As promised after its cinematic trailer at last year's E3, Halo Infinite has stayed pretty dark. That is about change in July when the next-gen game gets its full reveal at the Xbox 20/20 event that promises to showcase first-party games from the Xbox Studios. Despite rumors and supposed leaks, with one of the most recent "leaks" officially deemed fake by developer 34 Industries itself, very little is known about the game.
That hasn't stopped fans from speculating with what little trailers, footage, and sneak peeks 343 has given. The general consensus is that Halo Infinite will try to bring back some of the classic magic of the franchise's earlier entries. A return to an art style reminiscent of the first few Halo games and promises to include split-screen local multiplayer have been hints that 343 has a vision to satisfy longtime fans of Halo.
With that in mind, 343 has a large and successful history from which to pull. This will be the developer's third mainline Halo game, so it should have plenty of its own experience and lessons learned to influence the development of its next game in addition to the previous games developed by Bungie. While it is unknown just how 343 will take all those ingredients of the old and the new to cook up Halo Infinite, there are some favorite and "best" elements of the franchise that 343 will hopefully pull back into Halo Infinite.
An Approachable but Multi-layered Narrative
When Bungie developed Halo, many of its stories were approachable and simple enough to understand and engage with. In Halo, players are a supersoldier who crash lands a mysterious alien ring-planet and has to get off of it. In Halo 2, aliens are attacking earth, which needs to be defended and there's a civil war brewing between the alien factions. In Halo 3, Cortana is lost and Master Chief needs to recover her. Halo: ODST and Halo: Reach have even more focused narratives that forego much of the epic space opera backstory of the mainline entries. Of course, a lot happens around those simple story conceits, but the games were much easier to follow.
Underneath the main narrative, there was plenty of mystery and sub-plot about the Forerunners, the Mantle of Responsibility, and other elements that might be described as the franchise's lore. But players did not have to understand much of it to understand the story itself or enjoy the game. If players did want to dive deeper into those layers of the narrative they could, including with media outside of the game itself.
Alternatively, Halo 4 and Halo 5 depended much more on the deeper lore of the Halo franchise for its story. As a result, the story became harder to understand for those who did not invest in the full lore and narratives of the Halo universe. Hopefully, Halo Infinite will bring an approachable narrative that anyone can jump into, comprehend and enjoy, while providing enough mystery and context for those willing and wanting to jump in deeper.
Balanced, Competitive Multiplayer
The core Halo competitive multiplayer experience that many who played the games enjoyed was that it is most focused on individual skill per match instead of on weapon and gear upgrades or advantages given to those who have played the longest. Those who played Halo the longest were often the best at Halo simply because they played Halo the longest, developing high-level skill at the game in both gun-skill and map knowledge. It was not because they leveled up their weapons, perfected their loadout, prestiged multiple times, purchased the best stuff with microtransactions, or any other way players can gain an advantage in many modern games.
Players expected to jump into a game on equal footing with their opponents who have the same weapon and abilities. The flow of the map was dictated by where more powerful weapons and equipment were located on the map, which would pull opponents into duels with the winner able to claim the advantage of that item.
Past Halo games have deviated from that formula, but if Halo Infinite is trying to recapture that magic, it would do well to keep multiplayer competitive and balanced. Halo 5 did a better job at this than Halo 4, so 343 has made good on delivering on this classic Halo experience. And with big esports plans announced, chances are good that 343 is paying special attention to the competitive side of Halo Infinite.
A Surprise
The Halo franchise was hugely popular because it often had a surprise, a new innovation, or a refinement of the genre that made it stand out as something unique. In recent entries, while new content and gametypes have been added, many of theme have not landed as successfully as those in the past. Hopefully Halo Infinite can bring back that big surprise element that got fans so excited in the past.
Because there is so much mystery surrounding Halo Infinite, it is possible that there is at least one big surprise coming that will wow longtime fans and new players alike to draw them to Halo. It has been five years since the release of Halo 5 and the gaming landscape has changed tremendously. Hero shooters like Overwatch and battle royales like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone did not even exist back in 2015. In 2020, Halo Infinite will be launching into a whole new world.
The challenge has always been to successfully blend the old and the new. Bungie even talked about that back when it was developing Halo—how to innovate and bring new ideas to the table while not upsetting longtime players with changes to the formula. That tension hasn't gone away with 343 often being criticized with its Halo games as evolving too much and not keeping things classic enough.
Space Combat
Halo: Reach first introduced space combat into the franchise in its Long Night of Solace mission. Halo 4 brought back space combat for its finale mission. Vehicles and vehicular combat has always been a major part of Halo, and it is completely expected as a core of the experience to have vehicles like the Warthog, Mongoose, and Banshee. But every time Halo has ventured outside the atmosphere to give players an interstellar ship battle, it has worked. While it hasn't appeared in every game, it has been done successfully in the past and should also be in Halo Infinite.
Halo Infinite is set to release holiday 2020 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.