Halo Infinite is the long awaited “spiritual reboot” of the series that is expected to launch alongside the next generation Xbox in Holiday 2020.
Not much is known about the game, other than that it will be a “spiritual reboot”, it will have an art style and sound track reminiscent of older games, and that it will launch on current and next gen systems.
Halo is my favorite series of all time, and it isn’t really close. The original trilogy of games is my favorite trilogy ever and each game is somewhere in my top games ever made.
This decade as a Halo fan has been rough to say the least. Halo 4 and 5 were mediocre games in my opinion, and there just has not been anything to make me feel excited about the direction of the franchise.
After Halo 5, I just assumed that Halo would never make me excited like it used to.
Halo Infinite is currently my most anticipated game by a pretty wide margin, and I basically don’t know what it is. I know that they are heavily leaning on influences from older games based on two trailers we have seen as well as other smaller details, but that’s all I know.
Halo Infinite in it’s current form is my dream game. It can be anything I want it to be. In my head, Halo Infinite is the triumphant return of the series that means so much to me.
Halo Infinite is a game that takes the best of Halo 1, 2, and 3 and mashes it up to make a game worthy of the series name, reinvigorates the series, and makes the Xbox a must own system.
At least, that’s what I want it to be.
It’s pretty clear that Microsoft and 343 desperately want Halo Infinite to be a special game. They are taking their sweet time with it, and when it finally releases, it will be five years since the last Halo game, the longest gap in the series two decade long run.
Halo Infinite is also launching with the next generation Xbox, and I can already imagine the marketing the game will be getting to help sell Xbox’s shiny new console.
So, there’s no doubt that they are banking on the game being a hit, but will it actually live up to what I and other Halo fans want?
I wrote an article a few months back talking about what I thought Halo Infinite should do. I talked about how I wanted Halo Infinite to either heavily lean on it’s roots, or do something different. I feel as though Halo 4 and 5 tried to please everyone and in the end made a boring, safe game that really didn’t do anything extremely well.
For Halo Infinite, I can imagine a game where it’s a reboot of sorts and is a modern day arena shooter. But I can also imagine a game that reinvents the first person shooter genre and becomes a landmark game like Halo Combat Evolved did. I’m at the point now where I just want Infinite to be good, no matter what type of game it is.
I think of God of War as a perfect example of a game that changed the formula but kept the spirit of the series.
2018’s God of War reinvigorated the series by turning the series into an over the shoulder, dark souls lite action-combat game.
There are still remnants of what many loved about God of War in this game, but it matured in a way that made it the most critically acclaimed game of that year.
God of War (2018)
2018’s God of War still followed Kratos, but felt like a rebirth of the series in many ways. Perhaps Infinite can breathe new life into the series as well
I don’t know exactly what Halo’s version of this is. Infinite will undoubtedly still be a first person shooter, and you can’t do too much to change that formula.
But Halo needs to do something. Halo 4 and 5 rubbed me the wrong way because the changes they made were surface level and felt like cheap attempts to attract players who don’t like Halo.
It can’t just be adding the latest mechanics to multiplayer and adding a couple half baked mechanics in campaign like Halo 5 did (I’m looking at you Fire team). It needs to be actually meaningful.
What are those meaningful additions? I don’t know! It turns out making video games new and interesting is hard.
I’m just desperate to feel like I did playing Halo 1, 2, 3, and hell even Halo: Reach. I’m a lot older than I was when I first played those games, but I don’t think my age is the reason I never connected with this decades crop of Halo’s.
I could easily point out that 343 made the latest Halo games and maybe they just don’t have the secret sauce that Bungie did, but I don’t want to give up that easily.
I feel like there is a path forward to reinvigorate the series. So far what we have seen from Infinite has given me hope. I get the same feeling watching the two Infinite trailers that I do watching a Halo 3 trailer, but the actual game is what matters here.
Halo Infinite is my dream game, and I literally haven’t seen any gameplay. I don’t know what Halo Infinite needs to do for me to love it, I just know how I feel playing the original games. If Infinite can make me feel like I do playing the older games then it will succeed in my book.
I can imagine what that game is in my head, but again that’s just a dream. Maybe what Infinite actually is surpasses even my wildest dreams, maybe it’s nothing I want. I don’t know, but for now, I’ll continue to picture Infinite as my dream game until it’s either fulfilled or yanked away.
