options that cost varying amounts of actual money. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode, in a first for the decades-old series, is wholly free-to-play. ![]() In fact, you may have already spent many (many) units of life’s most ephemeral currency, time, playing it. ![]() Make no mistake: Halo Infinite is already out. It’s technically “a beta,” but c’mon, can you name a recently released beta as smooth? Plus, you can already spend hundreds of dollars of very real real-world money on it. You probably already know the broad strokes: On November 15, the 20th anniversary of Halo: Combat Evolved, developer 343 Industries surprise-released Infinite’s multiplayer mode on Xbox and PC ahead of its planned December 8 debut. Of course, the expected wait for Halo Infinite was unexpectedly slashed by several weeks. What’s most worth measuring here is twofold: Was it worth the wait? And does this mean Halo is really, truly back? In other words, the question isn’t if Halo Infinite is any good. And, to finally put to bed last year’s infamous graphics debacle (hi, Craig), Infinite is stupefyingly gorgeous. All this, plus it’s more polished than most games created at this scale. Amid a trend of open-world games valuing quantity over quality-of tossing the player into worlds cluttered with bland, repetitive tasks- Infinite’s open-world section feels refreshingly focused. The shooting is a blast, thanks to a deep bench of enemy classes and an even deeper arsenal of creative weapons, supplemented by a Bond-worthy kit of toys to play with key among them is a grappling hook, an item that, frankly, should just be in every video game. Fan service is, apparently, more fun when you can actively engage with it.īut even if you’re squarely in the “What’s a Halo?” camp, there’s a whole lot to like about Halo Infinite. These moments are genuinely thrilling on their own merits, and never overstay their welcome. Halo Infinite nails it by including winks and nods for more than the sake of winking and nodding. We’ve all seen Hollywood bungle fan service. You are, once again, a seven-foot-tall supersoldier palling around with a vivid blue artificial intelligence on a ring-shaped space station, hoping to save the galaxy from zealously religious extraterrestrials. At times, it plays like a greatest hits album of iconic setpieces from Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 (which tracks, seeing as Joseph Staten, an instrumental creative force behind Bungie’s trilogy, was brought in last August to help carry Halo Infinite over the finish line). John Halo himself makes Halo Infinite feel less like a proper sequel to Halo 5 and more like a follow-up to the venerable original trilogy, when the series was under the purview of Bungie. And in a departure from that game’s most notorious misstep, Halo Infinite’s story is told entirely from the perspective of longtime series hero Master Chief. Infinite picks up roughly a year and a half after the events of Halo 5, but doesn’t concern itself with those events beyond some perfunctory, and intermittent, moments of exposition. Halo Infinite, officially out on Wednesday for Xbox and PC, is the seventh mainline Halo game and the first in six years, following 2015’s divisive Halo 5: Guardians. ![]() 11 hours to hit the credits with 33 percent completion, but it’s likely longer in real time, since the clock reverts upon death a further 61 hours in multiplayer.
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