How's Halo Infinite's single-player campaign?

[biffthestiff]

I don't play online games but I loved Halo 1 and Halo 2 single-player.

How good is Halo Infinite if I'm just interested in the single-player campaign? I usually ignore F2P games because they're trash designed by the wrong people for the wrong reasons, but in this case it seems they hired the writer from the original series to write the SP campaign, and all their F2P shit is in the MP. So is this a legit free Halo story game for people who only care about SP? Is it as long and fun as the original games?

 

[Zlaja]

I watched a stream of the game and the story was pretty shit. Also, Master Chief's new pilot companion was cringe, and so was the new Cortana. The action seemed decent, though. The campaign alternates between the vast open world section and closed off enviorments. Both the open world and the indoor enviorments could have used some more variety. Everything looks kinda samey. The more activities you complete on the open world map the more shit you unlock.

 

[antimeridian]

Well first off only the multiplayer is free. The campaign is $60 unless you have Xbox/PC game pass. And it's garbage. For context I love Bungie Halo, but 343 has struck out time after time and this was a bigger whiff than even Halo 5 was. The core movement and abilities are kinda cool but there is simply no good level design to take advantage of the core gameplay potential. The linear missions are tedious hallways lacking good encounter design (imagine a whole game of The Library from Halo CE), and the open world gets old fast because you simply aren't given many tools to have fun with (this is what games like Far Cry get right - give the player a huge arsenal of weapon and equipment, give them stealth options, etc.). Playing the first two hours of campaign will show you all the game has to offer - it literally doesn't change the rest of the way through.

For what it's worth the writing is garbage too. Halo always had simple goofy writing but it had a charm that elevated it somewhat, combined with the music and visual design made those classic Halo games feel pretty epic to play through. Infinite starts with nothing and leads into nothing, the third 343 Halo game where it felt like they simply had no idea what to do. Anything interesting suggested in the story happened before the game started, or happens offscreen. What's left are annoying characters and a bizarre and overly melodramatic tone.

On top of all that the PC version still has nasty frame pacing issues so gameplay will never feel as smooth as it should. The cutscenes also have a lot of camera stutter, and there's lots of other technical issues that were never fixed. It's not worth any asking price.

 

[biffthestiff]

Thanks for the detailed review my man. Dodged!

Well first off only the multiplayer is free. The campaign is $60 unless you have Xbox/PC game pass. And it's garbage.

Also you could've just stopped here. I liked Halo but not enough to pay $60. I'm not really a FPS fan, I only played 1 and 2 because they were some of the few 10/10 on Xbox back in the day.

 

[Zlaja]

Have you played Halo:Reach? If not, then I would recommend you give that one a try. Solid campaign with varied levels and a story/characters that aren't cringe.

 

[antimeridian]

Yeah the Master Chief Collection is a much better way to go since you get all the good games including Reach.