The Halo series is one of the most popular FPS’s in the world, and for good reason. The original five games on Xbox and Xbox 360 are some of the best shooters ever made because the campaigns and multiplayer are extremely fun. Halo 4 and Halo 5, on the other hand, didn’t quite live up to those same expectations. They aren’t bad games by any means, but they didn’t capture the same magic of the original Halo releases.
Why Halo 4 and Halo 5 don’t create that same feeling is anyone’s guess, but 343 Industries must have felt one part of it was the format for the campaign. Halo has always been a traditional FPS where a player begins a level and shoots their way to the end. There have certainly been variations on those levels here and there, Halo: Reach, in particular, had some fun variety, but the games have always kept a level structure.
Halo Infinite will be the first game to break from that mold completely. On Monday, 343 Industries released an overview for the upcoming game’s campaign and it was revealed that it will use an open world structure. Instead of traveling from level to level, Master Chief will explore a vast world with outposts and objective points. This is a huge change from how Halo has traditionally been played and the reactions to it varied.
On one side, we have traditionalists who feel that Halo is at its best when it follows the same structure as the original games. It’s also odd to see a sudden change to open-world when so many games have already gone that direction. Halo still had a structure that was unique to itself. Now it’s just going to be another open-world shooter in an ocean full of them.
On the other hand, Halo and 343 Industries needed a breath of fresh air. This is the developer’s chance to do something unique with the IP instead of chasing past ghosts from when Bungie was originally developing the game. It also gives the player the freedom to make Master Chief more powerful than ever before. The overview trailer did a good job of this by showing the incredible movement potential with the new grappling hook as well as the vehicles.
If 343 hits Halo Infinite out of the park, then nobody is going to be complaining about how this game isn’t like the previous Halo releases. However, if it’s a third straight disappointment, then fans are gonna be wondering if it’s worth paying for the campaign when multiplayer is free. The pressure is on for 343 Industries and they know it.