By Max Gast

On November 15, 2001, more than 20 years ago, the original Xbox came out. It didn’t have much going for it. The Nintendo GameCube was coming out only three days later, and Sony’s PlayStation 2 was thrashing the market, already wiping out the Sega Dreamcast, the last ever Sega console. At the time, the PlayStation 2 was the cheapest DVD player on Earth and most people bought it for that reason. The Xbox couldn’t play DVD’s but there was one game that was released with the console that helped them tremendously. 

Halo: Combat Evolved revolutionized the first-person-shooter and sci-fi genre of video games. The rest is history.

Over 20 years later, on December 8, 2021, came the sixth installment that follows the character Master Chief and the 8th canon (canon means that the story actually happened and matters in that series’ respective universe) installment (not in chronological order). This is a spoiler-free review of Halo Infinite that mostly just follows multiplayer aspects.

For those who somehow aren’t aware or at least heard of the Halo franchise, I will give a brief summary. Halo is a first-person sci-fi shooter game originally developed by Bungie Inc. and later picked up by 343 Industries. The games are published by Microsoft and released exclusively for the Xbox family of gaming consoles. In the story, you play as a super-soldier named Master Chief or John-117 trying to defeat the Flood and other alien-like enemies. In the multiplayer game mode, you are a nameless Spartan or super-soldier fighting other Spartans. That is about all you will need to know for now.

Halo Infinite is the long-awaited sixth main installment in the Halo franchise. The multiplayer game mode is free on the Microsoft store, and you can buy the campaign for $60 or on Xbox Game Pass for $15 a month.

Halo multiplayer has mostly been the same but with a change in developers —343 Industries, which has tried to introduce new and poorly received mechanics, the most notorious of which is permanent sprinting, which is when you can run without power-ups. Before Halo Reach, you couldn’t run at all. A more common controversy that was confirmed is that Halo Infinite is going to be the last Halo for the next 10 years because they want to constantly update the game with new changes. I personally am okay with this choice because it means they can explore new things with the franchise. Maybe Infinite will even have an extension like Halo 3: ODST. In my opinion, Halo Infinite has the best multiplayer game mode that 343 has ever made. They went back to basics while still incorporating some of their alright features, such as the shoulder charges. A new feature that is in Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is the power-ups that a player can find on ground such as shields and grappling hooks.

Some of the modes in multiplayer include the classic 8 on 8 Big Team Battle, Slayer (which is a mode where the first team to 50 eliminations wins), Capture the Flag or CTF, and Ranked Arena. Many people prefer different modes. I prefer small-scale modes like Free-for-All (FFA) Slayer and CTF. Others like a more large-scale experience with game types like Fiesta and Big Team Battle. It’s honestly just whatever you prefer as a player. 

If you want to play this game with a friend, as of January 2022, you are restricted to the multiplayer game mode, with the series staple cooperative campaign mode being released in Season 2 of the game, most likely coming out in May of 2022.

There is still a lot of new content rolling out for the game like the classic map-making Forge game mode and true co-op, but the state of the game right now is really stable, and I can’t wait to see what 343 does with the game in the next 10 years.