I have a problem when it comes to open-world games in that I am a completionist. Moreover, I am one of those people who saves the best—i.e., the main story—for last. Thus, whenever I pick up a new open-world game, the first thing I do is unlock all the fast travel points, then do all the collectibles followed by the side missions, and finally the main plot. Unfortunately, this makes my gaming experience incredibly uneven—with mindless collecting and underwritten side quests forming most of my playtime followed by a few interesting hours at the end.
Image source: Halo on Twitter
Many games attempt to break up the side content by splitting the open world into different zones—with new zones unlocking only after you progress through the main plot. Others make certain types of side content only unlock after specific events in the main story. And while this does help somewhat, here’s the issue that really drags most side content down: it is just the same thing again and again in different locations. What works for one will work for all the others so there’s no need to change things up. This is where Halo Infinite breaks the mold in an awesome way.
In the open-world area of Halo Infinite, you start out alone—armed only with the weapons you find lying around or take off the bodies of dead enemies. However, each side mission you accomplish or collectible you gather awards you “Valor Points” that go towards unlocking new items that appear at the various Forward Operating Bases (fast travel points) you liberate. These range from guns and vehicles to NPC soldiers armed with progressively better weapons. Moreover, there are more than a dozen world bosses that, when defeated, allow you to summon their specialized (read: overpowered) weapons at your FOBs as well.
Image source: Halo on Twitter
All this ends up having a meaningful effect on how you play. To start I was just heading in to everything solo. While possible, it was certainly time-consuming—especially given the number of enemies I’d often have to wade through. However, soon, I had done enough of the side content to unlock five marines, arm them all with special Sentinel Lasers, and throw them into a Razorback jeep—basically making a fast-moving tank with five laser canons capable of vaporizing enemies in less than a second. Even when the jeep was destroyed or couldn’t make it to a certain area, the marines stayed with me—helping me wipe out enemy squads with ease. Yet, in the late game, my strategy changed again due to further unlocks. Instead of using marines, I took to the skies in a Wasp, taking out enemies from above and using my increased mobility to land on mountain tops for easy sniping. The Wasp also made finding collectibles faster and easier than with the grapple alone—especially in isolated areas.
Image source: Halo on Twitter
And speaking of the collectibles, rather than being the simple time-wasting treasure hunt they are in most open-world games, the ones in Halo Infinite have a greater purpose—i.e., telling the game’s backstory. You see, most of the collectibles are audio logs. These tell (from both the enemy and allied viewpoint) what happened to the crew of the U.N.S.C. Infinity during the six months the Master Chief was stranded in space. As a person who loves lore, this made collecting them mandatory rather than optional.
Heck, even the “destroy the enemy communication tower” missions have a bit of plot as you can listen to both enemy propaganda and the increasingly panicked radio operator grunt who is sure he will be killed by his boss if the towers are all destroyed. (It’s morbid humor but… well, that’s kind of what the grunts are all about.)
Image source: Halo on Twitter
All in all, I don’t know the last time I had so much fun in an open-world game. I was truly sad when I realized I had done everything there was to do and could only continue on with the linier plot till the ending. Here’s hoping all that mostly-unused land in the northeast of the map becomes a new DLC area in the future—and if it does, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.
Top image source: Halo on Twitter.
Be First to Comment