All The Latest Juicy Details About Halo Infinite

All The Latest Juicy Details About Halo Infinite

Today, we will be talking about Halo Infinite, bringing you up to speed with the latest details, and what might be happening in the near future. Ever since its original reveal back at the Xbox Media Briefing at E3 2018, there has not really been much information about the game. Many fans and content creators have tried to dissect the trailer and find out every piece of information possible on what Halo Infinite is all about, how it plays, how the multiplayer is going to work and of course, what’s happening with the main plot. As always, we at Gaming Instincts do our best when it comes to research, facts, and details. And as you all know we like to mix all of that up and throw in our own speculation and theories. Alright, Halo fans, buckle down and let’s get to it.

https://youtu.be/8JI7IsaPnLs

First, let’s talk about the setting of Halo Infinite, where it’s possibly taking place, and the timeline. It’s been officially confirmed that this is indeed actually Halo 6 and will continue after the events of Halo 5: Guardians. 343 Industries has admitted to wanting to drop the numbers for quite a while now, because Halo 11 or Halo 12 will start to sound stupid.  Back in June of 2013 when Halo 5: Guardians was the newly announced Halo game Microsoft confirmed that Halo 5: Guardians is the continuation of a Saga as opposed to a trilogy that Halo 4 started which was called The Reclaimr Trilogy . 343 is saying that it is no longer the case and that The Reclaimer Trilogy is now The Reclaimr Saga instead. What that means is that the game after Halo Infinite will be continuing the story of the Reclaimer Saga, and that Halo Infinite won’t be the end to the plot as many thought it would be. I find it very interesting that we are now in the saga territory from a plot standpoint.

After doing a bit of detective work and looking around other dark corners of the internet, such as Reddit, we have came to the conclusion that Halo Infinite is taking place on Installation 07, which is the Zeta Halo ring.  Thanks to all the intelligent individuals over at Reddit for being able to figure out what the morse code was saying/giving away in the Halo Infinite trailer. For those who don’t know, Zeta Halo is one of the seven Halo rings in the lore of Halo. Zeta Halo is a very interesting location because not only are we going back to a Halo ring, but this ring in particular has a lot of history, lore, and wildlife that we’ve never seen before in any of the Halo games. We actually see some deer-like creatures in the Halo Infinite trailer early on, which suggests that the world now will be much more alive, more immersive, and much less static or boring than in the previous titles.

Speaking of settings and location, many people are starting to wonder what kind of a game Halo Infinite is actually going to be and how big will the world be? Well, according to the Franchise Developer Director Frank O Connor, or rather Frankie, which is usually what he goes by in the Halo community: He described Halo Infinite on Twitter as “Capacious”. Now, some of you probably have never heard of this word, and have no clue what it means, but Capacious is a fancy word for spacious, open-ended, or big in scale. Some fans think that Halo Infinite might be going fully open-world. But judging by this particular statement it just seems that the game will be much larger in scale, more open-ended, and have more exploration elements and gameplay than ever before as opposed to being a full blown-out open world.

What I am mostly excited about in Halo Infinite is the new engine – The Slipspace Engine. It’s quite obvious that, even though Halo Infinite is an Xbox One title, the game is being built for a next-generation console that will be taking advantage of next-generation engines that are able to scale on different machines. I am really looking forward to seeing how this new engine turns out. Halo 5: Guardians looks amazing on an Xbox One X, and runs at a silky smooth 4K native and 60 FPS.

I remember when I saw it, I thought to myself that there was no way in hell a Halo game could look even better than that, and that’s where the Slipspace engine comes in with Halo Infinite. The in-engine trailer is very impressive. I like how Slipspace still manages to keep that Halo art-style but just looks so much better and more realistic. I cannot wait to see how the Covenant will look like, and hopefully the Flood will return as well.  I can already imagine myself just staring at beautiful large vistas and set pieces in the world of Halo Infinite, and just appreciating the art and the work that the developers have put in for us to look at and have fun with.

Alright, with the story setup, location, scale, and engine stuff out of the way, let’s start talking about what we know when it comes to gameplay mechanics, Master Chief himself, and the multiplayer aspect of Halo Infinite. I’d like to address the elephant in the room first: the gameplay of Halo Infinite. Even 6 months after the announcement, we still have very few details on how the game will be played when it comes to movement, speed, shooting mechanics, enemies, and all that good stuff.

However, what we do know for a fact is that on December 18th, 2018 which is not even a month ago, a new job opening was posted over at the 343 Industries official website. The job title was Senior Systems Designer and read as follows:

“343 is looking for a Senior Systems Designer to work on our next epic, systems-driven Halo Campaign.  We are looking for a seasoned individual to manage, architect, document, and help drive systemic gameplay within our Campaign experience. Key responsibilities will focus on building and help manage a passionate design team, working closely with other disciplines to design systems as well as tools for the Campaign team. While working closely with the Campaign Director, the ideal candidate will need strong communication skills to pass on both vision for the game as well as give and illicit critical feedback from their team.”

Here comes the best part, one of the big requirements for this job was for the person to have experience with RPG and shooter game mechanics. Is Halo Infinite secretly the Destiny game we’ve been waiting for? About god damn time! Okay, on more of a serious note, does this imply that Halo Infinite will have some sort of RPG elements tied into its campaign narrative and gameplay? Is it possible that maybe there will be dialogue choices and multiple-path storytelling ALA Mass Effect style, but in the beautiful universe of Halo? Or will the game go down the actual Destiny route and become a looter shooter? I sure as hell hope not, but I personally would not mind a Mass Effect-styled Halo. I think that could work very well, if it’s done right, and if it’s not too slow-paced like most heavy narrative-driven RPGs are, such as Dragon Age or Witcher 3.

Now, let’s talk about the star of the show – the Master Chief himself. While we haven’t seen the newly fully-rendered Master Chief, we did get a good glimpse of his helmet model and, most importantly, the armor. 343 Industries has decided to go back to the old, iconic Mk VI, which is a huge deal for fans of the original Halo titles due to the simple fact that Halo 5: Guardians kind of ignored Master Chief and only had him for 3 missions out of the entire game. Master Chief is back, baby, and he’s doing it in his good old style that everyone knows and loves.

Last, but not least, after the end of Halo Infinite, we see the new rendition of Master Chief inserting an AI into his helmet. But the question is which AI is it exactly? Is it a copy of the old Cortana version before she went ape-shit crazy at the end of Halo 5: Guardians, or a completely brand-new AI? Is Halo Infinite going to be a plot about the old good Cortana vs the new evil Cortana, or will it involve another AI entirely? Hopefully, we will find out soon when the game gets closer to its release date and more lore information is given out.

Okay, let’s talk about what we know so far about the multiplayer and online aspect of Halo Infinite. LAN has been officially confirmed for Halo Infinite along with 4-player split screen. This was confirmed back on December 20th, 2018, which was not too long ago. This is excellent news for the hardcore old-school Halo fans who love doing a get-together and playing with their friends, or doing tournaments at LAN parties. Halo Infinite is also coming to PC and it will be a Play Anywhere title, and a Day One game on Game Pass as well.

Now, many have wondered, with all the craze that Fortnite and PUBG have caused over the last few years: will there be a dedicated Battle Royale mode for Halo Infinite? Honestly, if you think about Halo at its core, when it came to multiplayer it always portrayed itself as this massive warfare of a game with big open maps and vehicles since the beginning.  So, a Battle Royale mode obviously seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, according to 343 Industries, Writer Jeff Easterling said the following during a Mixer stream last year:  “I’ll tell you right now, the only BR we’re interested in is Battle Rifle. The original BR. So, calm yourself.” Jeff made it quite clear that they’re not here to chase popular trends of Fortnite or PUBG.

However, to me this seems rather strange because I personally love Battle Royale games. At the hands of the right developer along with a fitting game, it can be done really well and be a lot of fun. Halo as a franchise already has the things going for it as a perfect Battle Royale mode, as I’ve previously stated. On the same note, however, I think it is a smarter choice to focus on the campaign, make a very solid narrative-driven experience with many epic moments, create an immersive world, and of course, design fun and fluid multiplayer game modes.

I don’t think Jeff completely ruled out Battle Royale for Halo Infinite but rather strongly suggested that it’s not something that will happen at launch and that this is really not the time to be focusing on such things. Basically, let’s get an amazing game going first before we worry about Battle Royale. This, in the end, I think is the right decision to make. 343 Industries has gotten a lot of criticism over the plot and the campaign portion of Halo 5: Guardians, enough that I think they really do need to focus strongly on the single-player aspect before anything else, period.

With that being said, I think at this point there are quite a few details about Halo Infinite. Of course, we still have more questions than actual answers, but it’s better to know something than nothing at all. There is one more big question that we would like to talk about when it comes to Halo Infinite, and that is the big and mighty release date. When will Master Chief begin his new adventure and when will Halo fans jump back into the arena? All we know is that 343 Industries has said that the game still has a long way to go and it’s a game that will take time because they want to make this an experience that’s epic and worthy of the Halo franchise and Master Chief himself.

With all the crazy rumblings going on about next-gen Xbox consoles, such as Lockhart and Anaconda, it’s safe to assume that Halo Infinite is going to be an extremely important game and, perhaps, the title that will be worthy of selling consoles on its own. This is all despite the fact that you will be able to play Halo Infinite on your PC or android tablet via connected controller using Project xCloud. Some may argue that Halo has lost its touch, that it is no longer a system seller, and that it isn’t as relevant as it used to be. That may be true in today’s day and age with the current generation of consoles, but I highly doubt that Microsoft and 343 Industries won’t try their hardest to come back with a bang.

The game will still be playable on Xbox One and Xbox One X. My gut tells me that Halo Infinite will, in fact, launch day one with Lockhart and Anaconda sometime next year, most likely during the Fall season of 2020. But as of today, let’s sit tight, wait patiently, and look forward to E3 2019 because that is clearly where Microsoft will unveil what Halo Infinite is all about to the world.  Stay tuned to Gaming Instincts TV for our next video on Halo Infinite next week and beyond. Make sure you Subscribe and click on that Notification bell to stay up-to-date on your latest video games, coverage, and much more. See you next week!