Halo Infinite is out.

[Worgen]

Kinda. Halo Infinite Multi is out, the campaign won't be out till December 8th. If Halo was a game like Battlefield or COD then that would matter less but Halo has always been a campaign and multi shooter. Also the multi is free but also apparently beta, whatever that will mean.

Halo Infinite Multiplayer Is Out Now on PC & Xbox, Free to Play

The Xbox 20th anniversary event revealed that season 1 of Halo Infinite multiplayer, Heroes of Reach, is out now free to play on PC, Xbox.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Anyway, thoughts. Its good, like the gameplay feels really good. Not only does it feel really good but it sounds really good too, with weighty weapon thumps and the most satisfying player kill noise I have ever heard. It also runs like a dream on my system and with everything maxed out it looks great also. Really the main issue I see so far is how they do cosmetics, which are largely gated behind a battlepass. Which kinda sucks, but we shall see how things work out.

 

[BrawlMan]

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[laggyteabag]

I posted about my feelings in the "What are you playing?" thread, but it is nice to see a dedicated one.

I largely echo OP's sentiments. Gameplay good. Battlepass bad.

You just level up far too slowly. I have played the game for around 4 hours now, and Im not even half way through level 2 - out of 100. With the entire customisation system tied to the Battlepass, it feels like a massive grind to look vaguely unique.

There is also no per-game XP, and the challenge system is far too specific, to the point where it encourags unusual gameplay behaviour to complete them - like using the Replusor to get a Pancake kill, or killing a Wasp (which is a vehicle that I have only seen once over 4 hours). If you load into a match that doesn't spawn the weapon/vehicle that you need, it can feel like you are just wasting your time. It isn't a rewarding system.

Reddit is basically on fire with posts that are pretty much the same as this, too. 343 have said that they will look into changing this up "post-launch", but that is an incredibly vague timeframe, so hopefully they get their collective butts into gear, and patch this ASAP.

Otherwise, whilst I enjoy the maps themselves, there aren't an incredible amount of them (10 - which does seem to be in the normal range of launch maps for a Halo game), and all kind of thematically blend into each other. This is an issue that I had with Halo 5, too, where the artists just seems to love Human-Industrial, or Human-Military, which is largely white or grey metal. Currently, 5 of the maps fit into that category. 2 more are Forerunner themed, which is more grey metal. Another is Banished themed, which is yet more grey metal. One is set in a human city at night, which is grey tarmac. And the last , the only map to have a unique setting, is just a brown human city.

I just miss the days of Halo 3. Pick any 3 maps from that game, and they will almost all look completely different vs each other. Hopefully we can get some more Covenant, Flood, or more Halo 2/3 Forerunner weirdness. More biomes other than urban or woodland would also be a great change of pace.

The game feels great, but there is a lot of tuning to be done, and the game is going to desperately need some more variety, if it is going to survive until Season 2, which is in May.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

There is also no per-game XP, and the challenge system is far too specific, to the point where it encourags unusual gameplay behaviour to complete them - like using the Replusor to get a Pancake kill, or killing a Wasp (which is a vehicle that I have only seen once over 4 hours). If you load into a match that doesn't spawn the weapon/vehicle that you need, it can feel like you are just wasting your time. It isn't a rewarding system.

Ah, the Battlefield system of making progression feel like a punishment. I don't even play Halo, but I've heard about all the grumblings from the community before the game launched. And just like so many elements of BF2042, you really have to wonder, who the fuck thought this was a good idea? Unless the battlepass is just a paid shortcut to unlock things, in which case it all makes sense.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I posted about my feelings in the "What are you playing?" thread, but it is nice to see a dedicated one.

I largely echo OP's sentiments. Gameplay good. Battlepass bad.

You just level up far too slowly. I have played the game for around 4 hours now, and Im not even half way through level 2 - out of 100. With the entire customisation system tied to the Battlepass, it feels like a massive grind to look vaguely unique.

There is also no per-game XP, and the challenge system is far too specific, to the point where it encourags unusual gameplay behaviour to complete them - like using the Replusor to get a Pancake kill, or killing a Wasp (which is a vehicle that I have only seen once over 4 hours). If you load into a match that doesn't spawn the weapon/vehicle that you need, it can feel like you are just wasting your time. It isn't a rewarding system.

Reddit is basically on fire with posts that are pretty much the same as this, too. 343 have said that they will look into changing this up "post-launch", but that is an incredibly vague timeframe, so hopefully they get their collective butts into gear, and patch this ASAP.

Otherwise, whilst I enjoy the maps themselves, there aren't an incredible amount of them (10 - which does seem to be in the normal range of launch maps for a Halo game), and all kind of thematically blend into each other. This is an issue that I had with Halo 5, too, where the artists just seems to love Human-Industrial, or Human-Military, which is largely white or grey metal. Currently, 5 of the maps fit into that category. 2 more are Forerunner themed, which is more grey metal. Another is Banished themed, which is yet more grey metal. One is set in a human city at night, which is grey tarmac. And the last , the only map to have a unique setting, is just a brown human city.

I just miss the days of Halo 3. Pick any 3 maps from that game, and they will almost all look completely different vs each other. Hopefully we can get some more Covenant, Flood, or more Halo 2/3 Forerunner weirdness. More biomes other than urban or woodland would also be a great change of pace.

The game feels great, but there is a lot of tuning to be done, and the game is going to desperately need some more variety, if it is going to survive until Season 2, which is in May.

I'm gonna be real, I think the cosmetics for this game look kind of terrible and I'm almost glad that the battle pass is so hard to do because it means there'll be less people ruining the aesthetics of the game with their dumb samurai armor or whatever.

Honestly though, not really bothered about the battle pass. I didn't put hundreds of hours into Halo 2 and 3 online multiplayer to earn armor pieces, I did it because the games were fun and played well. I couldn't care less about anything else.

I agree with you though, I don't care for the look of the maps. They play well enough but they're visually just really bland.

 

[wings012]

Its fun, but the battle pass is pretty terrible along with the challenge system which is the only way to progress. I'm usually not fussed about such stuff, but the vanilla colours are garbage, the game puts your Spartan on display in your face before each match and you get to look at your shitty exp bar not moving an inch after each match. MCC at least went FWOAR!! Look at these medals you earned! Look at all this XP!! And it felt good, even if you stopped earning season points after a certain level.

I don't wanna excuse the devs too much, but it's technically still a "Beta" - granted that word has lost meaning in recent days. But the official release date is December 8th.

Ultimately I just wanna play Halo with just my friends and nobody else, so I don't think I'll be happy until I get custom lobbies to recreate the days of thinking we were good at the game because we only played with each other huddled over the same X-Box.

 

[Worgen]

Ultimately I just wanna play Halo with just my friends and nobody else, so I don't think I'll be happy until I get custom lobbies to recreate the days of thinking we were good at the game because we only played with each other huddled over the same X-Box.

I think you can make a custom private lobby.

 

[CriticalGaming]

With COD and Battlefield looking lame this year, id say that the delay for halo was probably smart. The game does look a lot better than it did a year ago when they showed it off and im glad it is scratching that halo itch people have had for a long time now.

Hopefully the campaign is good and people can have a beloved franchise back.

 

[BrawlMan]

Relevant....

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[Piscian]

As someone whos never played halo for multiplayer I imagine I'm alone in saying this is oddly depressing. It just kind of reeks of another developer making that slow tragic death march towards a liiiive service gaaaim as Sterling would say. Who knows, maybe they have good reason to focus on MP testing first and demoing that while they finish up the main game, however I can't help but wonder. It always starts with a refocusing on the multiplaya experriience.

 

[Worgen]

As someone whos never played halo for multiplayer I imagine I'm alone in saying this is oddly depressing. It just kind of reeks of another developer making that slow tragic death march towards a liiiive service gaaaim as Sterling would say. Who knows, maybe they have good reason to focus on MP testing first and demoing that while they finish up the main game, however I can't help but wonder. It always starts with a refocusing on the multiplaya experriience.

Once you have the network setup, multi is easier and quicker then a big elaborate single player campaign. Plus, this is technically a beta, which means balancing multi, working out any bugs and getting player feed back before the "launch" of the game next month with the single player campaign.

 

[BrawlMan]

As someone whos never played halo for multiplayer I imagine I'm alone in saying this is oddly depressing. It just kind of reeks of another developer making that slow tragic death march towards a liiiive service gaaaim as Sterling would say. Who knows, maybe they have good reason to focus on MP testing first and demoing that while they finish up the main game, however I can't help but wonder. It always starts with a refocusing on the multiplaya experriience.

I don't blame your suspicions nor cynicism considering what 343 did to the multiplayer last time in Halo 5. The shady business practices there and the DLC were not helping.

 

[FakeSympathy]

In other games, the way battle pass is set is that free unlocks are okay and premiums are cool-looking. Here, there's nothing for free players.

I am seeing a lot of feedbacks on how slow the progression is, and while they are definitely bad, I feel it is made worse by these "rewards" you get from grinding so much. It honestly is no different than paying for individual cosmetic stuff.

You know what's the worst part for me? I like the gameplay. It feels like halo. But In any multiplayer games my number one question is "to what end am I playing these matches?" And sadly, there isn't much to write home about.

 

[CriticalGaming]

You know what's the worst part for me? I like the gameplay. It feels like halo. But In any multiplayer games my number one question is "to what end am I playing these matches?" And sadly, there isn't much to write home about.

Isn't the answer to that question, "To play more Halo"?

 

[Piscian]

In other games, the way battle pass is set is that free unlocks are okay and premiums are cool-looking. Here, there's nothing for free players.

I am seeing a lot of feedbacks on how slow the progression is, and while they are definitely bad, I feel it is made worse by these "rewards" you get from grinding so much. It honestly is no different than paying for individual cosmetic stuff.

You know what's the worst part for me? I like the gameplay. It feels like halo. But In any multiplayer games my number one question is "to what end am I playing these matches?" And sadly, there isn't much to write home about.

So is this whole level system new to Halo MP? That sounds fucking awful. Like a literal reason not to play Halo in Multiplayer. I only played multiplayer in teh first couple games, I havent kept up.

 

[CriticalGaming]

So is this whole level system new to Halo MP? That sounds fucking awful. Like a literal reason not to play Halo in Multiplayer.

There was a similar thing in Halo 5, where you played to unlock skins and shit. Though i think it works more like Overwatch does.

This time is just feels like arbituary progression for the sake of it. Watching your level go up is supposed to keep you playing matches I guess.

 

[Alienware]

I'm gonna be real, I think the cosmetics for this game look kind of terrible and I'm almost glad that the battle pass is so hard to do because it means there'll be less people ruining the aesthetics of the game with their dumb samurai armor or whatever.

Honestly though, not really bothered about the battle pass. I didn't put hundreds of hours into Halo 2 and 3 online multiplayer to earn armor pieces, I did it because the games were fun and played well. I couldn't care less about anything else.

I agree with you though, I don't care for the look of the maps. They play well enough but they're visually just really bland.

The hayabusa armor in Halo 3 was fucking insane and looked hella dope. Halo infinite armors look like pure poop

 

[Alienware]

Isn't the answer to that question, "To play more Halo"?

The true answer to that question is to grind halo for dope armor and they simply don't have it yet...at least..

 

[BrawlMan]

There was a similar thing in Halo 5, where you played to unlock skins and shit. Though i think it works more like Overwatch does.

This time is just feels like arbituary progression for the sake of it. Watching your level go up is supposed to keep you playing matches I guess.

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[BrawlMan]

Why am I even doing this?​