Halo is a game series that is near and dear to my heart and to the hearts of many other young adults. While the series still amasses a large amount of players on The Master Chief Collection, a 1-in-5 bundle of most of the mainline entries in the franchise, it has been waiting for a truly new entry in the series for about six years. 

As such, I would consider myself someone who grew up with the franchise. 

I would also consider myself a casual gamer these days and even less than that if I could. Video games have just not been very interesting to me as of late, but I do remember a time being heavily invested into them. Suffice to say, this game made me remember so much of why I loved playing video games as a kid.

That being said, what really is Halo Infinite?

It is technically a sequel to the franchise. And what I have been playing was a beta version of the multiplayer portion of the game before it’s official release on Dec. 8 of this year alongside its story mode. 

The best part of this, however, is that the multiplayer is completely free-to-play on both Xbox game consoles and PC. 

The story mode is listed at the base price of $59.99 online and in stores, but is also available to download on Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service which offers both a $10 and $15 a month option depending on which features you would like on the subscription. Both options would allow you to download both portions of the game at no additional cost.

I had the opportunity to play both modes due to being a game pass subscriber.

Starting the game, I was greeted with a well-designed title screen and an easy to navigate menu complete with an armor customization section to outfit the characters to the players’ liking and an in-game store to purchase more cosmetics and in-game currency. Starting an online match of the game is very easy and I encountered minimal connection issues.

The story mode became available to download at 12 PM CST on Dec. 8 and I had the chance to play it for a significant amount of time late at night and early into the morning. The game, while being a sequel, Infinite is also not a game that is confusing for new players to get into. For example, I don’t think I have followed the storyline of the games since Halo 4 when I was in middle school. 

That being said, veterans of the franchise will absolutely love the callbacks to older titles, and the well-written dialogue that appears while playing and in certain cinematic sections.

The storyline of the game follows the main protagonist of the series, Master Chief, after he is defeated in battle after an attack from an alien army and dropped into outer space in a cinematic scene. 

The gameplay begins shortly after an Astronaut, who was stranded on his own spacecraft, stumbles upon him floating and elects to try to help. Doing so, he finds that Chief is still alive and in mere moments the real gameplay kicks off with another group of aliens stumbling upon them yet again.

I’m going to keep my words free of spoilers, but, from what I have played so far, the story feels compelling right from the jump with its beautiful visuals and sounds. The level design is easy to follow and also features the returning hidden collectable “skulls” across the entire game, which can modify the difficulty of the game in certain ways if players want a challenge. 

With both new features added and old features returning, the game utilizes nostalgia without relying on it to carry the game like I have seen many titles do.

When first playing the game I also had to note, it is very friendly to new players compared to past titles in regards to movement and gameplay and it just feels very fluid. From someone who hasn’t played video games in a significant amount of time, I was surprised to hop into a match and naturally get into the groove of the game.

Multiplayer currently has a few game modes in its offering, capture the flag being notably enjoyable among all of them. 

Like most games today, Infinite offers a battle pass, a $10 offering of cosmetics to earn over the course of a few months. I would’ve said the progression system was very brutal initially for that pass and one of the things that turned me off about the game, but as of playing it on Dec. 4 I noticed the developers implemented a remedy to that. 

The game is being constantly updated in regards to complaints and the developers are handling it in a timely manner. I would say my biggest concern was the lack of variety in game modes at the moment, but that is also said to be remedied in the coming weeks. 

All in all, I would say this game has a lot of potential to be great and with it partially being a free-to-play game on top of that, I would say the franchise is in its best state yet. I would recommend jumping in to try it out!