 It's Friday morning, you're a child that wakes up to attend a school where the lessons are one and you're at the other, as you wait to go home to actually start the day. You get home and throw down your backpack that contains the homework that you plan to finish on the bus the next morning, but let's be honest, that paper is going to be missing to the end of the quarter. The best part of winter break was making it out alive with my C+. You run upstairs and skim your finger over the power button on your Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, or hey, even now PC to play any game that has the word Halo in it, while you forget about the struggles, hardships, and misfortunes that plagued this world. You're the Master Chief saving the galaxy, the rookie surviving Newman Bossa, Noble Six fighting your way through the battle of Reach, or Spartan Locke hunting the… Master Ch- No, no one's doing that, I'm sorry Locke. And when you're not playing the campaign, you're going on killing sprees in big team battle, making racing maps and forage, grinding credits and firefight, are doing anything that grants you that little bit of fun within the franchise. You remember Reach Custom Games, the good times of playing Duck Hunt, cops and robbers and stuff like that that would put a big ass grin on my face? I say all this to open this video, because I love Halo. Halo 2 was one of the first games I ever played when I was an idiot kid that had no idea what the hell he was doing. I just knew that I was driving a car, killing bad ass aliens, oh my god scarab no. Now I'm in space, this is fucking awesome. I didn't experience the first two classics on launch day because I was a young boy brought to this planet in the crispier of 2002. Even that comment might surprise some of you old whippersnappers, but I grew up with 3 and mainly Reach. And as I got older I would continue to play these games once again religiously, but no longer just as the idiot kid, but the idiot kid with homework, my biggest conflict when it came to Halo. Not the flood, or the covenant, but pre-algebra, getting in the damn way for me fighting them. And now as an adult I still play Halo, either it be the Master Chief Collection where I go down memory lane, or it be the now Halo Infinite. And surprise everybody, I don't have Algebra anymore. Just a wife, 6 car payments, a mortgage, and 35 speeding tickets. Yes, I love growing up so much. But you saw the title and some of you maybe saw the last video where I discussed my issues with Halo Infinite's multiplayer, and if you didn't hello I'm Skipper, nice to meet you. I love Halo. I love Halo so much that in this video I will be discussing what I find wrong with the game, and while I'm pretty disappointed in some aspects with it. In 2021 you see hype culture consume everything. I'm writing the script in December so look back at that Spider-Man hype. Did it die down now due to the film releasing? Future Skipper was a good? Yeah it was pretty damn good. Awesome. But the hype culture for Infinite was like a mixed bag of checksmicks, the cool ones with the M&Ms I mean. You still had a majority of Halo channels sitting around with a cock in their mouth sucking a game lock because they were able to play it early. While you saw others call the game out on its issues, and surprisingly one of the people who stated this was Halo follower. Not the issues, I mean he admitted that he felt partially intimidated to speak anything negative about this game. And in all honesty props to him for being truthful, unlike all the other shills who are still being, you know, the shill fanboys they are. See I don't care about being on good terms with Microsoft or 343 and I refuse to be a blind fanboy. I fly solo, like Mr. Incredible. Look I never had a chance anyway at cool perks with my small 60k channel. And if I did it wouldn't matter. I want to be vocal with my takes on this game because so many people in the Halo community are disingenuous. Oh Halo big daddy publisher. Also notice I didn't say yet that this video is just my opinion. Because where this video is an opinion piece don't let that negate you from being vocal. Look that dislike button not being there anymore that isn't my fault. YouTube is going Kanye crazy back at base. I'm not a little bitch who hides so void discussion. I dealt with a wave of fucking morons head first in my last video and I'm willing to have it again because this is the internet and I enjoyed the discourse. I just ask you to hear this video out before you come to a conclusion. Criticism is needed to improve anything. If you fear calling out stupid shit on things you love they will never improve. Also uh... Subscribe? Hey it's January this is the worst time for YouTubers and I spent my holiday playing Halo and making this damn video so give me a break. Consider it a late Christmas gift. From you to me. It's free after all I won't even break the bank. Alright enough rambling. This video will be split into chapters to make it easy and digestible. Look I'm not the most focused person in the world. If having to pay attention to videos overwhelms you I recommend you do something productive like draw some art, clean your room, do your homework. You aren't going to be doing that you goddamn liar. Play a game. Hell why not Infinite? Or go to sleep to a pretentious no at all with Chris Boddio. Me me me me me okay enough ramble let's start the video. Every game in the world has a starting point where they plant their seed with the intention to grow like a beautiful, magnificent tree. Concept art, a basic vision, story details, etc. But then sometimes life hits you like a train derailing that beautiful tree causing it to fall down and piss off the war axe. Did you cut down this tree? Of course he cut down that tree. Now that I think about it pretty much this sums up my whole life when I first attended college. Shout out film majors. May God help us all. Halo Infinite went through a problem in its early stages known as development hell. This is when a game is struggling behind closed doors causing issues with said development. There would be issues with the publisher, time constraints, or delay. After delay. After delay like we saw with Cyberpunk 2077. It's already been a year since that game released. Let's have a toast for the douchebags. You know how Halo Infinite starts abruptly with the Master Chief getting his ass handed him with everything around him exploding in on fire? That was a way for the developers to project their feelings while making this game. 343 started working on development for Infinite in 2015 before dropping Halo 5 Guardians. Halo 6 planned on picking up from Halo 5 and most likely would have been released in 2018 due to the three year pattern they have with all their previous sequels. The dev team was locked in on how they're going to approach the future of Halo with statements like these and then Halo 5 dropped and all future plans went south. Halo 5 was a dumpster fire. Its campaign was a horrible lackluster mess. Its multiplayer was missing content while doubling down on its wreck packed cosmetic feature. It was missing game modes in its multiplayer as well as core additions in general like forge and split screen co-op. Wait holy shit. Is history repeating itself? I'll talk about this later in the multiplayer section but this is what we call foreshadowing. But 343 was not ready for the backlash. Everyone was upset with Halo 5. Like really mad. Fans were ready to light the damn corporate building on fire. So 343 went into full damage control, focusing on fixing their mistake with Halo 5 over the next couple of years in a roadmap of content that should have been in the base game at launch. But something that couldn't be fixed was the game's campaign. They acknowledged the problems with the campaign and stated that in the future they would double down on focusing solely on the master chief. They specifically stated that Halo 6 will be all about the master chief with no new playable characters. Halo 4 was a controversial title and already left distaste for some. And while I disagree about the game being horrible, I know it's flawed but it has some positives. Same can't be said for Halo 5 story. That was just flat out inexcusable. So this now starts the beginning of development hell for the planned sequel Halo 6. On May 12th, 2017, it was announced that studio head of strategy and game development, Dan Ayub, Ayub, I don't know how the hell you say that, left the company to work for a different division within Microsoft. He was working with 343 since Halo reached in 2009 prior. 343 was struggling. Halo 5 was a flop and everyone hated it. So all previous planning for Halo 6 was chuck out the damn window. This was done in 2017 and the sequel was supposed to release in 2018 but now they're starting from scratch. This isn't the best position to be in as a studio. So in 2018 they previewed Halo Infinite with the cinematic trailer announcing the brand new slipspace engine. While this trailer was absolutely outsourced, I don't see any of these damn rhinos in game, just stupid ass chickens. You notice the difference of art style quickly. An open green environment, wildlife that never made it to the base game like I just said, and chief's old nostalgic armor. 343 was going to play it safe and pivot to the old art style while brining a soft reboot and it won people over. It won me over for sure. Look at that hottie back in green. But the mainstream didn't know about the development struggles so there wasn't much worry yet. The same can't be said for 343 and they were starting to panic. Halo Infinite lacks confidence due to it being entirely codependent. It picked up co-developers like Skybox Labs to assist with AI, gameplay, networking and graphics and eventually Sparisoft who is now contributing to the game's content to cross multiple development mandates. Developing components of the game and experience, working closely with our new partners at 343. The same studio that also contributed to Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda. All great, successful open world games. They also received help from the Coalition, who is the studio that made the New Gears of War games. They assisted by sharing their resource and staff and then they made the statement. As we've done in the past, the Coalition shipped in to help with the development of Halo Infinite on a temporary basis. It's fairly common for members of the various Xbox game studios to lend their expertise to games other teams are working on. Much like how the members of the 343 team have contributed to other Xbox game studios projects through the years. The ability to share talent is one of the greatest strengths of Xbox game studios and we're grateful for all the individuals who have pitched in to help make Halo Infinite the best game it could be. And the outsourcing continued. In an article by Jordan Ullman, it was stated by a 343 spokesperson that apparently the E3 2019 trailer for Halo Infinite was outsourced while the game was not in a playable state. Which oversold expectations for Infinite's later demos. The report suggests that the marketing and engineering teams behind Halo Infinite have been on two different planets, which has also led to issues in messaging the game. He also states that one major factor in Infinite's delay supposedly stems from the fact that a significant portion of the game is being outsourced to third-party contractors. This is standard practice in the game industry, especially in AAA, but in Infinite's case, the report suggests that the level of outsourcing has been unusually high. With the coordination between the many different companies contributing to Infinite has been rough at best. And then it just keeps getting worse. On August 16th, 2019, it was announced that Halo Infinite's creative director, Tim Longo, left 343 Industries. He joined 343 in 2013 and was the creative director for Halo 5 prior. Actually, this might be a case of good riddance. After this departure, this statement was made by Microsoft. We have recently had two changes to Halo Infinite's development team. Our executive producer, Mary Olson, will now take charge of the campaign team on Halo Infinite as the lead producer, utilizing her many years of experience at 343 to help craft a great campaign for fans. This was toward the end of 2019 and the game was set to be released in 2020. Then, surprise, surprise, on October 14th, 2019, Halo Infinite lead producer, Mary Olson, is departing from 343 Industries for mid-winter entertainment, where she will take the role of head of production. The same lady we mentioned a second ago who was gonna save this campaign. Holy shit, this game of hot potatoes is insane. Everybody was jumping ship. Then there's 2020. New consoles are releasing and Halo Infinite's supposed to be a console seller that's also competing in December against Cyberpunk 2077. Take in mind, nobody thought that this game was gonna flop due to how long it was in development so people were excited. I wasn't one of these people. I had a Spanish final that was coming out around the game's launch. It's okay though, I cheated and passed. 343 was in shambles, getting ready for an awful release and the cherry on top of this shit cake was COVID-19 that restricted everyone in the world from their office jobs, including programmers and engineers. Also everyone else that wasn't an essential worker. But hey, COVID brought me here, so that's that. Then on July 23rd, 2020, the eight-minute demo for Halo Infinite's campaign was released and people noticed the drop of quality from the outsourced trailers. There was definitely an overreaction of both sides, though. The Halo shills went crazy, gasping over anything in a disingenuous manner, while on the opposite side, some were saying that the game looked like absolute unplayable shit when it didn't. For reference to this controversy, this is when you saw the Kreg meme spread across the internet. I look a little guy. Have whatever opinion you want about The Last of Us 2, but it was released in 2020 and it was being compared to Cyberpunk and Halo Infinite graphically, which looking back now was justified since they were both in an uncompleted state. While The Last of Us 2 was technically confident and gorgeous. Not including Halo Wars 2, The Last FPS Halo game was released in 2015 and those with no context to the development hell were confused by what the fuck 343 was exactly doing over the last five years for the game to look this uncomplete. When in reality, they restarted from scratch and they were dealing with massive development issues. 343 made a blog post stating that they were returning to a more classic art style and were happy by the reception, while also stating that they agree with the criticisms regarding the visual fidelity. They also agreed that the lighting was dull and flat while acknowledging the object pop-in problems. And after all of this, the development hell still continued. COVID and outsourcing were causing massive creativity problems for the game, where the splitting of the campaign and multiplayer was once a rumor it eventually happened toward the end of 2021. On Halo's 20th anniversary, Halo's multiplayer was released where the campaign was still planned to release on December 8th. Conflict was starting to rise within the studio. Executives started to give more shit about Halo Infinite's TV show on Paramount Plus than the actual game. And anyone put in leadership were constantly hopping off this game. Infinite wasn't ready for release. They weren't receiving acknowledgement from the higher ups and the pressure was still immense. It was the console seller for the Series X, which was competing with Miles Morales made by Insomniac, who made the highest selling title ever for PlayStation. And they were making a spin-off game for Miles Morales as a system seller for the PS5. And once again, you had Cyberpunk, which was the most anticipated game in the world. You also had an enormous amount of money already spent on marketing. You remember Chief on the Monster cans in 2020, as well as his Fortnite skin? With all this pressure, 343 decides to outsource two more studios and bring in the original Halo developer, Joseph Staten, as the new campaign project lead. So with this news, it doesn't seem like Halo Infinite would be releasing with the Series X in 2020. And it raised red flags for those wondering why these decisions were being made last second. Then on October 28th, 2020, Studio Head of Halo Infinite and 343 Industries, Chris Lee leaves the studio. I have stepped back from Infinite and I am looking at future opportunities. I believe in the team and I am confident they would deliver a great game and now is a good time for me to step away. But now is December 2020 and Cyberpunk is a fucking mess. Seeing the result of what happens when you release an unfinished game due to studio pressure, Halo Infinite delays for a whole year. The delay itself was mind blowing to some because a year delay is a massive one. How unfinished was the game? Why are you planning to release it now if it was so unfinished? What will you be doing this following year to finish it? All these questions were asked and rightfully so. But now it's January 11th, 2021 and Halo Infinite gameplay designer leaves 343 Industries for gunfire games. Are we even surprised in all honesty? And for a majority of 2021, campaign footage was not shown to the general public. You had cutscenes and multiplayer trailers, but nothing new for the campaign. Until you got the campaign reveal that led to the game's release. I felt it was important to catch you up on this so you could see the headspace of the dev team while making Halo Infinite because I believe it gives context to the issues within the multiplayer and campaign. Overall, the studio was a mess after the shockwave and backlash that came from Halo 5 which caused many people to jump off port side instead of going down on the ship. And this caused many issues that are now present within Halo Infinite. Looking at my bitch, I bet she give your ass a bone. For those who watched my previous video, you might already know where I stand when it comes to the multiplayer of this game, but if you haven't watched that video, it's okay. Don't watch it. Continue to watch this one because some of those issues were fixed. That old video was a short rant on the game's beta, even though it wasn't really a beta. Some of you still barked about it being a beta, even though it had all the same content at launch. We get it, Skipper, talk about the multiplayer. All right, dance like a monkey I shall. Hey, editors, no, I'm not gonna lie, this game looks like it goes hard, damn. From the first chapter of this video, you could pick out that the multiplayer team and the campaign team were separate from one another while in development. And it seemed that the multiplayer team of Infinite were the most confident toward launch. They displayed the most gameplay publicly. The team seemed to be transparent on their principles. It had multiple play tests before launch. And it was stated that if the campaign wasn't ready in time and had to delay again, the multiplayer was indeed ready and would have launched before the campaign. And now after launch, it's fair to say that the game was not ready and there's still a lot of issues. Not as much as launch. Trust me, I know I had to rewrite this script like three times because they keep fixing stuff I complain about, which is a good thing, but should have done it before launch. I need to praise this multiplayer and what I enjoy before I become annoying and try to rip it down. Halo Infinite's gameplay is really fun. My favorite Halo multiplayer is always Halo Reach because of its fast paced nature in comparison to Halo 3's slow pace and floatiness. This isn't a diss, everyone. Put your weapons down. This is just a preference. Halo 3 is still phenomenal. The gun play and maps kick ass to this day. I would even say that Halo 3 has some of the best video game maps ever. It's just that today in modern gaming, I like some movement in my shooters. Titanfall 2 turns six this year. Can you believe it? Where did the time go? I don't agree with Halo gatekeeping. I never have and I never will because it's gross. Halo 5's multiplayer is actually pretty fun, but most of you will never know this due to 343 sweeping it under the rug because they're ashamed and traumatized by it. But it's not even that bad. The game is severely blackballed due to the main criticism of the multiplayer being that it did not feel like Halo and was straying too far from its roots appealing to communities like Call of Duty. And in all fairness, it did stray pretty far in its gameplay but also its art style, changing the appearance of fan favorite weapons to be simplistic so they could appeal to new FPS players. This rocket looks like shit. I never want to see it again, ever. I say all this about Halo's evolution because some of you Halo fans can be sensitive baby bitches. Let's be honest. When footage of Halo Infinite's campaign was first shown, there were some who are annoyed by the fact that you could even sprint in a 2020, well, not 2021 due to its delay, video game. Gatekeeping Halo does nothing but halt the game's potential and Halo Infinite is now proof of why evolution is good for the franchise. While I love Gears of War and have a ton of childhood memories on the game, I can admit that their failure to adapt and innovate with modern gaming has sadly made them irrelevant to the mainstream, especially in comparison to the Halo franchise. At least the chief and Marcus can now save the world together in Fortnite. Halo Infinite is new and shiny and also throwback-y having old Halo gimmicks that make it both adventurous and nostalgic. You have the fun fast-paced shit like sprinting, vaulting, ADS and sliding making me feel like an armory on wheels. But then you still have all the fun classic Halo shit like weapon pickups, gadgets that can now also be picked up. Grenade spam, which will never get aggravating and annoying and over-reliance on melee because most people can't hit their shots. I'm awesome, Platinum 5. It's the perfect blend for Halo fans. If you're a 5-enjoyer, you're gonna have fun with this game and if you're a 2, 3-reacher, any Halo fan, you also enjoy it. I don't know why I named these games individually when I'm just gonna put them all together anyway but hey, we're here. And if you don't care about Halo, you still have fun because it's something new and it's free to play. So shut up, you lose no money. And hey, the Arsenal's fun to play with. You have rockets, scrapple hooks, energy swords, hammers and other cool things. I like the assault rifle because it isn't useless anymore like it was in some previous Halo games. I love you Reach AR, but the only thing good about you was your design. I also like the new sidekick pistol because it's really viable. The design is a little basic and boring, but hey, it reloads fast. It ain't no Combat Evolved pistol, that shit was God tier, but at least it isn't the Halo 2 or 3 Magnum. Also, the battle rifle is good again after it's Massacre in Halo 5. The BR, not Battle Royale, get the hell out of here. It was horrible in Halo 5 because every other weapon was just way more viable in certain situations. The battle rifle once again shreds in all its glory just like Halo 2. I mean, it does have the Halo 2 art style after all. And now that underwhelming spot is held by the Commando because holy shit, does that gun suck? The Commando's recoil is incredibly high and it shoots Nerf darts, making it suck both long range and short range. Stick with the other guns. This one gets a two out of five. I've played a shit ton of the multiplayer and not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty good at the game. So everything I say from now on comes from a place of passion. I'm not here to be the contrarian devil. I think Infinite's gameplay is great. It's just that everything around it is holding it back. So to start, let's talk about the game's content. In my previous video, I stated my issues and the lack of variety and content within the game. And a lot of people bitched at me for stating those issues because the game was in a beta. Even though I sourced that 343 themselves at all the contos at release. I know, I said this already. I just wanted to mention this again because kiss my ass, comment people, I was right. But one of my issues at launch was that the multiplayer lack game mode variety. Halo 5 was crucified for its lack of day one content and it was promised that the same outcome would never happen again. And it did. And while somewhere Shelly and being protective, the people who care about this game held the devs accountable because they didn't live up to their promise. At launch, you weren't able to pick what you wanted to play but instead you had playlist. And these playlists were arena, big team battle and ranked arena. In their arena playlist, you had Slayer, capture the flag, oddball, drawing holds and fiesta during a limited time event. And for big team battle, you got Slayer, total control, capture the flag and stockpile. For those who aren't Halo players, this is not all the content Halo has to offer within its large variety. For example, in old games, you had SWAT, King of the Hill, Crazy King Assault, One Bomb Infection, Snipers, Juggernaut, VIP and many more. This wasn't as ridiculous as Halo 5's launch, which didn't even have big team battle but it still lacks pivotal content in comparison to Halo 3, Reach and 4. Also don't forget that this game was delayed a whole year and was a separate team from the campaign. There's no excuse. This is a sequel that was released in 2021. Old standards shouldn't apply. You're supposed to evolve. Halo 3 at launch had most of these base game modes individually. And I fear that featured game modes are gonna be wrapped in a roadmap like they were for Halo 5. Or continue to appear as temporary events. Most likely you're gonna see the game modes return slowly with new maps that had already been finished forever but they just wanna launch them with the new battle pass seasons. Like I said, history repeats itself. But for the playlist, 343 ended up adding some game modes that you play individually because the playlist was starting to cause issues. If you liked objective game modes like Capture the Flag, you had to wait for Slayer matches to conclude. And if it was vice versa in the case you wanted to shut your brain off and play Slayer, you had no choice and were forced to play Oddbar, Capture the Flag. Players would flat out avoid playing the objective and would instead just go for kills because they didn't wanna play objective game modes. They just wanted to simply shoot shit. It would have been nice at launch just to, you know, play those Slayer matches with no obligation of teamwork. These playlists annoyed people who liked Capture the Flag because they had to put up with teammates who are purposely playing like shit due to them not caring about the game mode. And it annoyed the people who didn't care either because they were forced to play this. Halo Infinite wasn't struggling to maintain a player base due to breaking Steam records for Microsoft also being free to play. So the choice was odd. But then 343 said, hey, this is stupid. What the hell were we thinking? And added Team Slayer, Freefraw, Fiesta. Tactical Slayer which is swapped but now called Tactical Slayer most likely due to political correctness. Fuck you, Disney. This is a slave one, not the fire spray. And kept a big team battle, ranked arena and the quick play mode. I'll throw a bone. Good job 343. You partially fixed a big oopsie but you need to finish it completely. It's like they slapped a Band-Aid on a whole of a sinking ship instead of just repairing the hole. It's cool that we get Slayer itself but why can't we get Capture the Flag or the other shit as well? And the same issues also still hold for big team battle. In big team battle I wanna hop in a foreign and go racing as my friends lay some heat on the gun. I don't wanna play stockpile and focus on some lame objective. And while it's cool working for that Platinum five it would have been nice if I didn't have to play Oddball for it. Oddball's fun but my teammates are usually idiotic morons who can only shoot stuff so Slayer's built for them. Yes, I'm having fun with Slayer only. And SWAT, I'm never calling a tactical Slayer that shit's stupid. And Fiesta, it makes challenges easier. The 343 commit and make everything individual. You could still have the quick play thing but just have it fill in slots. The game still has a strong player base. Hell it's still even kicking on Twitch so congrats, you outlipped fall guys. Fully fixed the hole please. And to pivot to another problem we gotta talk about this game's progression system. When I made my last video the only way to progress were through challenges. Then they fixed it by making it so you can only get 50 XP per match. Also to the people in the comment section of my last multiplayer video who are crying Skipper, they fixed it, you get 50 XP per match. Shut the hell up. Even 343 agreed it was stupid and added a different feature. 50 XP is horrible. So they changed it to where your first match of the day gives you 300, then 200 for your second and third, then 100 for your fourth, fifth and sixth then after it's back down to a little old 50. These changes are better than the original way of progressing through challenges. But like the playlists it's putting a bandaid on a sinking hole. What's the incentive to put effort and win matches? If I don't wanna play capture the flag in the quick play playlist or stockpile in big team battle why should I try to win if in the end I'm just gonna get my 300 XP or tiny little 50 XP like everybody else? Even a normal slayer why should I try to play well if everything is equal? It hurts my heart when I drop 30 kills which carries my team to victory and my award for it's just a measly 50 XP. Whereas the idiot who went seven and 18 gets 100 because he hasn't finished his daily matches. And he's only there just to get his level per day. He doesn't even care about the match. Three for three months will come down to my front door and spit in my face. It's demotivating and gives the incentive to just autopilot and not care. And I'm guilty for this at times. Look, I'm not buying tears and I wanna finish my shit. So yes, I'll autopilot at times when I'm talking to friends on a discord car or something. And I hate that I do this. A solution to this is giving XP bonuses like literally every other Halo game. If you get a victory you should get 150 XP instead of just 50 XP. It would give people incentive to try and win matches instead of just autopiloting. And if you finish the game on top of the leaderboard you should get more XP than other people. Kill bonuses should also give XP. Metal should stack and give XP. You got 14 double kills, great job. You rock. You should get awarded for that and have them be worth XP on your battle pass. You guys are getting scammed underpaid for your hard work end game. And I assume it's to make progress so slow that you get impatient to buy those tears because you aren't working for credits to buy armor. That would give you choice to be expressive and have fun with customization. This is Halo Infinite. We don't do that shit anymore. Get with the times. You are progressing a battle pass. Let's talk about this. So while in development I assume Halo had to make a decision to adapt or die like so many other game devs in the last five years. There's once a game by Cliff Blizinski titled Lawbreakers and it crashed and burned because they refused to adapt to modern trends. It didn't go free to play and you had to pay $40 for a game that was supposed to compete with Overwatch in its prime but nobody ever heard of it so why take a gamble? It also had no micro transactions so it ran out of money and died. Then Fortnite came out and destroyed the world with a free to play model that had cosmetics on a battle pass. And now it's one of the most profitable games ever made so companies are no longer scared to take a risk. Halo going free to play makes sense. Why the fuck would anyone wanna pay for Halo if they don't care about the franchise? But hey, it's free so the only thing you lose now if you don't like it is your time. And that's extremely valuable. And I love to waste it. And the main problems that the battle pass customization sucks and is brutal for those who don't wanna pay for it. But first let's go back to June 14th, 2021. There was a multiplayer overview that stated there would be millions of combinations for Spartans on day one of release and that the customization is coming out of player first mentality. If you can unlock something in the battle pass we're not gonna let any other players circumvent that by purchasing it out of the store. A lot of our stuff is unlocked through playing the game and only through playing the game. God was that a load of bullshit? Customization in Halo Infinite is bare bones and limited. Okay, okay, okay. I gotta give props real quick. It's actually really cool that you could replace normal limbs with robot limbs. And the reason behind this is actually pretty wholesome. It's a good piece of representation and player expression to those who are amputees. Good job with that 343. Here's a, here's a clap. But there's an issue with body types. Male and female genders are in our place with three body types that are incredibly similar to one another. Removing the option for players who want a more feminine looking Spartan like in Reach in Halo 5. I understand the reason for removing gender from the game but it doesn't excuse as poor customization feature put in place. There should be sliders and ways to distribute mass in certain areas of the body. If someone wants a dump truck ass, let them have it. It adds expression in the millions of options that we were promised. But wait, there's more problems. To add colors to your Spartan you have to choose pre-made ones that are sorted by rarity that could be purchased in the store or unlocked in the battle pass instead of mixing and matching like you could in previous halos which limits the millions of combinations and restricts player expression. You also can't even make your own name plates anymore and you have to use pre-made ones that also rank in rarity that could also be purchased in the store or unlocked in the battle pass. Just like the colors for your Spartans it limits player expression and removes the variety. I remember the good old Reach days making cool stupid icons and mixing and matching any colors I wanted. This is now the dark ages where 11 years in the future we managed to restrict instead of evolve. But what about halo armor? That's gotta be off the walls in terms of customization, right? No. Instead of having a singular Spartan with different ways to mix and match you now have armor cores put in place with a sole purpose to limit customization. 343, that's the opposite of what you wanted, right? Right? So if you purchase the battle pass you get that armor core that allows you to play with all those cool halo reach skins only on that armor core. And if you don't have the paid armor core you still get the free one that sucks ass that only has four options of customization through the free battle pass. So for reference only four helmets to put on your head and the base helmets and chest plates are pretty bland to get anything else for the base armor core you have to purchase it through the item shop. And those skins in the shop aren't anything cool like Boba Fett or Spider-Man that you could rock in third person on Fortnite but instead old halo skins that have been in previous games that cost $20. This is fucking ridiculous and embarrassing. Okay, editors note they changed the shop. They cut it down from 20 bucks to like 10 but shit doesn't change. You're still paying $5 for a fucking vehicle skin. They reduced the price but it doesn't change anything. This item shop still sucks ass. Even the content you pay for sucks in all honesty. The battle pass that is $10 is just recycled content of the same armor I got in Halo Reach 11 years ago or hell even a couple years ago in the Master Chief Collection for free that also had every piece of Halo Reach armor. This game you get a limited amount of Halo Reach armor and you have to pay for it. And I can't mix and match the cool reach shit with the base armor because each armor is only limited to each core. So if I don't like the Halo Reach armor that much I only have four free options to play with in this free samurai guy that you also can't mix and match anything with. Even worse, if I pay for a $20 skin I can't mix and match those paid pieces with my paid battle pass. This shit is moronic. This isn't the millions of day one options I was promised. In fact, this is the least expressive Halo game I've ever played. Everyone looks the same because they all unlock the same shit at the same time and they can't even mix and match because all the armor is limited to one fucking core at a time. The customization is horrible. I understand that the game is free to play and needs to make money but almost feels like it's intentionally trying to not be expressive. So that in the case if you want to express yourself you have to pay for it. And even then it's still just on one core. This is a first person game where all I can see is my goddamn hands. Fortnite has an excuse because most of the licensed shit is pretty cool and I could see it. Halo does not get a pass. If Activision is stupid for the shit, so is 343. This game is launched in a horrible state. Its game modes are restrictive and awkward with half measure fixes. Its progression system is heavily flawed. Its paid content is horrible, malicious and overpriced. The game is really fun as well. It's so fun to play but look back at Halo 3 and Reach. They were good day one and I'm so sick of this trend where developers could fuck their consumers with half ass game launches and hide behind a free to play model for mediocrity. And seeing Halo do it now is just bumming. I know the game is still new but like I said at the start, it's good to call out game devs for dumb shit because it shows you care about the game. I had probably over a hundred hours in this game multiplayer so trust me, I like playing it. But I would like to hear what you think of Halo's current multiplayer. Also if anything changes over time and you're watching this like five months after this video releases, tell me what's changed. But before we go to the campaign I think it's fair to state how disappointing it is that this game doesn't have four jet launch. If you aren't a Halo fan, you might be a little confused by the little Halo spartan that's been on the screen in parts of this video. But this is technically a form of Halo machinima which is machine animated cinema done in Halo's Forge mode in the Master Chief Collection. Forge has made some of my favorite memories in Halo from making stupid machinimas to racing maps like I said in the intro. And Halo Infinite doesn't have this on release. There's no duck hunt, fat kid, cops and robbers or anything. I know it's coming later but it still hurts. It feels like a chunk of the game has been bitten out for a priority of multiplayer money. And it's fair to feel bummed. Like cod zombies, there's people who obsess over this small part of the game and they feel back seated and so do itin extent. And I feel this was needed to be said. 343 dropped the ball in this as well. Just like Halo 5, it's not at launch. History is repeating itself and it hurts to say that especially due to it being six years since Halo 5. Also the custom game's a little weak sauce as well. It's limiting worse than the old Halos, but yeah. Now this is gonna be the most controversial part of this video. I love Halo campaigns, except this one's story-wise. They're time capsules for stuff that blew my mind and contained some of the best memories I've ever had playing video games. Excaping the flood and combat of all was terrifying. Fighting on Earth in Halo 2 was exciting even though it was nothing like it was advertised. But it's okay because we now get to make fun of Halo 5 for post-marketing. And Halo 3, where the hell do I even start? Fighting with ODSTs, blowing up a scarab with a group of mongies, blowing up scarabs in the snow, driving on the Halo ring, the whole entirety of the Covenant which is one of the best video game missions ever. Then you have the entire battle of reach, defending sword base, shooting a big gun and an impactful ass ending mission where your goals to just survive. That one hits really hard now. What can I say, 2021 has been a hell of a year. And yeah, Halo 4 even had cool shit, like riding a mammoth. That was nice. I like that. And yeah, I don't really like Halo 5 but I'll admit the battle of Singelios, the Kraken and some of those set pieces were pretty fun. Halo Infinite's campaign has evolved in both good and bad ways. And one of those good things that has evolved greatly is the gameplay. Like I said, I love movement in my shooters and Infinite added one mechanic that single-handedly changed the game completely. And I didn't want to mention it in the multiplayer section because it stands out most in the campaign and that's the grapple hook. I plan to make a future video on grapple hook so subscribe if you want to see that shameless plug I know but goddamn do I love these things. The grapple shot in Infinite has a three-second cooldown and if you level it up, you cut the cooldown by 40%. Which means you will always have a fun slingshot on you no matter what the circumstance. And I won't lie, I've used the hell out of it. I use it so much that I at times forgot about all the other power-ups I have because the grapple trumps them. You could grapple for transportation and swing around like Spider-Man. You could use the grapple to pick up weapons and barrels that are placed everywhere now so that you could feel like an awesome badass. The grapple hook feels responsive with good momentum adding weight to behind it. You could use it for movement just as much as you could use it for combat within the game's sandbox. Like Doom Eternal, you will always be doing something within a fight due to there being so many options besides just clicking and shooting and it gets even better because the guns are a fuckin' blast to play with. And Halo Infinite decided to add a wicked brute revolver called the Mangler and it might be my favorite gun in Halo. This gun alone could carry a whole damn playthrough for me, making Master Chief a Wild West Duler. The human weapons are fun as well. Like I said in the multiplayer segment, I love the AR and BR. I rarely see the pistol but it's decent. The rockets shoot rockets. You could barely find ammo for them though. The sniper shoots sniping bullets and fuck the commando. The plasma pistol no longer EMPs anything because there's electric weapons that do that now. Not gonna lie, the electric weapons are kind of annoying especially in aerial combat. It's gonna be a 50-50 if you enjoy them or not but the plasma pistol's just kind of useless now. Out with the old and in with the new I guess. Not gonna lie, I missed some of the Promethean weapons though. They had cool reload animations that were a fun gimmick due to it being a bright orange gun. I like the color orange, don't hate me. You still have Promethean weapons like the Heat Wave, Cinder Shot and Sentinel Beam that still disintegrate people and I won't lie, the gimmick's fun. I like seeing aliens turn to dust but they should have kept the fun reload animations because that shit was pretty cool. I also missed the old Halo shotgun. The Bulldog is a cool idea but something about the old Pump Shotguns, man. They are beefy and hit hard and they look cool as shit. I still like you Bulldog but just not as much. But fun guns and fun mechanics are also accompanied by fun enemies. That's three funds in one sentence. Even for me, that's too many funds. Halo Infinite went back to its roots with how the aliens fall in line. Elites in Halo 4 and 5 are brutish in their design and mechanics but now Halo Infinite's elites are back to being slim and graceful. Once again, being tactical in combat and this is because the brute nature is given back to the literal brutes who have returned in this game. The brutes are aggressive and strong having armor pieces instead of shields just like they once did and are now the main villain type you will be fighting. You still have grunts who are now massive assholes in this game and will find any chance to make you feel bad. What's the matter? Something's right. For real though, the audio from these little guys in this game is really good and gave me a good chuckle time to time. Especially from the propaganda stations where they break the fourth wall a lot and I fuck with it. Also, Jackals return once again. They speak English now but it's okay because they'll still snipe your lights out. Going back to Halo 2 with this shit. The hunters are also back around like maybe five times. I forgot they were even in this game, not gonna lie but they're super easy to kill due to you having like 500 different ways to attack them from behind. There's also a new enemy type called skimmers which are these like annoying flying foreigner bug things. They're pretty mid, not gonna lie. It's fun to go back to roots but only one new enemy has been added to this game and they play the same role as the drone so it doesn't feel new either. Even if you didn't like the Prometheans, they were something fresh for Halo 4. I liked the enemy types and the last time we played against every alien together was in Halo 2. And now you have an advanced armory and a cool arsenal to have a fun combat loop. But like I just said, the last time we had all of this was in Halo 2 so there hasn't been much variety since that game. Wait, you had the flood in Halo 2. Nevermind, this game has less variety actually. Pity. Also the game's soundtrack is decent. It wasn't mind blowing to me personally since it's only strong suit was to play in nostalgia. You didn't have the versatility of Halo reaches OST which was one of the best in the franchise and the similarity to Combat Evolved was kind of lazy to me. It doesn't give this game much identity when you're just riding off of the hype of Combat Evolved. It wasn't really that memorable and kind of just came off as nostalgia bait. Even Halo 4 soundtrack stands out to me because it's so different compared to the others. Sometimes staying the same isn't that cool. It's just playing safe. Boss fights. I'm gonna say it. Boss fights in Halo have always been a joke. In Halo 2, that boss fight where you fought the traitor hologram guy sucked ass. Oh, man. Tartarus was a cool boss fight from a narrative perspective but was still pretty dull. In Halo 3, the Oracle fight was also cool from a narrative perspective and was way better than like a whack cutscene. You actually got to kill the Oracle but it was still pretty easy. Warden Eternal was fucking annoying, especially after the seventh time of fighting that guy. Jesus Christ, they ran out of ideas. In Halo Infinite doesn't have good boss fights either. We aren't talking about the game's narrative yet but you pretty much fight all the bad guys, stupid ass goons, and they're just health bars you shoot at. Like the first asshole you fight could have been any modified brute and I wouldn't be able to tell that it was a boster to how quickly he went down. You had cool designs for the bosses like the elite with the robot arm who goes invisible but it turns into a basic encounter with a tiny gimmick. Whoa! Eshram stood out because you had to drain his shield before destroying batteries, making it feel like a real boss fight but killing some brute on a chopper and his friend with a big mini gun doesn't feel that eventful. You don't need Dark Souls level complexity where you dodge and parry its fucking Halo. They should have taken the Gears of War approach with bots fights and make them fun and interesting while also being simple. Except for Ram, cause that guy sucked ass too. But I digress. Now it's time to discuss the elephant in the room, Halo Infinite's open world. Like the multiplayer, the campaign team had to make a choice in how they wanted to proceed with the campaign structure. And like I said in chapter one, an outsourced team that made assassins create origins, Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda were brought on the Halo wagon for Infinite and like those games, Halo Infinite has a very mediocre open world. An open world in general isn't bad by any means. I find open world to be incredibly fun and interesting when done right like Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption 2. But Halo Infinite's open world feels like a gimmick that lacks commitment. It's something new for Halo and like I've been saying, I don't mind Halo evolving but I'm not gonna spit up and clap my hands when it's half-assed and uninteresting. It's a trend to have open world in games. Even Sonic and Kirby are taking up open worlds due to the success of Breath of the Wild and that's not a bad thing. But before I rip into the open world of Halo Infinite, there's massive flaws on the outside of it. Like no co-op, which is absurd. This game was delayed a year, has a unfinished multiplayer and no forge mode as of this video's release. Even Halo 5 had a basic co-op at launch and that game was getting non-stop shit for no split screen. But Halo Infinite isn't getting the same amount of shit due to the smoke and mirrors of it being an open world game. It's been six years since Halo 5's release so miss me with that bullshit. This is stupid and should have been included day one of the campaign's release. Co-op has always been a staple of Halo due to being able to make memories with your friends but in Infinite you're gonna be making memories alone, feeling isolated more than ever. You also have no replayable missions as of this video's release and this makes it super difficult to go back and collect skulls or be a completionist. You also have no new game plus so if you want to restart you have to get all the stupid tacked on armor cores to level up your equipment again instead of having all the fun tools from the jump. Also you can't reset the open world so if you complete everything you're fucked on content and have to start a new game for more content. Even Far Cry had a better system than this that allowed you to reset outposts when you had no more stuff to do. I think the open world sucks ass but even if you enjoy it these minimum requirements not being met shows half ass effort but now to the actual game. Open world could lead to adventure and excitement but for Halo Infinite it did the opposite for me. The spectacle is fun at first but then it gets repetitive and uninteresting quickly. The design of Zeta Halo is nothing but boring four owner structures, generic green scenery and random banished bases. You travel through the same environment, go to a banished weapon station, kill everyone there then rinse and repeat. The reason why Breath of the Wild's open world was so fun to explore was due to all the different locations in game. You could be in a lava world then in the snow, then in the grass you could travel through multiple different biomes in a huge map. The point is there's a lot of different shit to explore which helps the game not get boring. Even in Halo Combat Evolved you had a bunch of different settings within the game's campaign but Halo 3 is the best example when it comes to having multiple environments in one campaign. You're in the forest, the desert, the grass and then in the snow. The diversity of biomes and set pieces helped the game to not get stale. You don't even need weather necessarily to be interesting and diverse. In Reach you were fighting on covenant ships, then fighting in a city, then fighting in the sky and even at some point flying in literal space. These campaign missions were isolated on how each functioned individually mission by mission whereas Halo Infinite gives you a mediocre sandbox hoping you can entertain yourself and it works for the first couple of hours because it's fun and new but then becomes boring without much substance and with how this game ended I bet in future expansions that are probably already finished you're gonna see beautiful snow and desert biomes because giving you shit on day one isn't priority anymore. I know subjectivity is gonna be a counter argument to the points I'm making but look at the surface of what you are doing. If you enjoy the game that's sweet but it's just a really big circle with three things to do. Traverse one biome, scale boring floor ownership and fight copy paste banished settlements and if you choose to explore the map all you could do is just boring filler objectives. When the main intention for capturing outposts is to unlock fast travel, vehicle spawns and weapon spawns you have failed at making an interesting open world. Vehicles suck ass because they constantly flip over due to how difficult it is to travel across the terrain and have to often be ditched due to most enemy bases having barriers that block them. You would just drive to a place, hop out, clear the area then go away to do it against somewhere else. Also in-game marines were implemented in the most lazy way possible. From a narrative perspective they don't really make sense or the hell have all these marines been hiding anyways? They didn't have a single stronghold or hiding spot and they never acknowledged us in the story. It's just tacked on as a game mechanic. The marines are the most NPC they've ever been. They won't drive vehicles or hop on stronghold turrets. They always fall behind and can't keep up with you. They're just annoying and only serve for a cool moment and a razor back. You'll get your cool 10 seconds of footage but then they become boring. Like if you had the Falcon from Halo Reach you could put guys in there and have fun aerial combat but instead you get a whack ass wasp that dies super easily. It makes going around in the sky so boring especially when everybody has lock on fucking electricity weapons. Also the campaign's missions in the open world are generic and lazy. There was a part where you had to knock out three AA turrets and I refused to use fast travel and it was some of the most boring shit I've ever experienced in Halo. You go to a turret, kill everyone, get a monologue from the main bad guy, blow it up by clicking a button and then hop in a banshee autopilot for four minutes and then do the exact same thing another two times. What happened to going on a bridge with a tank, going underwater, getting in warthog chases and tunnels, taking out a scarab, exploding a spire, or blowing up a big covenant ship. Fucking hey, even blowing up Halo rings, what happened to blowing up Halo rings? Instead you're putting an empty sandbox to twiddle your thumbs. You have a couple linear missions in Infinite and it was pretty fun at first, using the grapple to get from place to place, cleaning out areas in a fun sandbox and then it got fucking boring again. The set pieces in Infinite are bland and uninspired. The banished interior sucks ass in comparison to how the covenant interior was back in combat evolved. The ugly 4Runner shit was exhausting to look at and did the game's art style misjustice. Even the objectives were lame. It was just clicking buttons and finding batteries but when you're not doing ugly linear missions, you're thrown out in the open world where you do the same thing over and over again. Kill many boss fights for slightly better weapons than the ones you already have that you're gonna probably struggle to get ammo for. Rescue Marines are just gonna slow you down and have no personality. Even Reach gave them funny little name tags so you could care a tiny bit when they die. Destroy propaganda stations. Capture fobs that are just slabs of enemies waiting to die. It's just mind numbing shit for a fabricated runtime. Without the failure, the game is six hours. Six hours of the same shit over and over again. Even Fallout 4 had more interesting side content in a better open world and that game received way more backlash. Linear missions can have more complexity and diversity and have worked greatly before in Halo. Even with Five's dog shit narrative, there are still fun set pieces to play. I'd rather have nice crafted sets that allow you to utilize your gadgets while also having fun force segments than a rushed empty playground. Being forced to do shit isn't always bad. I like doing eventful shit that sticks with me instead of just using an awesome grapple hook and weaponry at some repair base where I throw thousands of barrels in the same order 50 times. As awesome as the gameplay is, it gets super boring. Maybe I am spoiled by Red Dead Redemption 2, but if you're aren't gonna fully commit to your open world by making it rich and expansive, then just make a fun six hour experience with good set pieces and memorable shit. Titanfall 2 is in the open world but fuck does it have a fun campaign that plays in its strengths. Same with Doom Eternal, God of War, in Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, and even 4 and 5. It's a new game and most of you are probably having fun but for a six year wait, it is shallow and disappointing. I can't tell if it's a situation where 343 bit off more than they could chew or a situation of half measures in laziness. In all honesty, it's a mixture of both. The campaign isn't amazing and when compared to its predecessors, it's probably one of my least favorite halos to play because of how repetitive it feels and how shallow it is. And something that doesn't help us either is the game's narrative. I ain't bring nothing to the table when I'm the table. Halo campaigns have always had cool ass intros and you might be asking, Skipper, what do you think about Halo Infinite's intro? It's gotta be kick ass, right? Well, it's not good. It's actually pretty shit in all honesty. Halo Infinite starts with the invasion of a UNSC ship called the Infinity. Then you see Chief get his ass wooded by a guy named Atriox who throws you into space. You then see a pilot in space crying about his family. Then he grows a sick beard while also letting his hair grow out to show that time has passed. But then he finds Master Chief, he tells him it's been 167 days which is around six months since he manned he has lost and that he wants to go home but Chief tells him that they need a fight. Then a banished ship comes out of nowhere, you board the ship and blow it up. Okay, so this intro sucks for anyone who has never played a Halo game but also sucks for anyone who has played a Halo game and has no idea what the hell is going on. I have friends, okay? I get around and those friends like Halo, we played the game since we were kids and they had a call to ask me about what the fuck was going on because they are confused. Also would have been cool to play with my friends but no, you can't have co-op at launch. If you have played every first person Halo game and the last time you played one was Halo 5 or if you haven't played Halo at all, then congrats. You're alienated from this game's story and that's a problem. To bring Halo follower up again, he made a video about Kotaku's article. The article was about how the game's intro was bad and this is what he had to say about that. Why would you want to change a Halo game to appeal? Like this is exactly the reason why Halo has been dying for over 10 years. Halo Infinite and Halo as a franchise is already showing signs of being damaged by trying to appeal to Game Pass people. This might be a shock to some but given that the multiplayer is free to play and they want to softly reboot and that this is a huge piece of marketing for Xbox Game Pass, they 100% give a shit about appealing to non-Halo players. Their action is pretty fucking stupid given like 10 seconds later he admits that he too would be annoyed if he didn't have any context or knew the lore. There was a lot of things that I would have not enjoyed nearly as much or maybe even been a little bit lost on if I didn't play all these other Halo games. Well, Kotaku is usually stupid. It's a beautiful criticism because it's true. Unless you're a dork fanboy, you're gonna have no knowledge about what the hell is going on and since I am a dork fanboy, I know what's going on but the fact that I had to find out from outside material is a problem. Dirt, fuck off, I love Halo. Why does Halo need to be explained for 90% of everyone else? Because the 90% mattered more than the 10% who cared enough to find out for themselves. I never thought I would have to explain this but 10% of fuckers who got swirly is in high school don't bring in the money compared to everybody else who's just an average enjoyer. The intro isn't bad because it's focused on Halo lore. It's just bad from an introduction standpoint. The game is being presented as a hit on the restart button so the least you could do is just introduce the basic world to everyone and let them know what's going on. Halo has always appealed to a mainstream audience. So what the fuck is this guy on about? Who are the banished? What happened to the Covenant? Who's Aatrox? Why are we being invaded? Why is the mass chief in this position? Wait, how does this connect to Halo 5? Where are the Guardians? Where's Arbiter? Where's Captain Lasky? Is Cortana still the bad guy? Wait, what the fuck? Why are the Brutes back? Where's the Forerunits? The hell is going on? You see, it's not actually a big deal if you read the books and play this game and listen to these videos and cut them. Man, I work in 9-5. Last time I played Halo, it was like, Halo 5, I don't have time for this shit. Just please tell me what's going on. It's a sloppy intro and fails to introduce the plot. It also fails to catch up old players while also failing to inform what the game is exactly about. In order to know who the Banished are and who Aatrox is, you need to play Halo Wars 2. And I can tell you right now, unless you're a dork fanboy, you probably haven't played Halo Wars 2 because it isn't a shooting game where you puke your aliens. In regards to the Cortana plot, you're pretty much missing an entire game because apparently she did stuff in between the game and Halo 5 and she was trying to rule the galaxy but now she's dead but still around. I'll get into this in a second, but fuck, it's confusing. And for the Infinity getting attacked, you learn more through expedition dumps and audiologs and goddamn, that's whack. If you're defending this intro, let me give you a what if. What if in Halo Combat Evolved, the game starts with the Pillar Bottom going down and we see the Chief kill some Covenant and then escape in a drop pod and the first piece of gameplay we get is on the Halo ring. What if in Reach, we had a cutscene about the Covenant being on Reach and the first mission we play is Sword Base. What if Halo 4 skipped the whole forward onto Dawn segment and the game starts on Requiem? Every Halo game I just mentioned has two things in common. They start right after one another in weird conditions like you don't see the end of Halo 2 because they couldn't fit the last mission in the game and the start of Halo 4 is four years after Halo 3 but you wake up in cryo freeze to learn about what's going on with the Chief so it works, I'm sorry, that was wordy and two, they all have starting missions to kick off their game. It's so much more impactful to run around the Pillar Bottom and meet these aliens for the first time as you experience the ship go down to then play on the Halo ring after. Also, you learn what's going on. You just did a light speed jump and you're now getting tracked by aliens that just fucked up this planet called Reach and in 90 seconds you're about to get invaded so you have to wake up the Master Chief and the plan is simple. Get Cortana off the ship. Wow, that was a simple intro. I know what's going on. I get to play a badass mission to start off my adventure. Playing a Halo intro mission is exciting and it introduces you to a simple plot and picks up momentum as you continue. Halo Infinite dropping us in the game after the intro and telling us six months past but we have no idea what exactly happened is disappointing and underwhelming. Humanity is fucked. We just lost and the Banish Chef killed everyone. I don't care. I don't know who the Banished are, just lost. Lost what? I got thrown off the ship, losing what? Everyone is dead. Who's dead? I haven't seen anyone but this fucking pilot. Who cares? Bungie had this old way of making games when it came to Halo and it was to show instead of tell. Imagine a cutscene that's like here's what happened after Halo 5. Then you're the Master Chief. Who are the Banished? Oh, it's a rebellious group of brutes who defied the Covenant and began to wipe anyone out who didn't side with them. They fought against a ship called the Spirit of Fire where a group of Spartans lost to their leader, Atrox who was the first to defy the Covenant. He's strong, the strongest ever and now he wants our smoke. They will never win. This is the UNSC and I'm Captain fucking Lasky. Boom, we go to war. Oh shit, it's a Banished Fleet. Master Chief defend this station. Then bam, you're talking old Halo people. You see how strong the Banished are and Marines are dying left and right all at war. Spartans are also dying. Then bam, Atrox, boss fight. And for the first time in Halo the Chief absolutely gets decimated. They show the cutscene, you get thrown into space. Oh shit, Atrox killed a saver, humanity were fucked. They show a time-lapse of the infinity being shot down. Spartans being hunted and wiped out. Old Halo 5 characters dying to protect the infinity and show everyone evacuating. And then you start the game like you did with Halo Infinite with Chief floating out in space six months later. I'm not a writer and that intro could be expanded on and done better but the point is imagine if we got a proper intro where you'll learn what's going on and you get to actually play on the infinity as it's being brought down like the Pillar of Autumn but make it cooler since it's a newer game. The impact of seeing your soldiers get overwhelmed and lose would have been powerful. Seeing everything fall apart and unlike Halo 1 you don't land on the Halo ring and save the day but you lose to an enemy who is stronger than you. That's impactful, that's a call to action. That's an intro that gets me fired up to stop the banish to then find out it's been six months and everyone is gone or captured. That's sad, I'm sad now. If you want a cool intro go watch the starting cutscene to Halo Wars 2 because you get a fight scene and beautiful cinematics by Blur Studios who also did Halo 2 anniversary cinematics but you should watch that because you don't get that cool cutscene in Halo Infinite. You get echologs that tell you about the people who evacuated from the infinity. Here are Spartans that you never met before in crisis and you could hear through propaganda stations that Locke is probably dead. You could also see his helmet in game on one of the bosses. Then there's banished audio logs and that brings up my next issue. You know that guy Atrox who just whooped the cheese ass and built the banished up in Halo Wars 2? The guy that we've had the last four years to observe in fear? Like look what he did to Red Team. Holy shit, that guy is scary. And he just whooped the master chief? He isn't the main villain. Apparently he died within the six month war but spoiler he didn't and is in the Marvel outro. Instead you fight his master Yoda Eshrim who obsesses over the fucker. And that's one of the main criticisms I have with this game. Like the intro, the game is a fucking mess. So Halo Infinite takes place three years after Halo 5 and Cortana isn't the bad guy anymore but within that time she ran around and fucked people up. She destroyed Sydney, Australia so goodbye Nemo but one of the places was Atrox's planet and then chief was tasked to destroy Cortana but Halsey made a copy called The Weapon to lure Cortana to Zeta Halo and it trapped her but then Atrox gets there first and he wanted the ring to blow up galaxies but Cortana says no and blows it up which sacrificed herself. The game is pretty much Halo 7. You miss out a whole campaign and this campaign tells you what happened in the most sloppy way possible throughout its runtime. Eshrim's main motivation is that he wants to prove that him and the banished are as strong as possible and he constantly reminds you that this battle will go down in history and that he's excited to have a challenge. So you have Cortana's plot that leads to the personal story of Chief and The Weapon, the banished plot and then the game throws in another forerunner side plot with a harbinger who hates the forerunners and wants to bring back some species called the Endless. She collabs with Eshrim because her and Atrox previously met promising him that the banished get to keep the ring. So Chief gets the weapon, he's beefing with Eshrim and the harbinger is there. The campaign is really complicated and doesn't make any of this digestible. You have way too much going on that isn't necessary making the whole campaign have no focus. You have this previous plot, then you have the current plot and you have a setup for a future plot. The game tries to juggle all this shit but if they just pulled their attention to one thing it would have made this game way better. Fuck the Endless, fuck the harbinger, only dorks who read books and shit care about that shows the battle. It's once again biting off more than it could chew. Halo lore is very niche and I find this subplot more obnoxious than interesting. The UNSC got fucked up. The Infinity which was the largest ship got blown out of the sky. We lost the war. That's all you need to make this game interesting. I'd rather fully focus on the banished instead of having this tied in forerunner crap. This ordeal makes the banished suck ass because they don't get to be the main focus. Eshram sucks in comparison to Atrox and has no attachment to Chief beside from inner conflict. Why is Eshram the main guy? You hype up Atrox and then gut him to introduce a boring hype man. I know Atrox is gonna be used for future DLC that involves the Endless but it would have been better if you made him the central antagonist to the face of the whole franchise. Another weak strand in this game is the relationship between the weapon and Chief because it isn't at all complex in comparison to Halo 4. In Halo 4 you had a story between Cortana and Chief where she was slowly deteriorating while wanting to clench under humanity whereas Chief was an emotionless machine losing the only person he's ever loved. The didact was a conflict but he was barely in that game. The main focus was on the relationship of these two. The dynamic of the Chief and the weapon is interesting and I like when they both stand off with each other but she's underdeveloped and not as compelling in comparison to Halo 4 as Cortana. I don't dislike the concept though. At the end of Halo 4 even Cortana predicted this game situation. I would have rather the game focused on the relationship between these two more but the game can't because it's split between three plots. Same with the pilot. You're told that he has a family and I don't dislike that he's whining and I think it's natural. He's not a real pilot and he's seen his whole army get destroyed. It makes sense that he's scared and wants to go home but I still don't care that much because I don't know him. He's just a ride that takes me place to place while having plot armor because holy shit that pelican should have been shot down. This game is trying to be a sequel to Halo 4, 5, Halo Wars 2 and other expansive media at the same time instead of just being its own game. It's setting up mega blocks for the future instead of just focusing on the now. How I feel about the weapon is also how I feel about the banished. I knew that the Covenant invasion on Reach was a serious threat when I saw Marines nailed to a wall. I knew they were a threat when I had to evacuate civilians from a city that was being glassed and I saw Brutes kill innocent civilians. I knew they were a threat when I saw my teammates die one by one until I died myself. In Halo Infinite I find random Spartan 4s and hear about how they died but I don't care about these Spartans so it holds no weight. I couldn't stop them. First time I've ever cried at a video game. Shut the fuck up. This is so disingenuous. Your first time crying in a video game is over some random ass nobody. Even if we single it down to just Halo this is fucking moronic. You're crying for Spartan Griffin but not Sergeant Johnson, Miranda or even Cortana. Spartan Griffin? Maybe if we met the fucker prior to give a shit. Crocodile tears if I ever saw them. Seeing Cat get shot a meal gets stabbed and the rest of Noble Team sacrificed their lives was to show that you were fighting a losing battle. Even in ODST exploring a decimated Newman boss evoked hopelessness. Infinite does a horrible job at showing the intimidation of the banished and want you to suspend your disbelief but then do a horrible job at displaying the aftermath. You have crashed ships and a couple of dead Marines but where's the six month war zone? Halo reached use its cutscenes and scenery to depict a battle but in Halo Infinite you have to learn through exposition dumps by Eshram or find audio logs and it's underwhelming. The banished in Halo Wars 2 where this group that defied the covenant and had this massive army and an intimidating leader but then the banished in this game are just a worse version of the normal covenant. At least with the covenant you get to learn about the prophets and their ideology within a radical religion. That's why playing as the arbiter in Halo 2 was so important. You got to see a faceless enemy get expanded on from how their hierarchy works and what goals they want. The banished in this game just sit around a table while Eshram just repeats the same thing. I want to hunt the chief. I want the master chief. This is gonna go down in history. It's crazy because you don't even need a central antagonist to make your army intimidating. Halo Reach was the best example of show don't tell. The cutscenes in this game are gorgeous and tell a story of a losing battle. Real quick for the frame geeks, Halo Reach seriously had some of the best cutscenes in Halo from framing to the use of different perspective shots and it helped pitch the tone of hopelessness while showing intimidation from the covenant. Halo Infinite has some of the worst Halo cutscenes in the franchise with one shot 360 movements that get old quickly. It was cool at first in the pelican but then it becomes uninspired. In Halo Reach there wasn't an Eshram or an Atrox to make that army intimidating but even without a personalized antagonist the covenant army was shown to be brutal. The game starts with your helmet obliterated to foreshadow the events you're gonna take part in and that's to lose. You're gonna lose in that game. After George's sacrifice, you see a bigger ship above the one he just blew up taking away the weight of that. And to add insult to injury, you see a whole Armada, the same ship that he just blew up come out of slip space making the sacrifice for nothing. You take out a spire that you just spent a whole mission to destroy and your own ship gets decimated in seconds. The game is full of these hopeless moments that show the sad fate of Spartan Threes. They died fighting a war that they already lost. Kat's death was the most impactful in the game. You didn't see a heroic moment or a Spartan going out with a bang. You saw a Spartan mid conversation die abruptly. That's realistic and that shot of Carter holding her in her arms as you see new Exandria burn shows that your friends are dying and you aren't making much of an impact. While you have shills like this crying over Spartan Griffin's death, I couldn't get attached to anyone in Halo Infinite or any of the plot because none of it was demonstrated to me like it was in Halo Reach. 3 for 3 could tell me through audio logs that the banished are strong and powerful but I'll never believe it because they don't do anything to prove it. Even with Griffin's death, nobody pulls the trigger. He's just tortured and dies. Even in games like Gears of War, showing the antagonists decimate your squad mates raises the stakes of the battle you are fighting. Just because you tell me Locke is dead and shows helmet on the armor of an enemy doesn't make me fucking care in comparison to seeing him die a hero or protecting his army. Like Emil in Halo Reach. In Halo Infinite, I feel alone while also feeling like nothing has happened. The banished don't have these massive cruisers, armory or bases so I don't feel intimidated or overwhelmed. They're shallow and yeah, I know they control the whole ring but that's because 3 for 3 tells me. It doesn't fucking feel like it. In the final mission of Halo Reach, your main goal is to survive. You see dead Spartan 3s everywhere until you're overwhelming killed. The Covenant was a brutal army and Reach was a devastating loss. Overall, the Covenant were way more interesting than the Banished. The Diedak was more interesting than the Harbinger and that guy sucked ass. The conflict of Reach is better than the conflict in Aftermath being presented in this campaign and that's all because those games stuck to one thing and went all in on that one thing. The game is unceremonic and not satisfying and everyone can universally agree on that due to how this game ends. You have a boring boss fight with the Harbinger who's the least interesting part of this game. You kill them and get a goodbye message from the original Cortana. Learn that Echo 2 16's real name is Fernando. You also don't see a conclusion of him being reunited with his family. He wants more adventure, okay. The weapon chooses the name Cortana, Chief says the fanservice word and the game ends. The pilot even states that the Banished control the rest of the ring and that's when I sniff the game's intentions out immediately. You don't get a conclusion in Halo Infinite because the game is gonna continue the story through expansions that open up the rest of the ring. You don't defeat the Banished, you just kill an annoying yes man, you don't conclude the foreigner side boss, you just kill the messenger, you don't conclude your relationship with the weapon or the pilot because you're just getting started. Every other Halo went out with a bang, even four and five. You really don't do much in this campaign. I killed Banished goons that had no real personality or interest with me. I killed a big boss who just spewed exposition, took out some alien bitch that was made to hype up future DLC and made two best friends that I'm just starting to build a relationship with. And this was in the span of a whole campaign. In Halo 3, I killed a prophet of truth, blew up a Halo ring and saved the galaxy. In Halo 2, I met the grave mine and learned about the Covenant through the perspective of the Arbiter that fought in a civil war. In Halo Reach, I fought a losing battle that decimated the world as I hopelessly tried to do the best I could. And in Halo 4, I saw my best friend slowly lose her mind as I tried to save her and then she gave her life to save me. I learned about humanity and suffered the loss and tragedy questing my stance as a soldier. The campaign of Halo Infinite is all talk and no show. As an open world that lacks basic game features with bare bone design, lazy linear missions, boring side content, no biodiversity, lazy mission objectives and a repetitive game loop. And for its story, a six year wait for a sloppy, confusing and unfinished narrative that has purposely open ended for the sake of adding future expansions. It's lazy and shows the lack of commitment. Within the last couple of years, I had friends who've never played Halo fall in love with the game through the Master Chief Collection. And in case you recently haven't seen the news, the Xbox 360 servers for Halo were unplugged. Halo is my childhood. I grew up with the game and was once seen as something revolutionary. And even today I could still hop into custom games where we just play shoddy snipers all night and I still had the biggest smile on my face. Halo Infinite got praised because it wasn't as bad as Call of Duty or Battlefield 2042. It's not good, but it doesn't ruin Halo for me. I could still play the Master Chief Collection and get 20 years of fun, nostalgia and glory all in one place. Halo could still be enjoyed, but for a six year wait, I don't see this as a big improvement from Halo 5. And anyone who's saying that this game is top three Halo is blinded by loyalty. Halo was once a trend setter, but now has fallen in line to bad principles and needs to be criticized harshly. I know I've made enemies with this video, but I don't care. Some of your favorite Halo YouTubers are fanboys that don't wanna accept reality. I'm disappointed and fearful for the future of Halo because what's the point of having hope? If within the time of six years, nothing has really changed. If you made it this far in the video, thanks for hearing me out. This was a long one, trust me, I know this. If you haven't already hit that little subscribe button if you wanna see future videos like these. There are a lot of work to make and I'm getting close to 100K so I would really appreciate that. Also share this around Reddit, Twitter, or to a friend so this video can be heard. Even if you agree or disagree with some of my points, it doesn't matter. I wanna have discussion with this video and I wanna hear what you have to say. Even you right now go comment something. Also follow my Twitter for some banger ass tweets like me buying a 200 grand Baker NFT or a dripped out chipmunk in Retweet this video. Also wanna give a massive thanks to Typo who helped edit some parts of this video. He has a channel and is planning to upload to it soon. Also I mentioned Shotty Snipers earlier. I tend to host a lot of Master Chief Collection game nights in my new Discord server, which is in the description. Join if you wanna play games or talk to a community that also misses the glory days of Halo. I'd love to have you there. Once again, thank you for supporting the video. If you're still here, it's a new year and I can't wait to upload again. I'm Dr. Skipper and I'll see you next time. Goodbye.