In the early moments of Halo 2, as Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson were honored by the UNSC, the Arbiter was dragged before the Alliance for his punishment. Mocked and humiliated, he was marked in front of everyone with the indelible stigma, the greatest form of dishonor that a Covenant, and especially a Sangheili, can suffer.
After that first damn presentation of the campaign by Halo Infinite, the new title of the long-running Microsoft series has suffered in some ways the same fate as Arbiter, being ostracized for the quality of a single player experience that for many, until yesterday, simply did not exist.
In fact, when it was talked about, even among insiders, the opinion that was met most frequently is that if the multiplayer sector of Infinite were all in all except for the defeat, its campaign would certainly have been postponed, almost as if the subject of the conversation was none other than Schrödinger’s famous cat: as long as we don’t look in the box, we can even give it up for dead.
For heaven’s sake, the responsibilities of this dominant narrative are partly or all attributable to the choices of 343 Industries, which had never returned to the theme from the single player campaign after the bloody postponement that moved the game’s release date to 2021. But yesterday, finally, a short 6-minute video was able to sweep away any doubts we had about the single player component of Halo Infinite, which as we already knew will take the franchise to terrain never before beaten by the tires of a Warthog.
Going to break a tradition that has lasted for almost two decades, the new chapter will embrace an open world formula, or something very similar, offering players wide explorable areas full of collateral activities, which as we have seen in the trailer will often have the protagonists as protagonists. Outposts of the Outcasts, a dangerous Covenant faction that militarily occupies the surface of Zeta Halo.
If before the trailer we had more than some doubts about the narrative component of this chapter, which seemed to want to focus on the threat posed by the Exiles rather than on the topics left open by Halo 5, one of the most important confirmations of all that came to us yesterday concerns precisely the plot of Halo Infinite, which fortunately will return with arrogance to face what was left unfinished in the last 6 long years.
The main objective of Master Chief on Zeta Halo will in fact be to reveal what happened to Cortana, also having the responsibility of neutralizing his old partner with the help of L’arma, another artificial intelligence with the appearance of the Cortana itself, but it was developed with the sole purpose of eliminating it. For the moment it is complicated to try to understand which direction the story will take, but for the fans of the series it promises a chapter with a high emotional rate, with so many references to the lore of the saga, able to have an incalculable impact on the plot of Halo.
However, a good story must be supported by an up-to-the-minute game system; therefore, we could never be satisfied with some confirmation of the goodness of the plot of Halo Infinite. We do not hide it, although we never found last year’s presentation really disastrous, we expected a trailer that could shed light once and for all on the characteristic elements of the campaign of this chapter, which as we have anticipated will differ greatly from those you have. had the opportunity to play in the past.
Now, it is still unclear whether Halo Infinite will take place in a single, vast map or if it will develop across several large areas, but what is certain is that we can forget the linear missions typical of the last chapters of the series. During the trailer we watched the Master Chief target an Outpost of the Outcasts, request a vehicle from one of the bases scattered around the map, and then assault it with all the firepower guaranteed by his arsenal.
The goal, as in any open world, will probably be to gain control of the area and unlock resources, which can then be used to enhance the skills of the Master Chief through a specific menu. The upgrade system, which involves John’s active abilities such as grappling hook, portable shield and dodging, is barely in sight and is truly an unknown that we can’t wait to put to the test in the game review phase. .
From these premises, we would not be so surprised to find you annoyed by this noisy gameplay revolution that will take place in Halo Infinite. And why shouldn’t you be? The good old days, those of linear missions on immovable tracks, are about to give way to a formula that generally does not enjoy much credit. Halo is tradition, so was it really necessary to twist so much and focus on an open world campaign?
The bad news is that if you’re part of this school of thought, you’ve probably missed the good old days. We were there in 2001 when Halo: Combat Evolved changed the genre of FPS, and we can assure you that missions like that of the Silent Cartographer were made starting from the idea of a small open world in miniature. There was an entire island available to the player’s curiosity, lots of areas to explore with bated breath, very few indicators and a constant sense of wonder that exploded when you entered a structure built by an ancient civilization, without having the though no idea what you would find inside.
Exploration, in the first Halo, was the one capable of triggering magic. And without it, Combat Evolved would not have been what we remember today as one of the best FPSs in history, so from our point of view it seems perfectly reasonable to us to start over from an open world formula while developing a Halo experience deeply rooted in the past. of the saga.
However, creating an open world gaming system is not at all simple, and 343 Industries will be called upon to prove its ability to package valid activities and secondary missions, which do not make us regret the turning point undertaken by the studio. Fortunately, it seems that some choices go in the right direction, leaving us to imagine how great an open world Halo could be that points all its cartridges on freehand exploration: in the trailer we have observed the presence of special bosses on more than one occasion. Covenant, and the idea of facing one to guard a precious reward, perhaps at the height of a long dungeon, only excites us.
In short, Halo Infinite can be at the same time the most classic and revolutionary Halo ever, yet it fails in any way to make us worry. After two chapters that widely exploited the legacy of Bungie, 343 Industries finally proposes something distinctly authorial, taking enormous risks in an attempt to innovate a franchise that for the community of fans is often a religion.
With a multiplayer sector that seems to shine in all respects, having a main campaign that lives up to fans’ expectations will be decisive for the rebirth of Halo. For the moment, we’ve only taken a fleeting look inside the box. But the cat looks very, very much alive.
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