This one hurts me and has continued to hurt me for the last year. It's no secret that I'm a massive Halo fan, and have been addicted since the early days. But despite losing a week of sleep and clocking several hundred hours into this thing within a month of it launching, I can't give a clear answer as to whether this is actually a good game or not. There's a frustrating mix of technical problems and weird creative choices that hold it back; not just as a platform for successful multiplayer, but as a cohesive single-player campaign. I'll try and explain...

MULTIPLAYER

This component launched several weeks prior to the campaign, and was 'flighted' to eager weirdos like me. I first tested the multiplayer back in June 2021, and I came away singing its praises. Despite being entirely bot-driven and boasting just one very boring arena map, the ridiculously tight and polished gameplay brought me back to the hype of Halo 3's beta, way back in 2007. Bundled with Crackdown, of all things. Anybody remember Crackdown?

Anyway- I can't remember any other occasion where I've been as excited for any other game (bar Skyrim), so this was probably the best I could've hoped for. I think I shed actual tears at the title screen alone, to the discomfort of a visiting friend. Infinite's initial flight was definitely not without issues, but I thought it was probably unfair to judge these too soon. Surely, the additional months of development would solve them in time for a big holiday launch.

Nah. Fast-forward to Summer 2022, over half a year into Infinite's two seasons, and the game is still rife with problems. I have zero complaints with the core moment-to-moment gameplay of Halo Infinite, but the game as a whole still feels unfinished. 343i has made a very public and concerted effort to re-balance its progression systems and address heavier issues, but these are gestures towards change at best. Less than a year on and the game is hemorrhaging players. It's such a shame that after such an apparent clusterfuck of a development cycle, so much of its potential is still left on the table. It was a mammoth effort by not just 343i but all the extended Xbox dev community to bolt this thing together. I really hope it's not too late for it to get back on track, because when it works as intended, this is Halo at its best.

CAMPAIGN

The problems with this thing run pretty deep. It's clear, even from brief periods of play, that this thing was intended to be far bigger. Large swathes of unused map space, a distinct lack of variety, repetitive cyclic gameplay and a dearth of any memorable or meaningful story missions make Halo Infinite's world feel infinitely small. This is not actually the case; the map itself is vast. But compared even to the first Halo, the sense of scale is missing, and while sometimes successful in evoking an atmosphere, those moments are fleeting. The emptiness of the space you're exploring is a constant reminder of just how much 343 had to butcher their ambitions to ship on time, even after a year of delay. Halo has always been about grandeur, about realizing fantastic alien worlds through a well-paced, bombastic story that effortlessly masks its limitations. Infinite tries and fails to entice its players to traipse across verdant expanses of nothing, in service to a story that runs out of steam just as it gets going. It's such a shame.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Yeah, this one weirds me out a bit too.

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