Earlier this month, Halo Studios offered me the chance to go hands-on with a new way to play Halo Infinite. The previously announced ‘3rd person Firefight’ mode is arriving on November 5th as a part of a new Operation – ‘Great Journey’. With it comes a dedicated Halo 2 style playlist, a brand new (and long requested!) firearm and a load of new maps and content.
Another Perspective
So does Halo Infinite feel like Fortnite now? Thankfully no. I obviously had the same thought when I saw the announcement.
Is Halo, stalwart of the FPS genre, going all ‘casual’ on us? Put your conspiracy theories and tin-foil hats away. This is simply a mode that Halo Studios experimented with internally, and found to be super fun. The question of course is – were they right?
As we loaded into the map for Firefight, called Ardent Prayer (created by talented forgers no less), it felt like any other Halo Infinite match, right up until the camera zoomed in to my Spartan and the camera was not where it was meant to be.
3rd person perspective is nothing new to Halo – Since we drove our first warthog, or wrestled a turret off its mount and waltzed around with it, the series has always had the ability to take the camera elsewhere and display whatever Spartan we’re inhabiting without much issue.
I won’t lie – overriding twenty-plus years of visual memory felt a little weird at first. Playing in 3rd person, I found it initially a bit tricky to judge melee distance and impact, and it certainly doesn’t feel as visceral getting up close and beating down your opponent. However, after a few minutes of jumping around the map, it was Halo, as one would want and expect.
It’s a testament to how much work went into Halo Infinite’s animations that everything looks and feels as smooth as it does, and it’s great to have this additional peripheral vision around you to see enemies and incoming fire from all directions. Even the transition into and out of vehicles felt perfectly normal. It’s also really nice to see my Spartan decked out in Master Builder armour, my insignia on his chest-plate.
The map we were playing was a linear firefight map from the Forge community. It involved boarding and clearing locations through a Covenant heavy corvette, holding different areas and defeating waves of enemies as we went traversed various rooms and passage ways.
It’s pretty incredible how far Forge has come, with the map featuring official music from the game’s awesome soundtrack, scripted doors and other cool design ideas. 3rd person mode is available to the community and forgers for custom games, and I’m sure some imaginative and passionate folks will come up with even more cool ideas going forward. We also played the new mode on launch map Highpower, and again, it was a pretty great time.
However, 3rd person Halo isn’t all Halo Studios are bringing to the table with this new update.
Back to Installation 05
Halo Studios aren’t oblivious to the fact that Halo 2’s 20th Anniversary is fast approaching. So what better way to celebrate it in style than with a dedicated Halo 2 style playlist, filled with maps and modes appropriately referred to as Delta Arena.
For those old greybeards out there, that like me, enjoyed Halo at it’s purest without things like sprint, equipment, clambering and want elements like friendly player collision and perhaps enjoy a floaty jump height, this is going to be the playlist for you.
The settings for Delta Arena remove all the extras Halo’s combat has evolved into over the years (see what I did there?) and give Halo fans a mixture of Slayer and classic objective modes to play. It even includes ‘classic’ King of the Hill, where time in the hill accrues points per second the hill is held uncontested. Can we get ‘Lowball’ added now please folks?
Where better to enjoy some old school Halo than on some old school Halo maps? The playlist is filled with classic recreations and bold re-imaginings from the Forge community, from the jaw dropping remake of Ascension to beautiful and ethereal Conjurer (a remake of Warlock).
We’ve also got remakes of Turf with ‘Boulevard’ and Beaver Creek’s new ‘Beaver Canyon’ to duke it out in. Lockout heads to the trees with a new version named ‘Canopy’ and Sanctuary gets a classic reimagining as ‘Serenity’.
Of course, what Halo 2 themed playlist would be complete without Midship, which sees the sleek purples of a Covenant Cruiser return in the new version, named ‘Inquisitor’.
I got a chance to play on several of these in some classic 4v4 action, and I’ve personally checked them all out for myself in custom games. The Halo Forge community have once again outdone themselves, and I think Halo fans are going to be very pleased with how authentic and beautiful these remakes are.
There are other match-making changes dropping along side the new playlist, including some new maps for ranked play, and some adjustments to the sandbox based on feedback and data trawled by Halo Studios, with some changes to several weapons, power ups and more.
In true Halo 2 style, players jumping into Delta Arena start with an automatic weapon, just like on launch day circa 2004. While Halo Studios considered bringing back the SMG, there’s one weapon out there that’s never been in a Halo game before, and that’s the MA5K Avenger Assault Rifle.
New Toys
First seen on the cover of the book Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, the MA5K has long been requested by fans of the series. This is a fully automatic, 60 rounds per clip bullet hose (with recoil to match) was originally used by the next generation of super soldiers, the Spartan-III.
It pulls up pretty sharp when you just hold the trigger down, and at range the spread is pretty wide. It definitely encourages players to get in close to mow other Spartans down. It’s a boxy-looking design when viewed from a first person perspective, but is very faithful to the gun seen on the original book cover back in 2006. It’s definitely a viable weapon to spawn with, and I personally like that it forces players to close any distance in short order to be effective.
Playing this legacy version of Halo, using Infinite as its foundation, was definitely a lot of fun, especially for a long time Halo fan like me. I get all the pleasure and beauty of a crisp, modern Halo game, but with the simpler and often more rewarding gameplay of the older entrants in the series.
I’ve got to admit, I know I’ll be in there come go-live to the wider public, and I can see quite a few demands for more maps to be added to this classic-feeling playlist in short order.
Forge Improvements
Outside of the banner stuff I’ve listed above, the new operation features a tonne of improvements and quality of life fixes. One of my favourites is that Forge maps featured in playlists can be bookmarked from the Map List in Matchmaking, and Forgers are actually being credited for their work, with the players Gamertag being seen on things like the Match Intro camera and post-game carnage reports.
Commander Agryna, featured in the now-cut seasonal trailers that used to ship with the updates is making a return, but as one of the announcers in Halo Infinite, and even Forgers can use her voice lines for custom content creation. For a full run-down of everything coming to Forge, head here and have a read.
Halo Infinite and its developer, the newly re-named Halo Studios, have been on one hell of a journey. While other games may come and go, there’s only ever one Halo, and Halo Infinite is such a content filled title at this point that this could see more than a few lapsed players dipping their toes back in. I know I’m going to be one of them.
