Yeah, this is disappointing to write.
After years of waiting for a proper “Halo” title, 343 Industries announced “Halo Infinite” at the E3 gaming convention in 2018. Two years later, the developer excitedly released a new trailer and in-game footage. It looked awesome. The hype was real.
Well, until we met Craig.
Craig became the name of this unfortunate-looking enemy from the game’s featured campaign mission. Meme upon meme was generated by HaloWaypoint and Reddit users, displaying the decrepit and sullen AI 343 had horrifyingly managed to create.
The year was 2020, and these were the most realistic AI 343 could render? The graphics look like they were stripped from a “Halo 3” cutscene in 2007!
So, given the backlash from these sad graphics, the studio decided to delay “Infinite’s” release for another year. Fans hoped that the studio would learn from their mistakes and finally produce a quality “Halo” game just like those of the Bungie era.
Despite the year-long hiatus, fans like myself were disappointed.
Sure, we got better graphics and insanely smooth gameplay (“Infinite” features the smoothest gameplay mechanics ever seen in a “Halo” game, in my estimation), however, they are for nothing when you consider the meager amount of content you get in this game at the $60 price point.
“Halo: Reach” was $60 in 2011, and that game featured an array of small, medium and large-scale maps with a wide variety of weaponry suitable for different encounters and armor customization options to show off your playtime. “Infinite,” however, has every single piece of armor locked behind a paywall.
Every. Single. Piece.
While you can unlock a few things via the campaign such as skins and color palette options, if you want a new helmet or knee guard, then you are going to need to pay for the battle pass on top of the $60 you already gave.
Video game developers have been hard at work finding new ways to nickel-and-dime their most loyal fans. After the loot box fiasco that was “Call of Duty: WWII” and “Star Wars: Battlefront II,” gaming publishers knew they needed to develop a new way to exploit customers. So, with the advent of “Fortnite,” in came the battle pass system.
Now, “Fortnite” was a free-to-play game, so paying for a battle pass to access cosmetic content was not the worst thing. Yet, for a title as expensive and esteemed as “Halo” to require fans to give well over $100 to access all the content that should have been available at launch is preposterous. Not to mention the fact that nearly six months into its life cycle “Halo: Infinite” only has 10 multiplayer maps—10. Three of which are big team battle maps that arena or ranked players do not have any need of.
To add to the matter at hand, “Infinite” has been a crash fest for many users. While I have personally experienced few crashes, there are many players who have not. This graph displays 13 games Connor Tumbleson, a video game blogger, “left.” In reality, he did not willingly leave any of these matches, but was kicked out of them because his game crashed on him. These 13 crashes occured within a 10-week period, a rate far too frequent for a AAA title. Most games will have crash issues worked out during the beta tests, but not “Infinite.”
Overall, this game has been very disappointing. For a huge “Halo” fan like me who has played every iteration since “Combat Evolved” on the original “Duke” controller, I am sad to see the franchise going the direction it is.
The glory days of “Halo” seem to be over, and I am glad to see them go.
The Beat @APU 