Halo Infinite will see Master Chief exploring a more open-world map than any previous installment in the series. The game will take place on Installation 07, a Halo ring designed by 343 Industries to blend elements of an open world and traditional Halo maps. The Chief will be facing down the Banished, a faction of separatist former Covenant fighters led by Brutes and first introduced in Halo Wars 2.
If Halo Infinite is going to shift the series' first-person shooter gameplay to a more open world design, it will need to take influence from the world design of successful open-world FPS series. The next Halo game should take a look at some of the core design philosophies from Far Cry's open worlds, and the way Ubisoft uses both its shooter gameplay and its world design to make exciting dynamic moments come to life.
Far Cry's Open World Philosophy
While the Far Cry series has had its ups and downs over the years, some of the core open-world design principles established in Far Cry 3 still underpin the series' successes. Far Cry isn't an RPG series like open-world games like Skyrim, and as a result most NPC encounters in the world are instantly hostile, as most will likely be in Halo Infinite. However, Far Cry 3's design found some clever ways to generate stories in its open world, without the need for dialogue or side quests.
Talking shortly after the release of Far Cry 3, the game's level design director Mark Thompson discussed some of the priorities Ubisoft's developers had while building the world. One major goal according to Thompson, was to create "space that exists for a reason." As a result, there's a degree of logic and storytelling to the layout of Far Cry 3's world.
Enemy bases near the jungle, for example, often deal in timber. There are usually other enemy bases on the coastline nearby, where that timber is being exported. This logic extends to other aspects of the open world as well. After Far Cry 3's E3 demo, Thompson described demonstrating how the player could make use of logic in the game's open world:
"At E3, the demo we showed, you use the sound of the waterfall to mask that fact that you were killing that guy, and you dragged him to hide him behind the waterfall... It's not just scripted for that demo, it's something systemic. You know, if you drag a body and hide it in a bush, it's going to be there, it's going to be hidden."
Far Cry's maps are designed to allow multiple angles of attack for each problem, and to establish a few key logical rules which can be consistently applied throughout the world and which, when mixed and matched, allow for a huge amount of approaches to what could otherwise be relatively generic combat encounters. Far Cry 3 may have come out nearly a decade ago, but its world design priorities could teach some key lessons to Halo Infinite.
Bringing Installation 07 To Life In Halo Infinite
Unlike past Halo games, Halo Infinite will need to create a world which has its own self-sustaining logic independent of the main plot, even if the map isn't fully open-world. The Banished appear to have taken over Installation 07 based on the game's marketing materials, and their setup on the Halo Ring needs to have its own logic in terms of supply chains, guarding priorities, and so on. This design can only help create their own stories when the player isn't pursuing the main objective.
Halo Infinite's players will need more diverse ways to interact with the world than seen in previous Halo games. They should be able to move and hide bodies and to use aspects of the environment against their enemies. They should be able to notice patterns in the world whether it be guard patrol schedules, the movement of supplies, or even subtler aspects like the different capabilities of the former Covenant species, such as how well they can see in the dark.
In the campaigns of past Halo games, the player usually fights their way through relatively linear levels as they blast their way towards a single objective. In Halo Infinite, players will need both a wider array of weapons, and more tools beyond weaponry. This will require smarter AI than those used for Halo enemies in the past. Members of the Banished should be able to be lured away from their posts with sounds, for example. Like Far Cry's enemies, they should take notice of unfamiliar noises, movements, and other things that the player could logically use to their advantage in the game's world.
To make Infinite's world compelling, 343 Industries may even introduce some survival aspects. Installation 07 could have varying weather, for example, which could hinder or help the player as they try to complete their missions. Forerunner installations and their automatons are already featured heavily in the Halo games, and could be a great basis for environmental weapons which could be used against the Banished. In Far Cry, players are able to release animals like tigers caged in camps to distract and attack their enemies.
As in Far Cry, elements of Halo Infinite's world which can give the player an advantage - like weather or wild animals - should also be able to cause problems for the player under different circumstances. In Far Cry, coming across a tiger caged in a camp is a very different experience to coming across one by surprise in the jungle, but the rules for the tiger's behavior are identical. It will be vital that Halo Infinite's new open-world elements have consistent rules, allowing the player to use their own logic to come up with unique approaches to different challenges when the opportunities present themselves.
Both Halo Infinite's world and the tools the player has access to to take on that world will need these significant differences from past Halo games if Installation 07 is going to be a compelling setting that adds more to the game than a larger map. If Halo Infinite lacks some of these design principles, the new game could risk taking the Halo formula and spreading its tight combat and story thin over a large world.
Halo Infinite will launch on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X in fall 2021.