What do you remember about Halo 1?
For me, it’s a whirlwind of memory fragments. An assault rifle that didn’t hurt enemies. A pistol that did. The Silent Cartographer. Getting lost in the library while Guilty Spark hums to himself. YouTube videos of people launching Warthogs into the sky, and Song 2 by Blur. Being asked to tag in to a LAN 4v4 at my local arcade and eating shit. Wishing I could pick up the energy sword, Blood Gulch, the Flood, people calling the plasma pistol “the Flashlight.” You drive a car at the end.
The subsequent years and games provided more opportunities to define what Halo is, with varied answers. If boiled down to their essence, there are two basic approaches to New Halo- Bungie’s, and 343’s. Or, at least, that was true a month ago. Now, there’s a third approach: Halo Infinite’s. But Infinite exists as a response to the rest of 343’s efforts, which themselves are a response to Bungie’s games. So let’s start at the beginning.
It’s hard to overstate what a runaway success Halo 1 was, and the opportunities it opened for Bungie going forward. Suddenly the tip of Xbox’s spear, Bungie and Halo were given the budget and space to grow. With the time afforded them, Bungie’s understanding of the series seemed to shift. Halo 2 was the classic Bigger Badder Better triple A sequel, while Halo 3 aimed to expand the scope of the console shooter experience. ODST toyed with a hub world and storytelling method, and Reach was a trite military melodrama. If I were to identify a tonal throughline to Bungie’s Halos, it would be how seriously they take their world- rarely to their benefit. There were jokes around the periphery, like the modifier that caused headshots on grunts to explode with confetti and the cheers of children, but they were only ever small moments of levity in the grand story.
And for every moment that worked, there were three that didn’t. Folks love to praise the character of the Arbiter, but they spend much less time talking about the cringe-worthy story of Reach’s heroic Noble Team, so named because of their predestined noble sacrifices. They don’t mention the trio of marines at the start of 3 that fanboy over Master Chief, and if they mention lines like “finishing this fight” or “giving the Covenant back their bomb” it is with ironic joy at how bad they are. They don’t talk about Nathan Fillion’s Buck and the rest of his squad, aping their Firefly roles to the letter. And as much as some Halo fans love all the lore in the margins, the game’s main plots are never particularly inspired. It is the gameplay and aesthetics of Halo that have made it a cornerstone, not Cortana’s deep thoughts on philosophy.
Meanwhile, 343’s approach to Halo has primarily consisted of turning a big dial that says “Forerunner” and constantly looking to the audience for approval like a contestant on The Price is Right. If Bungie’s writing was overblown melodrama, 343’s is unimaginative melodrama, a far worse offense. Halo 4 and 5’s campaigns are, in a word, boring. 4 is also boring from a mechanical and artistic perspective, so devoid of ideas that it feels like… well, like what it is: a team of young developers making a Halo, all the while terrified they’ll fuck it up. 5 at least has a design that tries new ideas, messy as it is. I would say 5 is Fine. That sounds harsh, but the thing is, 4 is not fine. If you erased 4 from existence the series would hardly notice.
This brings us to Halo Infinite. Even though Infinite is still made by 343, the turnover at that studio has been so intense that this is effectively a new developer. The spirit of 4 and 5 does echo in a way, in that the game is incapable of imagining a world beyond UNSC vs the Covenant. The story is weak, the characters are generic. Infinite is a game that only understands Halo in the broadest strokes- it’s a Sick Stoic Guy and his Quippy AI fighting Mean Aliens who have about as much personality as any generic Villain of the Week. Forget the lore, the philosophy, the symbolism, the characters. This is Halo as a saturday morning cartoon.
And god is it better for it.
As much criticism as I have of the Bungie Halo campaigns, they are the peak of Halo. I would say 2, 3, and ODST are the best of the series, and that isn’t going to change. They’re the result of Bungie, an incredibly talented studio, having Microsoft’s full support to pursue a single vision for years on end. That simply will never happen again. Combat isn’t going to Re-Evolve, you’re not going to Finish The Fight again. Hell, you’re not even gonna see Reach Fall again. The old Halo is done- a complete work made by Bungie at the height of their talent. Is it possible to continue it without falling short? The world is vast, I’m sure the people who could pull it off exist somewhere. But those people don’t work at 343, and even if they did, they’d never get that pitch past an ever more risk-averse Microsoft. Stop dreaming. That Halo is over- long since.
343 can see this as well as anyone- maybe better. They spent millions of dollars trying to make Halo like Bungie did only to run headlong into an unflinching truth. Halo already exists, and it’s better than what they were making. And so they came to an answer. To make a new Halo, they had to make a game that wasn’t cast in the image of its predecessors. It’s a classic solution: if a direct comparison to your rival is unflattering, make yourself incomparable. It’s just that usually, your rival isn’t… you know, your own history.
Instead, 343 has chosen to make a very different game, leaning on elements of Halo that are either timeless or underexplored. First and foremost, you are in fact on a Halo, the titular massive ring superweapon. The combat is faithful to the series, with changes that I’m sure some of the old guard bristle at, but feel fairly obvious to me (aim down sights, greater mobility). You’re Master Chief, you’re fighting Covenant.
Here is where some divergence begins to occur: the occasionally quippy nature of the Covenant has been dramatically explored and expanded. These enemies are goddamn chatterboxes. Grunts run their mouths nonstop with absurd threats, declarations of fear and confusion, inane observations about the situation, and more. Brutes and Elites snipe cattily at each other, a history of being at each other’s throats expressed in petty insults and sarcasm.
They’re not the only ones with exaggerated performances. Your new AI buddy, a teenage-sounding Cortana-alike named Weapon (yeah, I winced too), spews one-liners and cutesy jokes. Are they good? No. No, they are not good. But there’s something there, in the tone- not just of Weapon’s lines, or the Covenant’s ramblings. It’s in the grappling hook traversal, the pleasantly paced open world with things to do but without Ubisoft map-littering. It’s in the fact that I don’t know why I or anyone else is on this damn ring, and I’ve had it confirmed by series lore experts that there’s no reason I should know: I’m not missing context, there is no context.
How can I list all these clearly bad things as though they are good? Because improbably, they are. I always thought the name Halo Infinite was just “see because it’s an open world,” and it’s not like that is untrue. But it’s more than that, too. Halo Infinite doesn’t tell you when this fight started, and though you’ll eventually hit credits (if you want it to), it doesn’t need to end either. Even the awful triple A game direction of the No Cuts Camera, like in Metal Gear Solid 5 or God of War, serves a purpose here. It’s that saturday morning cartoon feeling of a show that has been going for ages, that you tune into and get a feel for what’s happening immediately. When did it start airing? And when will it end? I have no idea. Tell me another story of the Halo Guy.
Halo Infinite doesn’t deserve any awards for best story, or best writing. It doesn’t have the best characters, it doesn’t even have the best combat. What it has done is something I never even considered: it has created low-fat video game junk food. Playing Halo Infinite is like eating pretzels: it’s simple, it’s enjoyable, and it’s surprisingly not that bad for you. You’ll never want to play for too long, but there’s also nothing about the experience that has finality. Sure, you can have a few more pretzels tomorrow. Why not? This isn’t Halo as epic shooter campaign, this is Halo as Crackdown, Halo as Tetris. Jump in, have some fun, and call it a night. Rinse, repeat.
Think about the slogans of the Halo series. 1 had Combat Evolved (also the subtitle)- the game is presenting a new vision for FPS combat. 2 said Earth Will Never Be the Same, speaking to its ambitions to turn the first game’s story serious and personal (to mixed results). Finish the Fight, Prepare to Drop, Remember Reach, Wake Up John, Hunt the Truth. Each subsequent slogan tells you what the game is going for: the tone, and what it wants the player to expect.
Right now, I’m staring at a Halo Infinite standee. It too has a slogan, emblazoned over a combat ready Master Chief: “BECOME.” What does it mean? Absolutely fucking nothing. It’s a vague call to action with no real purpose. “Hey,” it says. “Halo’s back. Remember those games? Damn good fun.” “What’s this one about?” I asked the standee, and Master Chief stares back with a blank expression, trying and failing to process the question. “Halo,” it answers at last. “It’s about Halo. You jump and shoot. The jumping feels good, the shooting feels great. Best it’s ever felt. Isn’t that enough?”
Yeah, I guess it is.
