Halo Infinite | Preview, it's more than it looks
Halo Infinite | Preview
For all to see, the presentation of Halo Infinite was disappointing. The reason is to be reserved almost and exclusively to the fact that 343 should and could have shown more, also and above all to dispel the technical doubts that the game showed during the last presentation. However, despite it being just a tinsel of a valuable conference, the title of the American company has told a lot more than what has been shown.The real problem with Halo is that it is an experience strongly linked to its past, especially on the narrative front. What was shown, therefore, inevitably left much more to an enthusiast who knows the universe well than a player who should be approaching the series for the first time. This is not necessarily the fault of 343, but it must be said that a gameplay to reassure could also have brought it.
Having written this, we want to try to tell you and explain what we saw during the small demonstration: history, lore, news of multiplayer and more, showing you that, in reality, Halo Infinite seems to be everything that Halo 5 Guardians was not, retracing its steps, trying to give life to a story full of mysteries and emotionally engaging.
Missions change, they always do.
The Halo Infinite campaign is certainly the most anticipated component of the game, both for the Halo 5 cliffhanger and because it tries to return to the atmosphere of the first legendary Halo Combat Evolved. The series had reached a point where it became essential to know some of the lore of the novels and comics, a no small problem that prompted 343 to take a step back and revise the story of Halo Infinite to make it more usable for new ones. arrived.Not enough details of the story are known yet, but the new in-game cinematics has told us much more than has been leaked so far. The cutscene seems to start exactly after the launch of Master Chief in "Discover Hope", finding himself in a series of rubble from the UNSC flotilla, which fell against the Banished army seen in Halo Wars 2. Chief is motivated to continue, we don't know what drives him. to infiltrate a destroyed ship, but what is certain is that he is currently with only one bullet, so much so that Brohammer (the pilot seen in the previous trailers and gameplay) asks what he hopes to do, being answered with a heroic: "It will be enough". One of those classic answers that led him to be one of the most loved video game characters.
Our John 117 floats in space in a dramatic sequence shot in which he is forced to extricate himself between debris and lifeless bodies, both the Banished and the UNSC. Our Spartan first intercepts a corpse of a Kig-Yar (Jackal), which he scornfully throws away, but what strikes is how he gently and respectfully moves a fallen Marine, while behind him the defeat of the UNSC army continues to continue. Even later, when he picks up an assault rifle from another lifeless body of a soldier, he does it slowly, as if he doesn't want to disturb his eternal sleep. The beautiful sequence moves from the third to the first person, Chief activates the grappling hook and penetrates the mysterious ship, meanwhile an old memory of his former partner, Cortana, manifests itself in the head of our hero.
The scene moves to another cutscene, we don't know if before or shortly after the previous one. Our protagonist is face to face with a completely new artificial intelligence called "Weapon". The name is not accidental, in fact "Arma" was created to imitate Cortana, attract, capture and destroy her on the UNSC Infinity, but something in the UNSC plan has failed because Chief never destroyed Cortana and above all "Arma" is still in function, which is not possible since the AI was designed to self-eliminate after the mission.
At that point Chief asks why and convinces the A.I. to join him to understand what really happened. Missions change, they always do. From here it is possible to start asking questions about the story of Halo Infinite: what happened to Cortana? Are you a retcon? Or is “Arma” Cortana? This is one of the many things we should discover in the final game, but there is no doubt that curiosity is really high.
Killing spree, how do I change multiplayer
This year's presentation focused particularly on multiplayer, a core component of Halo since 2004 (Halo 2). 343 tried to explain in detail how they want to develop online and it cannot be said that it is not well structured. Let's start from the fact that all the PVP will be free to play and therefore accessible to all with cross-play and cross-progression between PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S (in addition to xCloud).They will not be present microtransactions and not even loot boxes, the game will take advantage of the Battle Passes, which will not expire and can be purchased when we want. We speak, it should be specified, only of aesthetic contents. The team has worked a lot on customizing their spartan, in fact we can: change shoulder pads, torso, legs, helmet, rifle skin and armor, as well as customize your own personal Artificial Intelligence. To favor the concept of aesthetics, 343 has decided to eliminate the classic Red Vs Blue, this means that each player will be able to keep their skin even in team modes, with the difference of a red or blue outline application during team matches. .
Halo Infinite also introduces the boot camp, a training camp in which it will also be possible to insert BOTs to learn how to play or simply to warm up before games. The whole boot camp is editable, being able to choose difficulty and some important settings. Very useful for those who are approaching the game for the very first time.
Jason Staten explained that for him Halo is divided into two parts, the Arena (with small and medium maps in which you are confronted in frantic clashes ) and Big Team Battle with 24 players where the presence of the vehicles, which now appear with a more relastic respawn, is essential to be able to prevail over the opponents.
From the gameplay point of view, we tried to create a hybrid between Halo 3 and Halo 5, creating a game that can be frenetic but also anchored in the past. The Halo 3 style equipment is back, with the difference that the latter will be more incisive during the fight, among the many we point out the grapple, a shield that bounces the energy shots sending them back to the sender and a shield barrier. These will be collectible and will no longer act as "Spartan abilities", the latter completely removed to favor more balanced and more in line with the Halo universe. Smart Link (the aim), sliding, climbing and sprinting (now with no delay to shoot) will however be present in the game to speed up the action.
The introduction of activatable power ups is interesting. Unlike in the past, these can be collected and activated when you want and no longer by touch. This changes the action a lot, but does not unbalance it as they need at least three seconds to fully activate.
The technical aspect
Halo Infinite has improved over the year last? Yes, there is little doubt about this. It is true, from the point of view of the campaign we have seen little, but already the in-game cutscene seen is several inches above the in-game cutscene of last year. 343 has revised the art style, making it slightly more realistic than the first demonstration: Chief's armor has completely lost the plasticky effect in favor of metallic textures and signs of deterioration and also all the cartoon effect has been lost, finally creating that much desired hybrid that fans have been asking for for years.The team seems to have also fixed the whole dynamic and static lighting sector, problematic in the first demo, but which now finally seems well thought out. It must be judged in game in an open world environment, but already from the multiplayer (which normally should be visually worse, also due to the 120 FPS) it proves to be of a completely different level, enhancing textures and settings.
Not we are certainly talking about a graphically hair-pulling Halo, but it must still be emphasized that Halo has never been particularly known for its visual impact (apart from very rare cases), much more for its design and artistic direction. In addition to this, it is always important to emphasize that the same game will also have to run at 60 FPS on Xbox One, consequently suffering from the cross-gen nature of the entire project. Now it is essential that 343 shows us something more of the campaign, perhaps with gameplay.
