• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Everything wrong with Halo Infinite: (Spoilers) THERE'S A LOT WRONG!

01011001

Banned
Since I still see so many people on here vehemently defending Halo Infinite with simple statements like "the core game is amazing" and other vague statements like that,
I decided to make 1 long post on here showcasing everything wrong with the game.

I'll try to stay as short and objective as possible, BUT THERE IS A LOT, and only throw in opinion points when necessary.

I want to go beyond what its defenders often do and just write the negative opposite-equivalent of:
"The game is great it just needs some more content guys! :messenger_grinning::messenger_grinning::messenger_smiling_hearts::messenger_smiling_hearts::messenger_smiling_hearts::messenger_savoring::messenger_savoring::messenger_savoring::messenger_horns::messenger_horns::messenger_horns::messenger_horns:"

but let me say this right away, if you Like Halo Infinite, and you are ok with the state it is in, great for you, but please don't try justifying the CLEAR lack of content, polish and lack of unique game-design choices 343i makes in order to make the game more mainstream!
You don't have to justify liking a game, just like I would never tell you Crackdown 3, a game I like quite a bit, is anything more than a 6/10... it just happens that I like the game even with its flaws, just like you like Infinite despite the flaws.

What I will say tho is that it is VERY CLEAR that what 343i is doing doesn't work, not for Halo fans and not for the Mainstream shooter fans, so there is clearly something wrong here, at least acknowledge this please!


CHAPTER 1: The Campaign, aka. the best part of the game, that is still pretty mediocre tho

The Campaign is often held up by the Infinite defense forces as "what really matters" and "amazing!!!". Well, while it is true that the Campaign isn't bad, it ultimately is nothing special either, and not only follows the dreaded UbiWorld formula, but also lacks any real highlights as well as gameplay and biome diversity.

UbiWorld Formula: The game has the typical always samey "take over this spot to reveal icons on your map" loop of Ubisoft games.
you take over an enemy base, dozens of side-content icons pop up on the map, you get a fast-travel point and can call in weapons.
very generic open world stuff, once again following a trend to "make the game appeal to a wider audience" and lacking imagination and innovation.

No Highlights: Due to the open world nature the game feels extremely void of any real high points and feels samey throughout the duration of the campaign.
Since weapons are now basically throwaway items that you don't really need to manage or hold on to since you can just spawn in a new Sniper by spawning back at a base, you never get hyped to score a sniper, a rocket launcher or even strong vehicles... afer all, a quick trip back to the nearest base and you just can have all that for free.

Since it is an open map, and most missions either happen on that map or in relatively claustrophobic structures placed in the map, we don't ever get anything close to any of the more iconic Halo Missions of the past.
Just think of Halo Reach, how that game mixed things up with missions like "New Alexandria", where you are in the rainy sky-scapes of New Alexandria at night, you star at the roof of a skyscraper, a Falcon next to you. You get into the Falcon and start flying towards the city, fight enemies in the air, until you land and infiltrate one of the towers, maybe you take out their ground troops first with your Falcon... then you go in, you are in an abandoned night club, the music is still going the neon light decorations still turned on... you fight your way through...
...
..
You know what, just look it up on Youtube as a reference.

Or maybe in Halo 3 in the mission "The Storm". You and a squad of marines come to an infested bunker complex to take it back over. you fight through bunkers, through an open area where you have to defeat multiple enemy Wraith tanks, you go through another bunker until you get out to a wide open spot... while you are fighting enemy ground troops and vehicles you suddenly hear a over the radio: "It's getting closer!"... you hear rumblings... and a gigantic scarab tank crawls over the roof of the bunker you just defended. now it is your mission to take it down using a multitude of possible ways from trying to get to a high place and try your luck with a leap of faith over to the Scarab, to destroying one of its legs using one of the stationary rocket turrets... or many other strategies.

this should be enough examples, but there are tons more.
the biggest highlight Halo Infinite's campaign has is maybe some of the boss fights. but outside of that, I have to tell you, I barely remember anything from my playthrough that isn't the most basic running through corridors and shooting random enemy types... even the bosses are not really that great and often are just bullet sponges with cool designs.
Infinite just doesn't have any "wow" moments. and the first 2 + the final 3 missions are the closest it ever gets to feeling like it has actual leveldesign in the first place.

The final thing I will say about the campaign itself is, the Banished are a poore excuse for an enemy faction!
What are they even trying to accomplish? what is their goal? what is their purpose?

They are pissed at Cortana... as are the Humans... so why are they fighting the Humans?

They want to... go to war... and fight... in honor... or something... but for what? they don't have a clear goal! The Covernant had a VERY CLEAR and THEMATICALLY FUNCTIONAL goal! They wanted to take over the Halo Rings and the Arch in order to fire the Halo Rings and wipe yout all organic live in the galaxy, which they believe will makde them ascent to a higher form of existence... The Banished want to, be honored... or something... and are pissed at an AI that is already dead... YAY!


CHAPTER 2: Presentation + Graphics, aka. WTF DID THEY DO FOR 6 YEARS?

So yeah... this game isn't really a looker is it? The best you can say about it is that they FINALLY went back to an art style that is reminiscent of the Bungie days, meanign it doesn't look as fucking butt-ugly anymore as the style of Halo 4 and 5, with their gummy-bear-space-powerranger Spartans and over-designed EVERYTHING.
but from a technical standpoint it's not at all what people expected after that original Splipspace Engine trailer.

I'm no graphics whole but I think this is also worth bringing up because it is a symptom of the things that went wrong during development.
The graphical fidelity is simply not great, neither is anything that has to do with physics and animation.

It starts with the fact that EVERY cutscene in the game stutters... this is true on console, on PC, any mode you play. Animations are played back below 60fps, camera movement jerks around, audio gtes mismatched... all of this happens and you can't do anything about it. it's worse in some scenes and less bad in others but all of them exhibit it.
THIS HAS NOT YET EVEN BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE DEVS.
The Intro cutscene also was encoded incorrectly

notice the blaclevels are completely wrong... black in this is simply grey, even the black "cinematic" bars on top and bottom are grey not black. the whole encode is flawed and has not been fixed yet either.

Next, physics...
Vehicle explosions and general physics are just awful. Vehicles feel like ass to handle and nothing has any weight.
when a vehicle explodes, most of it just disappears in a really bad looking "poof" while the rest just sits there on the ground all sad and awful looking.

for comparison, here is an explosion in Halo Reach when a Warthog is shot with a Rocket:


and here is the sad excuse of it in Infinite:


this is sad, and just so fucking bad... if you excuse my opinionated expression here.
and many aspects of Infinite's feel, presentation and graphics suffer from similar issues. The Sound for example is a joke, every weapon that hits you just sounds like someone is farting directly into a really bad microphone that has way too much base!
You can barely make out what killed you without looking at the kill-feet. you hear the aforementioned fart noise and you are dead... but what fart noise was it? the fart noise that is supposed to be the BR? or maybe the fart noise that is supposed to be a melee attack.

the lack of visual feedback by the way of animations and phyics also makes this hard to make out, as getting hut by a rocket launcher sometimes just makes you collapse to the floor 🤷‍♂️ not really what you expect from getting blasted by a rocket... and of course seomtimes all you hear is, again, the bass laden fart noise


Chapter 3: Gameplay, aka. it's not as good as people claim it to be

So, you will mostly hear the defenders of this game say "but the gameplay is amazing!" or similar statements, well... not really.
While it is true that Infinite feels more like Halo again than 4 and 5 did, it only does so in some ways and not others.
Part of the issues the game has in this category the core gameplay chasing trends for no reason, the weapons feeling weird at best and completely fucked at worst, and last but not least THE AWFUL NETCODE THAT IS WORSE THAN Halo 3's which ran on P2P connections...

Let's start with the core gameplay:
well, Halo Infinite has all the things you would expect from a modern shooter... but why does it have these features? to make the game better? or to simply chase trends in order to make the game "appeal to a broader audience"?
I think by playing the game it becomes quickly clear that it is the latter part that is the case.

Halo Infinite has a Sprint button. you know, like Call of Duty or Battlefield... you click the left stick and you star running faster while lowering your weapon.
why do I think this is not in the game to make it better but only there to chase trends? well, it's quite self-evident really.


The Sprint feature in this game barely does anything and is almost completely cosmetic. They couldn't make it 100% cosmetic of course in order to have a little deniability.
The feature really doesn't bring anything to the table other than make Call of Duty players feel like they get a speed boost by clicking the left stick.
In regular gameplay with corners and ramps, the speed increase of spring is even less of a factor since Spring also gives your Spartan some inertia that will make your character lip a little while running around corners, further slowing Sprint down.

Clamber is next. Clamber is the name given by 343i to the popular feature in modern Shooters to pull yourself up ledges by lowering your weapons and grabbing onto the ledge above.
Is this beneficial to the design of Halo or is this just there to make the game "feel modern"?
Well, what does Clamber accomplish? In short, it accomplishes that the game feels slower and less dynamic than other arena shooters that don't have Clamber.

Why is that? EASY! Before Clamber was introduced in Halo 5, Halo Maps were designed in a way that you can jump up and above clearly layed out paths + paths found by the community, usually known as "skill jumps".
Without clamber in Halo Reach for example, or Halo 3... or any Bungie Halo, you can fight an enemy while walking sideways or backwards and doing complex jumps blindly without ever stopping to engage in the gunfight you are involved in. The maps are designed for your jump height and trick jumps only require exactly that, your jump... be it forwards or backwards.
The Halo community was very vocal about how Clamber slows the game down, but 343i clearly was too afraid to go with their core audience and to make their game distinct from the competition (although not so distinct if you actually look around a bit)
All that Clamber accomplishes is that Maps are now designed with it in mind, meaning there are jumps that simply require you to turn your view basically against a wall, and locks you into an animation during which you can't fight or move other than up or down (should you let go)

Now to the people that will eventually say "but a modern Halo Game Needs Sprint and Clamber!!! Shooters without it are outdated!!!"... well... Valorant, CS:GO, Overwatch, ever heard of these?
Neither of these games have a sprint button nor the ability to climb up ledges, yet they are successful and have found a very big audience over the years. Valorant especially is highly popular and relatively new.

Going away from the stuff copied over to "feel modern" or whatever,
issues with gameplay in combination with Weapons are also everywhere,
You can't do Rocket Jumps anymore... neither can you do Grenade Jumps anymore... this is yet another thing that makes the game less dynamic, less like Halo, less like an Arena Shooter and LESS FUN.
Almost no weapon has any tangible influence on character physics which makes trick jumps using rockets or grenades completely impossible, and also affects stuff like the Gravity Hammer that now feels more like, well a normal Hammer... as the Gravity aspect of that thing basically has been toned down to a level that might as well just be non-existent.

Now something they thankfully took away, only to introduce it back into Infinite... BLOOM.
Bloom is when a weapon gets less and less accurate the more you spam it. This bloom is not controllable and is completely random.
The low IQ defenders of Bloom that already existed back when Reach introduced it and still haven't died out sadly, will come with the defense of "ThIS IntRODuceS SkILL tO The GAmE! YoU JUst suCK! PaCE yoR shOTS nOoB!"
well... fuck off, quite frankly.
Bloom does not add any amount of skill. shooting slower DOES NOT TAKE SKILL... Shooting slower means you can more easily line up your shots... how does that require skill?
Not only does it take away from the skill required, it also introduces a really strong randomness factor, that is CLEARLY DESIGNED TO MAKE THE GAME EASIER FOR BAD PLAYERS.
If you are a skilled player and you pace your shots to mitigate the bloom effect of your weapon, you can literally AT RANDOM lose against a bad player that just spams the trigger like an idiot and gets lucky random bullets hitting you while his Weapon's bloom is in full effect.

It is never a good game mechanic in an Arena Shooter when a random chance mechanic makes it so that the better player loses a gunfight. That shit belongs in party games but not in Halo. It didn't belong in Halo back in Reach, and it still doesn't now.
If they want to balance weapons to be harder to spam they should either limit the fire rate to what they deem OK, or they should introduce counteractable recoil like any other decent shooter out there! The Commando has recoil and basically no bloom... why isn't every weapon like that?

The only thing they finally should start copying from other shooters is the FUCKING AIMING ON A CONTROLLER!
343i is stuck in the past with this. they refuse to acknowledge the advancements many high-profile shooter developers made over the years when it comes to aiming on a controller. but to make that easier for me, I will just copy a post here that I made about this very topic in another thread, that should explain what is wrong with it in a somewhat complete fashion:
I thought I might do a visual demonstration on how weird and fucked Halo Infinite's aiming is with some hastely put together graphs, because I don't wanna be told I am throwing out vague statements (which most of the people that object my criticism do usually by just saying "you're a hater, the core game is amazing! HURR DURR!")
the issue lies mostly in 2 things:

#1: The Max turn speed/sensitivity is RIDICULOUSLY SLOW... as in basically what 50% speed is in a modern CoD. you can't turn around for shit, and this makes the game feel sluggish and undynamic

#2: the sensitivity curve, and this is the biggest issue with the game's controls, and the reason why the ridiculous aim assist is needed. you have for one, aim acceleration* THAT CAN NOT BE DISABLED! you can only change how fast it ramps up. and secondly a curve that's just a joke

here a few graphs that show for 1, Halo Infinite's curve that is close to shooters of the late PS2/Xbox to the early PS360 era, before CoD started to perfect controller aiming. and 2, some other curves, including the one used by many popular mainstream shooters

infinitecurveyok5m.png

you can see how shallow the curve is, and how abrupt it shoots up, and even then still has a slight angle on top for additional unevenness
this curve was found by EternalDahaka on reddit using a TitanTwo

it uses most of the stick for extremely slow turn speeds and then shoots up right at the edge and then trails off even higher
____________________

mycurves8ku2.png

this is roughly what I use in games that allow it, but if the have either of the ones below this one, i'm also fine with that usually.
you can see I prefer a smooth ramp up with precision in the inner part of the stick that steadily increases in speed towards the edge for max turn speed
while keeping the ability for granular precision.

I also usually use ones like these because you can normally use a 0% dead-zone and still avoid drifting or at least have only slight drifting. but a 0% dead-zone allows for extremely granular movement with ease.
in Apex Legends for example I barely move my stick when counteracting recoil for most guns and can counteract very efforlessly
____________________

curvepro15jqo.png

many pro controller players play linear, which is what you see above. most games that give a "Linear" option don't have an actual "true linear" curve though.
many look more like THIS
This gives 100% consistency but also needs the user to be extremely precise in high sensitivity settings as there is no precision zone in the inner circle.
most games give this as an option (Infinite of course doesn't because it sucks) and some other have this as the only option. although most use a different one.
which brings us to the last one below 👇
____________________

curvegoodgamesvxjv5.png

this is what most of the games that are commonly said to have really good controller aiming use as the default. of course they aren't 100% identical to this but they usually use this with slight variations and options to tweak further.
CoD's and Apex Legend's default look similar to this, this is also the default Steam uses when you emulate mouse movement on your controller's stick I think.
this is a very balanced curve that doesn't offend anyone. it gives some precision in the inner most circle but also is not too far off from linear to get in the way of people that really prefer a linear curve

this is also roughly what Splitgate, a Halo Clone made by a handful of students, uses and why it feels 10x better than Infinite and why it doesn't need Infinite's ridiculous aim assist to be playable on controller.
it lacks options to change the curve, which is suboptimal, but this curve is the least offensive to most players. so a good choice as the one to use

here a pic of the sensitivity curves that Modern Warfare uses:
aim-response-curve.jpg

(dynamic is fucking horrid btw! lol, some people like it tho so the option is there at least)
as you can see the CoD standard is very similar to the curve I presented above as what is basically the modern standard of good controller aiming
____________________


so this is why the aiming in Halo Infinite sucks. it uses a curve similar to the one used by Halo 2 back in 2004, before controller aiming was truly perfected by countless iterations of Call of Duty, which became as popular as it is due to how smooth and good the aiming felt compared to other shooters at the time. it was a standout reason as to why people fell in love with the series around Modern Warfare 1 and 2. it just felt better than the rest.

Halo Infinite meanwhile is stuck in the pre-Modern Warfare 1 era when it comes to the controls. it feels clunky, stiff, slow and inconsistent as hell. and that is AFTER you turn off axial deadzones, which is a whole nother dogshit option that Infinite has on as the default (but at least you can turn that off, unlike the acceleration)

and remember, most games have multiple curves as an option, Apex Legends even lets you create a custom one from 100% Linear to extremely curved to the edge

*aim acceleration is when you tilt your stick a certain amount, in Halo's case ~95% in default, and the game does not immediately give you the maximal possible speed, but slowly increases the turn speed over time. this leads to inconsistent feeling aiming and depending on implementation can lead to uneven movement in the horizontal and vertical axes


THE ONLY POSITIVE aspect of the core gameplay to me is the Slide. the slide feels decent and makes the movement more dynamic. instead of a Sprint button they should have just added a slide button, so when you hold left and press down the left stick you slide left, if you hold forward and press the stick down you slide forward etc.
_____________________________

(HAD TO SPLIT THIS INTO 2 POSTS DUE TO THE 30,000 CHARACTER LIMIT ON POSTS)
 
Last edited:

01011001

Banned
(CONT.)

If you combine all the aspects I listed here you get a gameplay experience that ISN'T HALO and ISN'T UNIQUE, and after a month or so also isn't fun anymore.
Having Sprint and Clamber means the game's fights are less dynamic and the core gameplay speed is slower.
And adding all the physics and collision issues means tons of traditionally Halo-ey stuff like jumping off of a player on your team, doing a grenade jump, simply shooting and throwing grenades is now worse because weapons have little to no interaction with your physics and there is zero player collision.


Chapter 4: Game Systems, aka. WTF is wrong with you 343?

Everything in this game is either MISSING, TERRIBLY DESIGNED or it is completely BROKEN. there is almost nothing in-between these states.

At launch your Campaign progress was glitched if you used Quick Resume, to this day you can't use Quick Resume in the game because it will almost always throw you offline with no way to reconnect.
To this day Theater mode is completely broken, Custom Lobbies are completely broken, the game Crashes on PC all the time for many people, you can't save your own game modes because that is broken too, simply starting a match is broken and will sometimes give you a black screen during which you can move around on the map, which before they put a bandaid patch on that actually gave teams an unfair advantage if they abused this... and so much more.

There's also Ranked, which is broken, but not in a "bugged" way, no, that one is broken because 343i is a talentless and badly managed shitshow of a studio.
How ranked works is that you have an MMR rating that tries to match you with players of your skill level. But, and this is a BIG ASS BUT! THESE ABSOLUTE IDIOTS made it so that playing ANY MP MODE affects your MMR.
What this means is that you can play the playlist where 4 players are matched against 4 bots and just let yourself get killed by the bots OVER AND OVER, which in the background invisibly lowers your MMR.
With your now lowered MMR score you can then queue into a Ranked match, and you will get matched with absolutely awful players that match your now extremely low MMR score. meaning you can super easily rank up by abusing such a simple and totally busted piece of game design.

Going away from stuff that is broken, no let's focus on stuff missing in the systems of this game.
well, for one there is the absence of the majority of Cutom Game options. This goes so far that the Custom Game options in Infinite are less robust than the ones in Halo 2 all the way back in 2004!
This means custom modes that were possible to create back in 2004, in a game where playing online was still a new thing, are not possible to recreate in Infinite. Until they added a special mode for Fiesta, you couldn't even create a Fiesta mode yourself, which all you needed to do that in Halo 2 was to simply activate a setting that gives players random weapons after each respawn... this was a simple toggle in EVERY HALO GAME since Halo 2 and is GONE now... still... even now, if you wanna make a custom mode with random weapon spawns your only option is to select the Fiesta mode as a template, which further limites the possibilities you have.

Forge is of course missing and will not launch until MAYBE during Season 3, which is more than 4 months away... so expect it to launch in 6 to 7 months IF EVEN THAT.

Coop is not there and won't launch until "later in Season 2", which by the sound of it also isn't carved in stone yet as development seems to go slow and seems problematic from every detail they share.
so if it comes out in Season 2 and isn't delayed into Season 3, expect that to take another 3 months or so.

For the first time in the History of Halo there is no new Vehicle...
they introduced the Razorback, but that is quite literally just the Transport Warthog with a new skin. Also many fan favorite vehicles are missing from the game.


Chapter 5: The Progression System, aka. this one is so bad I had to split it off of the Game Systems chapter because it can't just be a sidenote on there

At face value you would come to the conclusion that the Progression System in a game can't be what makes it so bad right? After all why care what you unlock as cosmetic stuff that doesn't affect gameplay right?
WELL...
IT DOES AFFECT GAMEPLAY...
How? People love cosmetic items. Games like Fortnite, Overwatch, Splitgate, Counter Strike and many more base their whole sustainabibily on Cosmetics. This should show very clearly that PEOPLE CARE... you might not but others do.
And it is those OTHERS that will ruin Halo Infinite for you eventually. It might be only one match at first, but soon you will see the patterns, you will see why your team loses and you have a guy on your team that weirdly has 0 kills and 15 death, he also seems to not really play, he just stands there and turns and walks a step forward from time to time.
What you see there is someone trying to farm Challenges... badly designed Challenges that 343i refuses to remove from the game even after getting backlash since launch for them.

You see, there is this Challenge in the game that requires you to kill an enemy player that is currently having a kill streak of at least 5 kills without dying. So if you play with 4 really good players THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN. This challenge requires your team to be at least bad enough to have one of the enemies get a kill streak of 5 or more kills. NOT ONLY THAT, it then also requires you to RANDOMLY FIND THAT PLAYER and for you to be the one who kills him.

So what people have now started doing is connecting 2 to 4 controllers to their Xbox, logging in with secondary accounts, and playing splitscreen online. By having 1 to 3 completely AFK players and also consiously letting yourself get killed over and over, you ensure that at least 1 of the enemy team now is almost certainly having a 5 Kills killstreak.
you then start to kill people until you get 1 Killjoy medal... and then repeat the whole thing again.
If you are lucky this guy has 4 controllers and bothers noone on his team. if you are unlucky he only has 1 additional controller, and if you are completely unlucky he has 2 additional controllers, meaning you are the only legit player on your team that wants to play a normal game.

Now, this was basically the worst example, but there are others!
Maybe one on your team needs to get kills using a Warthog turret, that means this guy will no try to follow the objective of your mode and just stand and wait at the Warthog spawn until a new one comes in.
and the only thing he will do the entire match is either wait there for the Warthog or kill people with the Warthog gun.

Or maybe one on your team has to destroy enemy Wasps. A vehicle that only spawns on a single map, and that has a long respawn timer.
So this individual will grab YOUR TEAM'S Wasp, fly it over to the enemy team, and hope that there are now 2 enemy Wasps he can kill, with, of course, the Sniper and/or Hydra launcher that he spawncamped before.

Or someone needs to get a kill by throwing a Fusion Coil at an enemy, these also spawn only on 2 maps in the game, 1 Big Team map and 1 4v4 Map btw.

Or someone needs to get kills with the Commando. That means he will only stand there and wait for the Commando to respawn. A weapon that is also not guaranteed to spawn in every match (KEEP THAT, AND THE FACT THAT THE WASP AND FUSION COILS ONLY SPAWNS IN ONE MAP IN MIND FOR FUTURE REFERENCE BTW)

Or someone needs to get kills by sticking a Plasma Grenade or Spike Grenade onto an enemy, in this case this guy will only camp in grenade spawns and just run up to people to try and hit them with the grenade, which is easiest done close up, most likely getting them killed in the process.

Now recall that some of these only work on 1 or 2 maps, maybe not in some modes, and maybe can't be done because the weapon spawns are random each match.
In that case you will quickly see people leave the match, either right at the start when it's the wrong map, or quickly after because the random weapon that spawns is not the one they needed. which will leave your team at a disadvantage at least for a while until hopefully the match gets filled again. but if you are behind at that point, chances are the fill-in player will just say "HELL NAH!" and leave instantly as well.
Fusion Coils, Wasps or Random Weapons, all of these make it so people will leave matches because they can't complete their challenges.

This gets made worse by 4 facts:
1: You can't progress in any meaningful way without doing these challenges
2: only 4 Weekly Challenges are active at random at any time. the rest can be looked at but not completed unless you complete one of the randomly assigned active ones first!
3: Event Challenges you need to complete to unlock event exclusive stuff are tied and intermixed with Weekly Challenges
4: There is a weekly reward, one of the only few free unlockable items the game offers, that you get by completing EVERY SINGLE WEEKLY CHALLENGE! INCLUDING EVENT CHALLENGES AND A FINAL HARDER CHALLENGE!

This means every player that wants to unlock free stuff is REQUIRED to complete EVERY SINGLE CHALLENGE! This week, because it was the last week of the "Fractured Tenrai" event, you were able to unlock a piece of Chest Armor that was themed to the Event armor unlocks. So a highly looked after item everyone who is into unlocking cosmetics will want to get. meaning an influx of players like the ones I described above.

This progression system might be one of the biggest reasons Halo Infinite is such a terrible game currently. Almost no game goes by without people ruining matches because of challenges, and even if they don't you always have that thought in the back of your head that tells you "THIS DIPSHIT HAS ONLY 3 KILLS! I BET HE'S DOING CHALLANGES!"
Even Ranked isn't save! As there are challenges that are tied to ranked. Meaning the game often pushes people into ranked playlists that have no interest in actually competing, they are just there to do the challenge and piss off again.


Chapter 6: CONTENT, aka. where is everything?

Halo Infinite launched with 10 Maps
Halo CE with 11 maps
Halo 2 with 17 maps
Halo 3 with 11 maps + Forge
Halo Reach with 14 maps + Forge
Halo 4 with 10 + Forge
Halo 5 with 21 maps (forge came after 2 months)

So basically, the only Game that had the same amount of maps at launch was Halo 4 which at least launched with Forge mode that opened up a massive opportunity and possibilities for user made content

Halo 5 launched with more than 175 armor pieces... not counting the 53 visor color variations. Halo Reach too had hundreds of different pieces of armor you could unlock from day 1...
Halo Infinite launched with... like... 5? and with the Battle Pass for season 1 maybe with like 10 to 20 pieces of armor?... ever since then they are dripfeeding them one by one in the overpriced as fuck in-game shop. but even that now starts to just repeat itself.

Halo Infinite launched with 3... yes 3 Playlists! and now has I think 6?
In comparison Halo 5 had about 9 if I remember correctly, and that was quickly expanded upon too within 3 months... AND THAT WAS CONSIDERED LACKLUSTER BACK WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT BTW!

Halo Infinite has no Coop, no forge, no custom browser and all of these features are a long way out too it seems as development is slow and filled with issues.
it took them about 3 years from announcement to implementation to release an incomplete version of a custom game browser for the Master Chief Collection after all, so don't expect them to be quick.

all in all, I think it is very clear that this is a SUPER lackluster launch for a Halo title, even compared with the worst of the worst Halo games in the past, that got scolded for that back when they launched, this is really shit in comparison.

FINAL CHAPTER: Conclusion, aka. this game is garbage and in order to save it they have to redo basically ALL OF IT

What you see here, intermixed with some opinions from me, are facts that simply show that this game is not good, it's not a good Halo game, it's not a good shooter and it's not a well programmed piece of software either.
This game is LITTERED with bugs, LITTERED with bad game design and LITTERED with changes to the formula that were only ever made to cater towards on-Halo players, while completely failing at that too.

The Campaign is just a tired Open World with the most basic Halo mission design intermixed with highlightless exploration.

The Multiplayer is ruined by the lack of Maps, Modes, Playlists, Options and Vision. And if that's not bad enough, the Progression system will ruin the last bit of fun you are trying to squeeze out of this shadow of a Halo title.

The core Gameplay is clearly catering to Mainstream Shooter players, having design decisions that don't say "we think this makes the game better and more unique", but instead say "we need this in here because all the cool kids are doing it too!"
The aiming is stuck in pre-Xbox 360 days with no acknowledgement from 343 Industries that this is an issue even after having hundreds of feedback threads on the official Subreddit with sometimes thousands of upvotes, that IN HIGH DETAIL demonstrate what is wrong with the controls

The engine and technical aspects of the game are completely fucked, going as far as making VRR not work correctly and having bugs and crashes everywhere, as well as bad performance on PC and stuttering cutscenes as well as and awful netcode that is worse than og Xbox era games.
It also doesn't look too great, especially for a Late generation and Cross generation title that follows Halo 4 and 5, which both pushed their respective systems really hard.

In order to fix this game, as in make it ACTUALLY GOOD, what would need to happen is all the following:
1: A revamp of the Campaign (this will never happen, so this is a lost cause already)
2: Changes to the core gameplay aspects like Sprint, Clamber, Weapon handling, Player Collision, Player Physics etc. (also not gonna happen, let's be real)
3: A change to the controls, that finally elevates Halo to the level of Modern Warfare 2 from over a decade ago (I also see low chances of this happening as people have been pushing for this since Halo 5 with little to no reaction from 343)
4: A completely new Netcode
5: adding about 10 new maps and the dozens of missing modes ASAP (this will eventually happen, but launching with the by far smallest selection of maps and modes in the history of Halo is just awful)
6: completely revamping progression and getting rid of the challenge system as a whole (also not gonna happen, 343i is not skilled enough and too stubborn to do this I bet)
7: restore EVERY SINGLE functionality of the custom mode/lobby creator of Halo Reach, 4 and 5 (this is the most realistic one to actually happen, but I bet it will take at least another 12 months to get there)
and 8: Fix all the technical issues that plague the game, like no coop, no functional custom lobby or modes, no functional theater, crashes, bugs etc.

This game in order to become a good and complete product would need to do what Final Fantasy 14 did, or what No Man's Sky did after their disastrous launches, and basically become a completely new game...
Final Fantasy 14 did it by quite literally blowing up the whole game and starting basically fresh, leaving only the most basic stuff intact,
and the way No Man's Sky did it is by adding a SHITLOAD of new content completely free of charge.

Halo Infinite would need to do a combination of both to become a good Halo game. Nuke a bunch of the core design choices like FF14 and only leave the core Halo formular intact and go from there. And they need to add so much content, it's actually crazy, in order to get to a level where it would be on par with Halo Reach or Halo 5.





I'm not good in typing long ass, multiple paragraph long texts like these, and English isn't my first language (in fact I never set foot in an english speaking country before) so excuse me if I sometimes start rambling off incohesively or grasp for words to desparately try to get across what I want to get across, even to pepople unfamiliar to the Halo Series.
as a final thing I'm linking some videos that bring up similar stuff (if not nearly all of it) just in case my rambling is too nausea inducing for some xD




 
Last edited:
Im not reading all that lol but im gone to say this the gameplay is great but it lacking maps and missing other game modes and most importantly FORGE they need to give all that and it will be fine
 

Jennings

Member
The campaign is a $10 gaming experience. And the multiplayer is free for anybody to try. No need to be so harsh against a discount title. It's not perfect, but it's still a great game.

As for the new space orc faction, I think they're just pissed off ex-slaves, and their goal is revenge and supremacy so they'll never have to bend a knee to anything ever again.
 
Last edited:

TexMex

Member
This game got such a PR lift just by not being a total, unmitigated disaster after that initial reveal. But it's still completely half baked and unfinished even 6 months after "release." Total joke and was given a pass. I include myself in that to some extent. But it's a fucking mess.
 

jigglet

Banned
I really love it. My only issue being no co-op, Warzone or forge at launch. But if we're talking PvP, I can't think of much else I'd like to see other than Warzone.
 

clarky

Gold Member
The campaign is a $10 gaming experience. And the multiplayer is free for anybody to try. No need to be so harsh against a discount title. It's not perfect, but it's still a great game.

As for the new space orc faction, I think they're just pissed off ex-slaves, and their goal is revenge and supremacy so they'll never have to bend a knee to anything ever again.
On the drink again? The OP made for more interesting and coherent reading than this.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
unlike most people here with an attention span of like 0 i actually read the whole thing and this summarizes literally every single problem i have with this game. the gameplay is fun but painfully uninspired, campaign doesnt hold a candle to any bungie halo, progression is ass, aiming is meh, it ticks all the boxes
the fact you even went INTO TECHNICAL DETAIL to prove how mediocre this game is, is a fucking feat
yall want an actually good modern shooter? destiny 2, made by the folks who actually know how to make halo and aren't an incompetent studio that has 0 reason to still be in charge of this franchise
i honestly uninstalled the thing like 5 matches after playing it and since then have just gone back to MCC
you are an actual true halo fan and we need more people like you to call out how retarded 343 is so we can get a competent dev team (say, ID) onboard and steer the ship in the right direction
if more people actually decided to read shit longer than a paragraph you'd have a lot more upvotes
 
Last edited:

Varteras

Gold Member
I was actually impressed by how thorough this was. There were things I knew I didn't like about Infinite but there were other things I couldn't put my finger on for why they bothered me. You actually managed to bring my attention to them. Against my better judgement I decided to read it and I'm glad I did. Well done OP. Hopefully 343i turns it around but I've given up on them ever getting it right. Honestly, I'm still salty as fuck for how dirty they did Cortana.
 

sircaw

Banned
To the op, 01011001 01011001


I will say this, I have not played this new Halo game nor am I a long-time fan of the series, I don't even own an Xbox.

But I do appreciate your passion for the game in making a genuine post on how you feel about the game and what is wrong with it.

It is kinda the same way i feel about games like diablo and quake, if I am critical of them, it is simply for the fact that i want the best for the game.

If we don't say anything, nothing gets changed.

So yer, Hats off too you for trying to make a difference. 👍
 

Hollowpoint5557

A Fucking Idiot
No lies detected. The grappling hook was a great idea but came off way too floaty and slow. A huge ass Spartan weighing hundreds of pounds zipping around like hes about as weightless as he would be on the moon. I'd like to see MS abandon the new engine as there is now better options with Bethesda in house. Maybe try the ID Tech engine, maybe dismantle 343... I don't know. It's all just a shame it came to this.
 
Last edited:

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
let me add some points of my own
-level design in campaign is aggressively generic and mediocre, i'd say this is because of the game being open world but CE had very open areas for an arena shooter at the time and that worked out just swell for them in terms of gameplay.
To elaborate, there's cover barriers all over the place and not many actual unique paths/gameplay possibilities you can take compared to CE which was chock full of them due to the more flat but more calculated level design. when i play infinite i feel like i should cover and then shoot, cover and then shoot, maybe blitz it if my weapon is good enough, but outside of that nothing
with CE, i had a lot of ideas on how i could kill enemies. run them over with the warthog, snipe them from far away, fight alongside my teammates, or straight up blitz it and get as many healthpacks as i can while mowing down alien scum. CE's level design encourages unique gameplay and creative solutions which, as much as i love fast paced crazy arena shooters, is not very common in the genre. You can't go through 2 campaigns of quake with completely unique gameplay styles and strategies like you can in CE. Infinite's basically like quake in this category... except with none of the fun that quake has
-map designs are also incredibly mediocre. there's nothing that's as iconic as blood gulch which was so incredibly well designed despite (on the surface) seeming less complex than bazaar. I played a 2001 style CE server on MCC a while ago and was shocked by how many gameplay possibilities blood gulch offered as opposed to bazaar which felt boxed in, safe and generic. same reason as the level design really
-i know you talked about graphics already, but if i'm being honest the originals looked far better in art direction. they have an extremely inspired sci fi visual style that ends up managing to look timeless despite being made on aging hardware. there's a large amount of unique environments that are unique in design, color pallete, composition and detail
Halo infinite in comparison is a lazy rehash of the original game's locations except with literally none of the attention to detail that made them feel so beautiful to look at. oh yeah and there's no fucking variety
literally looking up halo infinite and comparing it to halo 3 visually tells you every single thing you need to fucking know, and halo 3 was on exponentially less powerful hardware

It's actually so fucking sad how people just handwave this thread off saying "not gonna read" because they have the attention span of a toddler/their devotion to Xbox and Halo is THAT fucking strong. (and before you call me a playstation fanboy i'll have you know that i don't own a PS4 or a PS5 at all so i literally have no other perspective than as an Xbox user) Even with all of this text, it's at most a 10 minute read. Is Gaf that retarded or what?
 
Last edited:

Fredrik

Member
Good summary of the campaign issues OP!

People hated on Halo 5 but I had more fun in my 9 hours playing through that than my 16 hours getting bored at Halo Infinite.

Main problem. There was barely no variation at all, if that comes later then it’s badly structured, can’t have someone do the same thing at the same type of scenery for 16 hours and expect glowing impressions. Staying at the ring was a bad idea, even if they would add new areas later you wouldn’t get the variation of going to an alien planet with new environment, wild life, enemies, etc.

The grapple is awesome though, and the shooting is snappy and felt really good. But that’s where the positiveness ends for me. I’ve only played through Halo 4 and Halo 5 but compared to those Halo Infinite is far far down and a major disappointment for me. Only dabbled with mp for maybe half an hour so no comment on that.
 

MrMephistoX

Member
I like it but my biggest beef is that the game is more fun on legendary or heroic since the ai is smarter but it makes the boss fights a completely unenjoyable chore.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
The grapple is awesome though
honestly, not really. Halo's grappling hook felt very slow and awkward to use. yeah it opens up a few cool gameplay possibilities, but it's not as dynamic as say, ULTRAKILL's grappling hook which is basically combo potential (in general ULTRAKILL is a far far superior game to halo infinite. literal near masterpiece in gameplay innovation)
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Imagine Sony releasing a game like this..Oh my :)
they did.
It's called gran turismo 7, and the moment it came out people shat all over it.
yet when halo came out everyone praised it like it was a return to form (even though GT7 was also advertised like it was a return to form as well)
probably because one is a shooter and everyone loves shooty shooty bang bang more than they do vroom vroom.
 
Last edited:

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
I recently uninstalled after a few hours in the open world. It just feels like the map was procedurally generated and the objectives weren't interesting at all.

CE is still the GOAT.
CE is a masterpiece and it's a shame 343 can't top it when from an artistic and level perspective it's not even that hard.
making games is hard yes but there's a clear fucking difference between simply being inexperienced and full on incompetence and 343 has been on the latter side for about a decade now. MS, kill this studio. please.
 

Dr Bass

Member
unlike most people here with an attention span of like 0 i actually read the whole thing and this summarizes literally every single problem i have with this game. the gameplay is fun but painfully uninspired, campaign doesnt hold a candle to any bungie halo, progression is ass, aiming is meh, it ticks all the boxes
the fact you even went INTO TECHNICAL DETAIL to prove how mediocre this game is, is a fucking feat
yall want an actually good modern shooter? destiny 2, made by the folks who actually know how to make halo and aren't an incompetent studio that has 0 reason to still be in charge of this franchise
i honestly uninstalled the thing like 5 matches after playing it and since then have just gone back to MCC
you are an actual true halo fan and we need more people like you to call out how retarded 343 is so we can get a competent dev team (say, ID) onboard and steer the ship in the right direction
if more people actually decided to read shit longer than a paragraph you'd have a lot more upvotes
The idea of Id taking on Halo would be exciting IMO.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I didn’t read the entire post, but there’s some great points in what I read.

That being said I enjoyed the campaign and multiplayer a lot and am looking forward to jumping back to either as soon as more content is provided.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
they did.
It's called gran turismo 7, and the moment it came out people shat all over it.
yet when halo came out everyone praised it like it was a return to form (even though GT7 was also advertised like it was a return to form as well)
probably because one is a shooter and everyone loves shooty shooty bang bang more than they do vroom vroom.

GT7 was called out because people were crying about “micro transactions”, not because the game itself. If i need to compare the 2, then is very clear that only GT7 is fully complete, and the best GT game.

After finishing the story in Halo, i can’t believe the media gave this game a lot of high scores. The world is most generic i’ve ever seen in (what supposed to be) AAA title. Shooting felt ok but everything else was really bad.

It’s one of those forgettable games. They could’ve done so much more with the world.
 
Last edited:

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
The idea of Id taking on Halo would be exciting IMO.
TBH i'm honestly worried about it since ID makes good games but none of them have the gameplay potential or complexity of halo back in its glory days. If they were to make one, they'd need to play the originals and find out what made them so great first before immediately diving into making halo. otherwise they'd be another 343 trying to desperately turn halo into DOOM
 

clarky

Gold Member
Say you are a sad, bitter console warrior without saying you are a sad, bitter console warriors.
You just did.

Not sure why calling the guy out for shit posting saying Halo is a call of duty rip off, equates to me being a sad bitter console warrior? i enjoyed both some CoD's and some Halo's. But apart from they both feature guns they couldn't be further apart on the way they play. Its fuck all like COD.

You might as well say GT7's just a mario kart rip off.

Anyways sorry for the derail.

Back on topic, the games got a content issue to fix that and it would do for me. Although i can't see that happening for a while.

Enjoyed the campaign fwiw. The moment to moment gameplay is great.

Sorry its ruined your childhood OP
 
Last edited:

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
GT7 was called out because people were crying about “micro transactions”, not because the game itself. If i need to compare the 2, then is very clear that only one of the 2 is fully complete.

After finishing the story in Halo, i can’t believe the media gave this game a lot of high scores. The world is most generic i’ve ever seen in (what supposed to be) AAA title. Shooting felt ok but everything else was really bad.

It’s one of those forgettable games. They could’ve done so much more with the world.
GT7 isn't as complete as you might think. there's a lot lacking compared to previous entries (especially GT2 and GT4) but when you compare the amount of content in that game to infinite, it's like comparing the Switch home menu to Steam.
also, for anyone who has only played infinite and hated it (including you) don't let that dissaude you from playing the originals. I'd rather not you guys end up skipping on a masterclass of arena shooters purely because the newer entries ended up being painfully mediocre. That happened to sonic and now people think of the blue hog as a franchise that was always shit when that was never the case. the reason i can criticize infinite the way i do (and the way the OP can) is because we've experience what the franchise was like before
 

Y0ssarian

Banned
Ok, I read your post.

I both enjoyed and hated the campaign. All the missions inside the forerunner structures were ass. It was like playing the worst missions from Halo 2, but for the majority of the game.

I think sprint and clamber are unnecessary, but they will never remove them now. Maybe 343 is not talented enough to make maps that flow that require skill jumps, and to compensate for that they add clamber. The alternative is they added a garbage mechanic. Either way, it's shit. Sprint was never necessary, I never even used it in Halo 5 MP (and never speak of Halo 4 MP again). That is pure trend chasing. Instead of making a unique product they tried to copy Call of Booby and contribute to ruining their own game.

I did not know that stuff about MMR, that was interesting.

I think what people should realise instead of needing to make these posts, is that Halo has been dead since 2010. Possibly since Halo 3, depending on how much you care about the spinoffs. I don't intend on watching the tv show.
 
Last edited:

Dr Bass

Member
TBH i'm honestly worried about it since ID makes good games but none of them have the gameplay potential or complexity of halo back in its glory days. If they were to make one, they'd need to play the originals and find out what made them so great first before immediately diving into making halo. otherwise they'd be another 343 trying to desperately turn halo into DOOM
They couldn't do worse than 343i, and Id are pros. They know they would need to capture the Halo vibe to have a successful game, and the technical execution would surely put what we are getting for the franchise to shame. MS needs to disband 343i and either give the franchise a rest or put it into more capable hands.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
GT7 isn't as complete as you might think. there's a lot lacking compared to previous entries (especially GT2 and GT4) but when you compare the amount of content in that game to infinite, it's like comparing the Switch home menu to Steam.
also, for anyone who has only played infinite and hated it (including you) don't let that dissaude you from playing the originals. I'd rather not you guys end up skipping on a masterclass of arena shooters purely because the newer entries ended up being painfully mediocre. That happened to sonic and now people think of the blue hog as a franchise that was always shit when that was never the case. the reason i can criticize infinite the way i do (and the way the OP can) is because we've experience what the franchise was like before

The cafes and missions alone are giving GT7 a lot of content. I play more online races recently and switched back often to finish the last cafes. I haven’t finished the missions yet, and i still need to do a bunch. This GT game feels packed and more Varied then any other GT game.

About Halo, i only played Halo 1 and 2 back in the days, and a little bit of Reach.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom