It’s all combat-focused - this isn’t any other type of open world. These asides involve things like destroying the enemy’s installations, assassinating their leaders, and generally working to disrupt their operations across the Zeta Halo ring.
#WHEN DOES HALO INFINITE COME OUT SERIES#
The core story of Infinite unfolds across a series of stages undertaken in a set order, but non-linearity creeps in through the side activities and exploration you can undertake across the ring between the main campaign missions. There’s shades of ODST throughout Infinite’s campaign structure it’s an open world where at certain points you’ll enter a building or the like that triggers a short loading screen that transitions you into a more typical A-to-B-to-C Halo story mission. In that game, you’d explore an open world city at night, but then would be thrown into more traditional and linear campaign levels. In that sense, Halo 3: ODST also comes to mind. This is the structure of Halo Infinite - except a huge chunk of the game takes place within this framework, not just one level. Firefights across open nature are instantly replaced by claustrophobic corridors. You use that vehicle to tear through semi-open environments before reaching an installation that you enter and explore. You start out on a beach, with a vehicle and Marine buddies. The fourth mission of the original game, it is the archetypal Halo experience. Halo Infinite’s open world, for instance, owes less to the slew of open world adventures on the market now and more to the original Halo’s most-beloved level, The Silent Cartographer. That doesn’t just involve bringing it back to the original, but also includes touching base with everything that has come since.
#WHEN DOES HALO INFINITE COME OUT FULL#
In many ways, it feels appropriately cyclical - the titular Halo is a ring, and the game at large works to bring the entire series full circle. Infinite feels like a resolutely introspective game, examining the Halo series at large and then working to reuse, reference, and refine every element that makes this franchise tick for a new generation.
Infinite feels like a coming-of-age for Halo studio 343 Industries, a developer created with the sole task of continuing the Master Chief’s adventures that has nevertheless struggled to step out of the shadow of Halo’s creators. In fact, it’s more of an evolution than a revolution. But the truth about Halo Infinite is this: it’s less revelatory than you might think. That’s arguably an earth-shattering revelation for a series that has up until now been a pretty traditionally-structured shooter, and so it’s rightfully grabbed the headlines. Halo Infinite has one barn-storming new feature in its campaign mode: the fact that it’s technically an ‘open world’ game.