For all the hype 343’s been talking up about Halo Infinite‘s open-world campaign, we hadn’t seen much in the way of trailers since the initial reveal back in 2020. Now we’ve got a new one, and it’s 6 minutes sheer awesome.
Halo there
For being only 6 minutes long (backed by some epically nostalgic music), the trailer packs a lot of stuff into it, including a look at the new story, open-world, vehicles and enemies, and new mechanics.
Story-wise, Infinite picks up just after Halo 5‘s cliffhanger conclusion, meaning yes, the big bad is still Cortana. But that doesn’t mean Chief’s on his own. This time around he’s accompanied by a new AI companion, named “The Weapon” who’ll be guiding him through the open world of the mysterious Zeta Halo installation. The “Banished”, a splinter faction of the Covenant, will be this game’s main bullet sponges.
While the graphics were certainly eye-catching, particularly compared to the game’s pretty disappointing reveal visuals, what really grabbed our attention were the new mechanics. Set in an open world, a first for the franchise, players won’t exactly be playing through linear campaign stages. From the looks of things, Chief will be tasked with a series of Far Cry/Just Cause-esque missions that will see him taking down enemy bases dotted along the Zeta ring.
Additionally, there are some pretty interesting RPG mechanics at work here, such as boss fights (similar to those seen in Halo 5s PvE Warzone instances) and an equipment upgrade system. This lets you enhance and improve Masterchief’s gear and abilities, like his Spartan Dash, Drop Shield and grappling hook. Oh yeah, Spartan’s have grappling hooks now, and anyone who played Titanfall 2 knows grappling hooks automatically make FPS games way cooler.
All this and more is packed into the trailer, which dropped just in time to rev up the hype engine as the holiday season looms. Infinite‘s received a lot of good press recently thanks to its free-to-play multiplayer previews over several weekends. As much as we were a little put out by the year-long delay we’ve had to endure for this game, if everything ends up being as good as it appears now we think it’ll all be worth it.