Season 3 is supposed to be a reboot for Halo Infinite after being delayed for ages. And it”s actually something to behold.
For months, Halo fans have been pulling their hair out over the fact that the actually really good Halo Infinite is so stuck. More than a year after release, the game was still in Season 2, while even the stumbling Battlefield 2042 had since gotten itself back on track in Season 4.
New content remained scarce, the big new Season 2 mode had to be scrapped due to lack of players, the promised splitscreen co-op was cancelled and on Steam the numbers dwindled so much that even the old Master Chief Collection had partly more active audience. On YouTube you can find heaps of videos about how dead, buried and hopeless Halo Infinite is.
By now we also know a lot of sad backgrounds of these postponements and problems. Not only did Halo Infinite have a complicated development, but recently well over 60 people at 343 lost their jobs, former devs accused management of gross missteps, and, and, and.
All the more surprising, then, that with the start of Season 3, Halo Infinite is once again a hell of a lot of fun. And can certainly compete with the competition.
What does Halo Infinite offer right now?
It”s sad how low the bar is these days, but the fact that I”ve now started playing Halo Infinite again is for a terribly mundane reason: it runs clean. Modern Warfare 2 drives me crazy with its crashes and graphic errors, but Halo runs smoothly and delivers exactly what it promises: fast multiplayer battles on compact maps with excellent weapon balancing.
But this is where Infinite always shone. The big problem was the lack of supply – and with Season 3, the scope package is really neat: With Oasis, Cliffhanger and Chasm, there are three new maps (two small, one large), which – according to my first impression – all play fantastically. Hand-built with a very exciting alternation of open and closed areas.
In addition, the game gives me the Bandit, the first new weapon since release. That doesn”t sound like much at first, but in terms of weapon balance, almost no other shooter currently comes close to Infinite – and the Bandit, as a DMR precision rifle, is a fantastic addition to the existing pool. With a few hits, you can take down even thickly armoured enemies, but you have to hit the shots first, because ammunition runs out quickly.
But wait, there”s more!
Together with the five new maps from the long, long Season 2 and the inserted winter mid-season, Halo Infinite now offers a very, very rich selection of locations. I can also access Forge maps, community-created maps, directly from the regular multiplayer menu. I”m not a Halo fan from the beginning, but I”ve had my best buddy Internet tell me that Forge is huge for the Halo community.
No wonder there”s already plenty to see and play here. In general, Halo Infinite finally feels alive again. Even in the last weeks of Season 2, social playlists rotated every few days with limited-time modes that turned everything upside down, sometimes more, sometimes less.
Sure, there are still construction sites. The campaign has been expanded to include campaign co-op, including mission selection, but the content has not been increased. And in general, all of 343”s efforts to continue telling the story of Infinite in an exciting way are … well, the internship report would say “has always made a good effort”.
The new season does have a few cryptic multiplayer cutscenes, but instead of eternal references to a cool Halo future, the devs should start with the present.
So be it, I”m really positively surprised. Now, of course, it all depends on whether 343 can maintain this rhythm or whether we have to wait another 10 months for a Season 4. Or whether Halo Infinite will end up in the bin so that the studio can concentrate fully on the rumoured Battle Royale spin-off in Unreal Engine 5.
Either way: I”m excited. And because Halo Infinite is still free, why not give it a try?
