A fan has created concept art for the upcoming Halo Infinite, showcasing what a potential Spartan Ops mode would look like. The fan-art uses new and old armor and art elements, and showcases how the mode would use Halo Infinite’s new art-style.
Spartan Ops was a single-player and cooperative, episodic game mode featured in Halo 4. The mode followed the events of the single player campaign, and allowed players to progress the story through frequent updates and patches. Spartan Ops is similar to that of Call of Duty’s “Spec Ops,” but focused more on events that followed the Master Chief’s journey in the main campaign. Instead of playing as the Master Chief, players used their multiplayer spartan for these missions. This mode has not been confirmed as of yet for Halo Infinite
While news for Halo Infinite has been coming out fairly regularly through developer updates, any rumors or news of Spartan Ops has been sparse. The mode was removed in Halo 5, likely due to mixed reception, and the implementation of the popular Warzone and Warzone firefight. These two modes offered varied multiplayer gameplay, pitting players against both each-other and AI. However, these modes did not offer the same amount of narrative value that Spartan Ops did.
Despite the lack of news, some Halo fans, like u/TitanSupremacy, have speculated and discussed the game-mode and how it would look in the next Halo title. The art focuses on a likely cutscene featuring two Spartans and three marines hauling cargo. The lighting in the art is impeccable, and extreme care and attention to detail has been given to the armor on the Spartans, Marines and Scorpion tank.
The concept art showcases the Halo Infinite art style as we have seen it so far. The Spartans are clad in armor reminiscent of the Halo Reach art style, using various armor pieces from that game. The Spartan on the left is also wearing a jetpack from Reach. The marines, however, share the design of the marines seen in promotional material for Halo Infinite thus far. In this way, the fan has captured the artistic direction that 343 Industries is going with for Infinite by using elements of both old and new Halo games.
343 Industries has already confirmed that there will be a hefty amount of post-launch content for Halo Infinite. While this may not be Spartan Ops as we know it, there is still a chance that we may get something similar to the mode. Concept art like this shows that fans would still be interested in a cinematic story-based mode.
Halo Infinite will be available in 2021 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC.