Halo 2 Full Campaign

[Carlos Beirise]

Its hard out here for a Warthog driver. In my first few hours of exploring Halo Infinite's Zeta Halo ring I kept wandering away from my next mission to find little pockets of Banished to shoot or towering columns of hexagons to grapple climb. This open world ring feels like a Halo built specifically for fans like me, who loved the vehicle-heavy missions in Bungie's games. Those Bungie missions threw you into big levels, usually with freeform objectives, and said: Go nuts. I felt some of that old joy, a joy I never really got from Halo 4 or Halo 5, when I leapt off a cliff, grappled onto an Elite's Ghost in mid-air, and used it to run over all his Grunt underlings.

I long for another cold, seven-foot-tall armored body riding along in my Warthog. My mind soars at the hijinks two (or four!) Spartans could get up to armed with grappling hooks. I'm curious how much more ridiculous Halo Infinite's biggest firefights could get if they're scaled up for a full squad. And after spending a few hours with the open world, I almost want to throw away my save and start all over again when I can do it co-op.

Though I've spent thousands of hours playing competitive Halo multiplayer with the same group of friends for 15 years now, Peak Halo to me is still campaign co-op. We've played them so many times over the years. Sometimes we'd rush through a full campaign just to relive our favorite moments, like Halo 1's sprawling, snowy Assault on the Control Room or Halo 3's battle against two giant Scarab walkers. Other times we'd pick a mission to tackle with game modifying skulls like Catch enabled, which makes the Covenant pelt you with a nonstop barrage of grenades. My favorite memories, though, are from when we'd get in a group chat and just mess around in the sandbox. We could spend an hour trying to rocket jump a Mongoose onto one of those Scarabs just for the hell of it.

Bungie's games weren't open world, but their best levels (and Halo's goofy physics) encouraged sandbox player expression. For me they really came alive in co-op, where time spent messing around with a stupid 'could this possibly work?' goal never felt like a waste when I was hanging with a friend.

Infinite is the first game in Halo's history without co-op (well, aside from mobile spin-off Spartan Strike). Even the RTS Halo Wars games recognized that co-op is as much a part of Halo as the Warthog or Elites saying wort wort wort. Infinite will have co-op eventually, but it looks like it won't arrive until at least May 2022. That really stings, but once you've played Infinite, it's easy to guess how much more complicated getting co-op to work must be this time around.

Old Halo games would aggressively teleport stragglers up to the lead player every time they triggered a checkpoint. In Halo Infinite, the primary story missions take you out of the open world into self-contained spaces, but everything else is just out there waiting for you to discover it. How far apart should two players be able to get from one another? Can the game logic handle two players attacking a base full of Banished while two others are attacking another base across the map, with more enemies spawning in at each location?

Does each player earn campaign progress in the open world, which includes permanently taking back overrun UNSC safe zones and killing off high-ranking Banished targets? Or does only the host get that progress? If we just want to replay specific story missions, will there be a menu that lets us do that? (There isn't one, right now).

The answer to each of these basic questions is probably a lot more complicated and a lot more work than we'd expect, judging by how long it seems like it will take developer 343 to implement a Slayer-only playlist in multiplayer.

"We don't just want to ship a campaign co-op that barely works. We want to ship a campaign co-op that's stable, that's robust, that has the features players expect," Staten told Eurogamer in November. "We're also doing some other things that we haven't talked about yet to really make meeting up with your friends, and you're jumping into the game, good just not for campaign, but even better for multiplayer, too. So when it comes to shipping campaign co-op, we have a lot of other things that are kind of branches off that central trunk of campaign co-op that we think are an opportunity to just improve the whole game experience."

As Nat said in her review, the shooting in Infinite's is the best Halo's ever felt. The grappling hook is an absolute joy. Halo's combat has always been defined by its possibility space, all the expected and unexpected interplays between shooting and movement and vehicular chaos and how enemies react. Infinite's open world makes that possibility space far bigger than it's been before, but it feels like there's no way to truly take advantage of it solo.

Halo Infinite's open world side missions are fairly simple, but they work well enough simply because the combat at their heart is so fun. It feels strange to think that for the first time a new Halo game is out, I'm not going to immediately follow up a singleplayer playthrough with a co-op one that will let me experiment with all the possibilities I couldn't see alone. I think it'll be worth the wait, though. The campaign is currently fighting with one arm tied behind its back. Once unshackled, I think it's one I'm going to be playing it for many years to come.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.\n\nWhen he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific)."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Wes FenlonSocial Links NavigationSenior EditorWes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Halo Infinite is a 2021 first-person shooter game developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is the sixth mainline installment in the Halo series,[1] following Halo 5: Guardians (2015). The game's campaign follows the human supersoldier Master Chief and his fight against a mercenary organization, known as the Banished, on the Forerunner ringworld Zeta Halo. Unlike previous mainline entries in the series, the multiplayer portion of the game is free-to-play.

Infinite was intended to release as a launch title for the Xbox Series X/S, but was delayed in August 2020 after its gameplay reveal in July 2020 drew negative feedback from both critics and Halo fans.[2][3] Following an open beta release of the multiplayer component on November 15, 2021, coinciding with the franchise's 20th anniversary, the campaign was released on December 8, 2021, for Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Halo Infinite received generally favorable reviews from critics, with some deeming the game a return to form for the series. Praise was directed towards its visuals, gameplay, open world design, soundtrack, and story.

Halo Infinite is a first-person shooter. In the game's story mode, players assume the role of player character Master Chief, as he wages a war against the Banished, an alien faction.[4] Players traverse the open world Zeta Halo, fighting the Banished with a mixture of vehicles and weapons. Players also have access to special equipment, such as the Grappleshot, which pulls Chief towards foes, retrieves items, or help to traverse the terrain.[5]

The campaign mode's semi-open world structure allows players to freely explore parts of the ring-world Zeta Halo setting, which are segmented off from each other and initially impassable. Scattered across the environment are Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), which can be captured once cleared of enemies. Captured bases serve as fast-travel points.[5][6] Other points of interest found across Zeta Halo's surface include "high-value targets" to eliminate, Marine squads to rescue, and Banished propaganda towers to destroy.[7] Completing these side objectives earns the player Valor, which is used to earn weapons and vehicles that players can call in from FOBs.[5][6] The more linear environments within the ring's surface hew more to traditional Halo mission design. These missions serve to advance the story, and can be replayed once completed via the in-game TACMAP.[8] Collectibles found in the environment, such as audio logs, provide additional story details.[9]

Infinite's multiplayer component features deathmatch, capture the flag, and other modes played in standard 4-versus-4 and Big Team Battle variants; the latter bumps the player count in matches up to 24.[10] Ability pickups allow players to activate special powers a limited number of times. Powers include dashing, active camouflage, and "repulsor" charges that can knock enemies, projectiles, and vehicles back.[11] A training mode allows new players to test weapons in weapon drills, or play against computer-controlled bot players in practice matches.[12]

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