Halo Infinite earns our Greatest FPS award. To see our different winners up to now, head to our GOTY 2021 hub—updating all through the remainder of the month.
Nat Clayton, Options Producer: I’ve my issues with Halo Infinite. Its story is a hasty sweeping up of 20 years of lore, its open world is basically redundant, and it is broadly missing within the visible spectacle that makes Halo really feel like Halo. However bloody hell, has capturing aliens on an enormous hula hoop by no means felt higher than this.
Halo Infinite has been good in deciding what to carry again and what to replace. We’re again to a reasonably small roster of baddies with very distinct strengths, weaknesses, and behaviours. Tackling a room stuffed with Brutes and Jackals feels meaningfully totally different to taking up Elites, Grunts or Hunters, and also you’re continually swapping between new weapons primarily based on what’s finest for the job. However Grasp Chief additionally has a momentum he is by no means had earlier than—our lad remains to be a strolling tank, however he can now whip himself from room to room with a grappling hook, mantling over ledges and sliding down stairs to weave round plasma fireplace.
Fights are chaotic and dynamic as ever, however now Chief himself strikes with a frenetic urgency, a five-ton Titanfall 2 pilot dropped into the center of an alien conflict. Even when Zeta Halo itself has worn out its welcome, preventing the Banished by no means loses its lustre.
Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor: Infinite’s weapons have a crispness that makes firing them really feel highly effective and exact. Like Nat stated, 343 did a unbelievable job deciding what components from previous video games to carry again and how you can replace them. Regardless that the multiplayer has gotten some deserved flak for a crappy Battle Go, I do not suppose I’ve seen a phrase towards its gunplay. It simply nails it.
The weapons are even higher within the marketing campaign. There are a number of weapons that I discovered wimpy in multiplayer that turned out to be a blast within the marketing campaign, the place they’ve extra dramatic tuning and nice situational makes use of. The Pulse Carbine completely tears by means of Covenant shields, and the Heatwave’s ricocheting wave of vitality is my new favourite method to kill Jackals cowering behind their shields.
The marketing campaign nearly pulls off a grand open world reimagining of Halo as we all know it. I disagree with Nat that the open world is redundant—I believe it constantly delivers the enjoyable of snack-sized Halo battles, even when the facet missions themselves are all simplistic. Infinite would not have a single mission to rank up there with Bungie’s finest, and it appears like 343 may’ve achieved extra with its open world. However it does provide you with an enormous playspace to grapple round in, some actually beautiful views, and tons of fight eventualities to leap into nonetheless the hell you need. I like that I can simply drive as much as a base with a Warthog or a tank or stroll in with nothing however a Needler, scrounge weapons on the fly, and blow Phantoms out of the sky once they dare drop in reinforcements. Not right now, Banished.
Jody Macgregor, AU/Weekend Editor: As soon as I upgraded the grappling hook to have a shorter cooldown, I completely fell for Halo Infinite. With the ability to sling up any mountain or tower by chaining grapples collectively made skipping throughout the map rescuing each squad of marines a blast. It helps that there is no penalty for simply leaping off a cliff if you happen to really feel prefer it, as a result of I do really feel like doing that, rather a lot. With no fall injury, an open world with infinite disposable autos to cross it, and the enemies’ goofy fight dialogue, Halo Infinite has a bunch of my favourite components of Borderlands 2. That is not a comparability I anticipated to be making, however right here we’re.
The enemy AI is stable, too, flanking when you do not count on it, hurling grenades if you’re in cowl—and, in fact, shouting they’re doing that so that you discover and suppose, “What intelligent AI!” The marines aren’t fairly so good, although that appears apt. When one stood beneath a Warthog I used to be calling in and bought crushed by it, one other shouted, “The Banished simply ran them over!” Look, they are not geniuses, however they’re my guys, and rolling into battle with a truck stuffed with them simply feels proper. They even sustain after I’m hopping throughout mountains like a goat, which is a minor miracle of pathfinding.
After I completed the marketing campaign I went attempting to find extra of the skulls that allow you to modify problem and whatnot. The one which makes uncommon fight barks set off extra ceaselessly has turned the marines and Grunts into part-time comedians, and that makes it even higher.
