Microsoft finally revealed several consecutive minutes of Halo Infinite gameplay, and though it was a very enlightening experience, it brought to mind a lot of questions as well. One of the main things that fans want to know after what they've seen at the Xbox Games Showcase is if the game will be open world.
Previous Halo games have all been mission-focused, where players would traverse each area of the game one by one separated by loading screens and cutscenes. This has worked great for the franchise in the past, but the gameplay shown of Halo Infinite seemed to lend towards an open world feel rather than isolated instances.
Not long after the showcase, 343 industries' very own Paul Crocker opened up about the matter. Crocker is the narrative director for Halo Infinite, but many may recognize his work on the Batman: Arkham series, where he provided the same role to critical acclaim.
When asked whether Halo Infinite would be an open-world game, Crocker explained that it would be somewhere in between what fans expect from a traditional Halo game and the classic open-world formula. He ensures fans that 343 Industries did not want to create something which was just like every other open-world game on the market, taking extra care to include elements that would make it feel distinctly Halo when compared to other games. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to go into too much detail about what this meant exactly, as it seems that 343 Industries isn't ready to reveal too much just yet.
He does go on to claim that Halo Infinite will be bigger than both Halo 4 and Halo 5 combined, which is a promising concept. Furthermore, it has been stated previously that 343 Industries has no intention of making a Halo 7 any time soon, instead, 343 Industries is opting to actively support Halo Infinite throughout the lifetime of the Xbox Series X at least. With that in mind, the game will need to be big if it is to survive that long, and an open-world style lends well to this sort of longevity.
When Crocker says it will be a mix of the two, that most likely means that the ring will be broken up into different areas. These independent areas will be large and resemble open-world maps but will still require loading screens or something similar to travel between. There may also be MMO dungeon-like instances within segments that act like the missions from previous games, but this is all simply speculation.
Halo Infinite releases Holiday 2020 for Xbox Series X.
Source: PCGamesN