Halo Infinite

• 1. Introduction

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  Halo Infinite, the sixth mainline game in the Halo series, was first shown to the public on the 23rd of July 2020, and the response was harsh. Eurogamer wrote that it looked like "the fake plastic trees version of Halo, like a video game designed with Mega Bloks in mind." That verdict landed on a studio, 343 Industries, that was still following Halo 5: Guardians from 2015. How does a game greeted this way end up praised as a return to form? Why is a lone supersoldier fighting on a broken alien ring? And what was happening inside the studio in the years before anyone saw a single frame?

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• 2. The Open Ring

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  Zeta Halo, the Forerunner ringworld where the campaign unfolds, begins as a set of regions walled off from one another and initially impassable. Players take Master Chief across it using a mix of vehicles and weapons. A tool called the Grappleshot pulls him toward enemies, grabs items and helps him climb difficult terrain.

  Forward Operating Bases, known as FOBs, are scattered across the landscape. Once a base is cleared of enemies, the player can capture it, and it becomes a fast-travel point. Other side objectives include eliminating "high-value targets", rescuing Marine squads and destroying Banished propaganda towers. Each of these earns Valor, a currency spent on weapons and vehicles that can be called in from a captured base.

  The story missions work differently. These more linear stretches of the ring follow the older Halo approach to mission design and carry the plot forward. Finished missions can be replayed from the in-game TACMAP, although that option was missing when the game launched. Audio logs and other collectibles hidden in the environment add extra story detail. Those collectibles feed a campaign built for one player, while the other half of the game is built for crowds.

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• 3. Multiplayer Arena

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  Big Team Battle matches in Halo Infinite raise the player count to 24, compared with the standard 4-versus-4 format. Both versions offer deathmatch, capture the flag and other modes. Unlike earlier mainline Halo games, the whole multiplayer portion is free-to-play.

  A dash, active camouflage and "repulsor" charges are three of the powers that ability pickups grant. Each pickup can be used only a limited number of times. The repulsor knocks back enemies, projectiles and vehicles. A training mode lets players test weapons in weapon drills or practice against computer-controlled bots.

  Armor, weapon models and coatings, which are groups of color and pattern, let players customize their avatars. These items are unlocked by finding them in the campaign, through free or paid battle passes, or through micro transactions. That mix of free and paid unlocks would draw its own criticism once players got their hands on it.

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• 4. Cortana's Shadow

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  The year is 2560, and Cortana, once the Master Chief's partner, rules the galaxy through ancient Forerunner weapons known as Guardians. During the events of Halo 5: Guardians, she and other allied artificial intelligences rebelled against their creators in the United Nations Space Command, or UNSC. Fighting both Cortana and the UNSC are the Banished, a mercenary organization of aliens and humans led by the Brute Atriox. The game takes place on Installation 07, also called Zeta Halo, a Forerunner ringworld that has mysteriously suffered damage. Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, a UNSC Spartan supersoldier, is on a mission to neutralize Cortana.

  Multiplayer carries its own seasonal story, centered on Spartan Commander Laurette Agryna. She works to lead a new generation of Spartans after Cortana's attacks on various UNSC military strongholds.

  In December 2559, the UNSC ship Infinity reaches Installation 07 and is ambushed by Banished dreadnoughts. While defending the hangar bay, the Chief is caught off guard by Atriox and loses a one-on-one duel. Atriox throws him over the edge of the bay, leaving him stranded in space.

  Six months later, a UNSC pilot finds the Chief adrift. The Pilot wants to flee, but the Chief insists on continuing the fight. On the damaged ring, he finds the Weapon, an AI designed to imitate Cortana so that she could be captured and deleted. The Weapon says she succeeded in that mission, yet she failed to delete herself as her directives required. Carrying her, the Chief experiences visions of Cortana's memories and thoughts, left behind as residual data.

  Atriox is apparently dead, so the Banished on Zeta Halo are led by his lieutenant Escharum. The dying Brute is delighted to have the Chief as a final opponent. Escharum commands the Hand of Atriox, a team of Spartan killers hunting any Spartans left on the ring. The Chief, the Weapon and the reluctant Pilot rally scattered UNSC forces. Inside a Forerunner installation called the Conservatory, the Chief meets Despondent Pyre, the AI caretaker of Zeta Halo. She tries to warn him about a threat held on the ring, but the Harbinger, an alien awakened by the Banished, destroys her. The Harbinger says the Forerunners imprisoned her people, the Endless, on Zeta Halo. She has allied with the Banished to rebuild the Silent Auditorium, a facility that would free them. In return, the Banished plan to use the repaired Halo as a weapon against humanity.

  The Pilot turns out to be a civilian engineer from Infinity who stole a Pelican to flee the battle. The Chief comforts him and admits his own guilt over failing to save Cortana. By disabling a series of spires, the Chief and the Weapon halt the ring's repair, but a section of the Auditorium is rebuilt anyway. When the Harbinger tries to hack the Weapon, the Chief activates a failsafe meant to delete her. She repels the Harbinger, switches off the failsafe and angrily asks why he does not trust her. A vision of Cortana using the Guardians to destroy Doisac, the Brutes' home planet, shows the Weapon that she is a copy. She asks the Chief to delete her so she will not become like her predecessor. He refuses, saying he wants to trust her.

  Jega 'Rdomnai, an Elite Spartan killer and close friend of Escharum, captures the Pilot as bait. The Chief infiltrates the Banished facility, rescues the Pilot and defeats both Jega 'Rdomnai and Escharum.

  At the Auditorium, the Chief and the Weapon learn that Atriox captured Cortana after the Weapon locked her down. When Cortana realized Atriox wanted the ring's secrets, she destroyed herself, damaged Zeta Halo and prevented the Weapon from being deleted. In a recorded message, she says goodbye to the Chief and urges him to work with the Weapon. The Chief defeats the Harbinger but cannot stop her from contacting someone about the Endless. Afterwards the Pilot gives his name, Fernando Esparza, and the Weapon decides to choose a name for herself.

  A post-credits scene shows the surviving Atriox using a key to open a sealed door that leads to the Endless. Players who finish on Legendary difficulty get a different scene, with Despondent Pyre speaking to a Forerunner official about the Endless. She says she cannot oversee their study alone, and he replies that the AI Offensive Bias has been deployed to assist her.

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• 5. Inherited Problems

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  Halo 4 in 2012 and Halo 5: Guardians in 2015 were made by 343 Industries as the Reclaimer Saga, a series first planned as a trilogy. Halo 5 earned mostly positive reviews, but its campaign was criticized for including too little of Master Chief. The studio promised to refocus on him. For Infinite, it toyed with making Halo an open world game, taking inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The idea was a large area to explore and a campaign that could be finished in any order.

  Paul Crocker wrote the game and also served as associate creative director of the campaign. Justin Dinges and Nicolas Bouvier were chosen as artists. Tom French, associate creative director of multiplayer, and Pierre Hintze, project lead, directed the multiplayer component. Help came from SkyBox Labs, Sperasoft, The Coalition, Certain Affinity and Atomhawk.

  Beneath the new Slipspace Engine sat basic development tools called Faber. Parts of Faber dated to the early 2000s and had served Bungie's Halo games. Its coding became notoriously hard for 343 Industries to work with and was considered technical debt. The studio had also leaned heavily on contract workers, who by some estimates made up half of the staff. Microsoft's policy limits contractors to 18 months in a job, so the headcount gradually fell.

  The studio itself was described as split into "fiefdoms". Conflicting decisions meant "four or five games being developed simultaneously." By summer 2019, two-thirds of the planned game had been cut, which removed much of the original vision. Even so, a November 2020 launch alongside the Xbox Series X/S was judged impossible to meet. In August 2019, development director Frank O'Connor said the game was being built "so it plays and looks fantastic" on Xbox One, with enhancements on Series X/S.

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• 6. Reveal Fallout

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  Aaron Greenberg, general manager of Xbox marketing, answered the criticism in an interview with Inside Gaming. He said: "Listen, we're in the middle of a global pandemic. It's July, we're far from launch in Holiday, you're seeing a work-in-progress game." He promised that the final game would be a "visual showcase". Narrative experience director Dan Chosich tweeted: "I want you to know your voice matters + is heard." He added: "I always want to live up to the legacy that Bungie pioneered."

  One screenshot of an attacking Brute with a deadpan expression earned the nickname "Craig" from internet commenters and became a meme. Community director Brian Jarrard embraced it. When 343 released improved gameplay videos closer to launch, they included shots that deliberately showed how much better Craig looked. Character and combat director Steve Dyck and character art lead Bryan Repka called it a "glow-up". They said the community's reaction helped win the team more time to get the Brutes where they wanted them. The campaign now hides a Craig reference as an Easter egg.

  On the 11th of August 2020, 343 delayed the game to an undefined date in 2021, citing several factors including the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft had at first planned to split the game into several parts but decided against it. Reports said 343 was outsourcing heavily to external developers, which contributed to the troubles.

  On the 27th of August 2020, 343 announced that Joseph Staten had joined as Campaign Project Lead. Staten had been lead writer and cinematic director of the Halo series at Bungie. His role later changed to Head of Creative. He is credited with convincing Microsoft to delay the game to 2021, backed by a list of reasons it would be better. With the extra time, features were added and improved, graphics included. On the 28th of October 2020, Bloomberg News reported that Studio Head Chris Lee had left the project.

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• 7. Road To Launch

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  At E3 2018, a trailer announced Halo Infinite for Xbox One and Windows, and the developer said every scene in it was running in-engine. An insider flight program, a beta before release, was also promised. At E3 2019 the game was confirmed as a launch title for the next-generation Xbox consoles. In January 2020, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty said the studio had no immediate plans for Xbox Series X exclusives at launch. He preferred to phase out older hardware over a longer period, as happens on PCs.

  In July 2020, Studio Head Chris Lee said a public beta was unlikely because of the ongoing pandemic. That contradicted what Microsoft had said at E3 2018. The pandemic had also forced developers to work remotely. 343 said a free ray tracing update would arrive after launch.

  In December 2020, 343 promised a late 2021 release. On the 25th of August 2021 it named the 8th of December. A technical test ran from the 29th of July to the 2nd of August 2021. Select members of the Halo Insider Program played 4v4 Slayer against bots on three maps. On the 20th of August 2021, 343 announced that the game would launch without campaign co-op, a longtime series feature. Forge, a creative environment for designing maps and gametypes, would also be missing.

  Further flights ran from the 23rd to the 26th of September and from the 30th of September to the 3rd of October 2021. The first centered on 4v4 player-versus-player, and the second introduced Big Team Battle on a larger map called Fragmentation. 343 used player feedback to make changes before release. Players praised the August 2021 multiplayer beta for its gameplay improvements. The Battle Pass drew criticism for slow progression, and 343 adjusted it to speed things up.

  On the 25th of October 2021, 343 published its first campaign video since the panned debut. It revealed several previously untold aspects of the gameplay and plot. On the 15th of November 2021, an open beta of multiplayer arrived on Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It celebrated the 20th anniversary of Xbox and the Halo series. The game was released to manufacturing on the 19th of November, and the campaign reached players on the promised date.

  The game supports cross-platform play and cross-platform save progression between Xbox and Windows. Split-screen campaign co-op had been planned as a response to backlash over its removal from Halo 5, but it was delayed several times. It was cancelled by September 2022. Campaign network co-op arrived instead with the Winter Update in November 2022.

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• 8. Music, Marketing, Verdict

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  On the 24th of June 2020, the official Halo YouTube channel premiered a teaser titled "SIGNAL DETECTED. TAG DESIGNATION: FOE". It featured an audio clip of an anonymous character speaking for the Banished, a faction introduced in Halo Wars 2. E3 2020 was canceled because of the pandemic, so Microsoft revealed the first gameplay footage by livestream. A trailer called "Step Inside" accompanied it, produced by 215 McCann, who had earlier made the "Believe" campaign for Halo 3. The spot showed Master Chief's armor being made and kicked off a wider campaign called "Become". That campaign focused on how ordinary people in the Halo universe shape the events of the games.

  Tie-ins ranged from Monster Energy Drink to a "Moa burger" flavored version of Pringles and Dr. Squatch "Spartan Soap". Participants could earn weapon skins, player nameplates and weapon emblems, and Snapchat offered several augmented reality experiences. Microsoft made an Infinite-themed console and Elite Wireless Controller. Other hardware included hard drives, keyboards, mice and a limited number of Halo-themed Radeon RX 6900 graphics processing units. At E3 2021, Microsoft unveiled two trailers, one for multiplayer and one for the story. On the 25th of August 2021, a CGI trailer for the first multiplayer season followed Commander Agryna in an occupied London.

  Metacritic's review aggregate rated the game "generally favorable". GamesRadar summed it up as "Halo as you've never seen it before", and Eurogamer called the release "the best it's been in a decade". TechRadar went further, calling it "a triumph". IGN believed the series still belonged among the best shooters and praised the campaign and multiplayer, though it found the Battle Pass rewards lackluster. GameSpot's Jordan Ramée liked the Grappleshot and the rewarding single-player progression. The open world design and extra player freedom drew particular praise from others.

  PCGamesN loved the feel of each gun. It singled out switching to the plasma rifle to knock the shield off a Jackal, then to the VK78 Commando for a snappy headshot. PC Gamer was mixed on the level design. It found the design strongly evoked the Halo mission from Combat Evolved but felt inferior to the timeless design of The Silent Cartographer. Rock Paper Shotgun liked the world but said the story stayed "ankle-clamped" by the overindulgence of earlier entries.

  Game Informer chose Infinite as its Game of the Year, and by January 2022 the game had reached 20 million players. It also appeared across award categories at The Game Awards, the Golden Joystick Awards, the D.I.C.E. Awards and the British Academy Games Awards, including audio design and multiplayer. Darin De Paul as Escharum and Jen Taylor as Cortana were both listed for voice performance awards.

  PCMag praised the soundtrack as "a mix of atmospheric exploration music, thrilling combat tracks, and songs and compositions that exist somewhere in between". That score came after Kazuma Jinnouchi, the in-house composer on Halo 5, left 343 Industries in 2018 to pursue an independent career. Gareth Coker, Curtis Schweitzer, Joel Corelitz, Alex Bhore and Eternal Time & Space collaborated on the music, overseen by music supervisor Joel Yarger. Two albums, one for the campaign and one for multiplayer, were released digitally on the 8th of December 2021. A third album, with music written for the post-launch seasons, followed on the 23rd of February 2024.

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