The original Halo is one of the most influential and creative video games of the past few decades. The first person shooter mechanics helped define the way the genre would be played on consoles and the sci-fi exploration setting was glorious. But in many ways, the following games in the franchise, and especially the more recent titles, have lacked in any groundbreaking features and gameplay ideas. Halo Infinite can change this.
While the story may be just as intricate, the multiplayer fun and addictive, and the universe interesting, the series itself has fallen into a cookie-cutter like formula. However, the newest Halo game has the chance to deliver on the promise of the original, and the name itself invokes said boundless opportunity. Halo: Infinite can be a true space exploration game.
343 Industries, the game's developer, has confirmed that a Halo: Infinite reveal is on the way in July. Thus far, the details on the title are scarce, as trailers are pretty much all that fans have received thus far, along with small hints from the devs.
While Halo 5 was a success, many are hoping that Infinite will be more. That "more" could be space travel. The idea of being able to fly from planet to planet, without any lag and without any load time, could give players a freeing feeling that Halo deserves. A few Halo titles have gone outside the box successfully with gameplay and mechanics, Infinite could be the next to do so.
Succesful Halo Games that Broke The Mold
Halo ODST was perhaps the first game in the series to break the traditional mold. Instead of playing as the Master Chief, a super-soldier saving the world with amazing powers and abilities, players control an ODST soldier and must use stealth and precision over power and superweapons. ODST was both epic and intimate, and it was an excellent game; it very much felt different from standard Halo games. It was also the first game to implement Firefight, the co-op PVE wavebased made for Halo.
Halo Reach, Bungie's last Halo game before it moved onto Destiny, has another game to differ from the regular Halo experience. Taking place before the Master Chief's adventures, Reach's plot was about Noble Team, some of the last Spartans. In addition to being a story outside of the Chief, Reach had a remarkable and beloved space mission that felt like something out of Star Wars.
Of course, the Halo series has also seen a few spin-offs as well, with the likes of Halo Wars and Halo: Spartan Assault. When it comes to the most loved Halo games, it's not just the standard Master Chief and Cortana adventures that are popular, even as Infinite looks to follow that story arc. Games like ODST and Reach, with their varied gameplay, are considered classics by fans and favored even over Halo 4 and 5 by many, for example.
Why Planet to Planet Space Travel is Perfect for Halo
Traditionally, Halo campaigns are set up in a very old-school fashion, with each level being able to be selected and playable on varying difficulties. However, it may be time to change some of that. Infinite could be the perfect time to allow Halo to have almost an open world feeling, at least when it comes to traversing the universe. Halo Infinite has the opportunity to bring the best from the older games, and it should, but it can also innovate.
When No Man's Sky was first revealed, many fans marveled at the idea of being able to travel from planet to planet without a hiccup. It's something that fans have imagined in games for decades, but really haven't been able to do. Although the game has improved, No Man's Sky is still lacking in the DNA of a core gameplay experience like Halo, where players would be able to travel from one planet to the next for legitimate missions. Infinite could pull this off and give the Master Chief a reason to traverse the worlds seemlessly.
In the case of Infinite, the Master Chief's ship could be like his hub. Choosing a mission would mean that that location would appear on the map, and players would be able to fly that planet without issue. Because difficulty and "skulls" for the purpose of multipliers are still so important to players, those things can still be applied before a mission is started, but now players would simply use the ship to fly to where they need to. For a game about space, for a game about sci-fi wars taking place over multiple generations, the scale feels quite small in some ways. With truly seemless space exploration, the possibilities are indeed infinite.
Halo Infinite will release Holiday 2020 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.