If you ask anyone to name something about Halo that feels original, recognisable, and fundamental to what makes this shooter different to other mostly identical FPS, there’s a pretty solid chance they’ll mention Energy Swords or Banshee battles. Do you know what, though? I’d put the house and kids on most of the people you ask mentioning the fact you can jump ten feet in the air and snipe someone halfway across the map during the floaty hangtime that precedes landing again – not even the Covenant are as essential to Halo as Master Chief’s iconic moon shoes.
I played a decent amount of the Halo Infinite technical preview last weekend. For the most part, I really enjoyed myself. It’s nice to be in a Spartan suit again, lobbing plasma grenades at people or no-scope crackshotting them from 50 yards with an S7 sniper. The gunfeel is decent – better than Halo 4 or 5, anyway – and the gun variety, at least in the Academy, is impressive. Looks like Chief’s back on the menu, boys.
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It’s important to make these concessions – aside from movement, Halo has always been defined by how alien it is: the weapons, the vehicles, the environments. There’s something about slamming a Wraith through the hull of a Scorpion that just feels right, while nailing someone with a Needler is probably one of the most enduringly satisfying feelings in shooter history. It’s never “just another machine gun” – even the standard AR feels great with the trusty half-clip gun-punch combo. But none of this would matter half as much without Chief’s illustrious jump, which has unfortunately been made far less pronounced in Infinite – it’s like going from bouncing on a trampoline to, like, doing jumping jacks on the road.
Put it this way: Halo without jumping is like Titanfall 2 without wall-running or Prey without GLOO-gunning. It is, in a nutshell, just not “Halo”. The entire time I spent playing Infinite, all I could think about was how yes, the game is good and fun and cohesive, but I’d much rather be playing Halo 3. Part of that has to do with Infinite’s maps, which don’t really understand what made prior levels so special. It’s easy to talk about Valhalla, Sandtrap, Zanzibar, and Blood Gulch as de facto Halo design – wide open spaces designed for vehicular manslaughter – but some of Halo’s best maps of all time are smaller and more focused. I’m thinking about Guardian from Halo 3 or Ivory Tower from Halo 2, where maps use their inherent tightness to their advantage. Every corner and corridor is designed as a stage for 1v1 showdowns – everything is interconnected and feels organic. The two maps I played during the Infinite test were just squares. One admittedly emphasised verticality, which is an important element of successful Halo design, but the sheer number of barriers and cordoned-off corridors made it more of a maze than a purposeful combat arena.
But that’s another topic for another article. The reason it’s important to discuss here is because the verticality isn’t even properly made use of – the jump is barely high or long enough for you to bounce around platforms in the brilliantly chaotic Halo way. The ledge-climbing mechanic helps, to an extent, but even that is hampered by how much it slows down what are supposed to be frenetic firefights. It’s reasonable to assume that this level design is intentional – 343 needs to incentivise that new grappling hook, right? But also, the Halo Infinite preview was at its best when it channelled classic Halo vibes and at its worst whenever it gave you cause to realise, “Hang on, this iconic Halo feature is missing,” which happened more often than it reasonably should have.
For me, this was the jump. There’s a map with a sniper rifle – which, to be honest, has no reason being there on account of how small it is and how unreliable sniper shotgunning is. But with a high, floaty jump, you can outmaneuver your opponent and sling a cheeky headshot. That’s the Halo I grew up loving – you were airborne at least as much as you were boots on the ground. Master Chief is a seven-foot-tall super army soldier who can carry laser swords and hammers that put Mjolnir to shame. You’re trying to tell me that now, in his old age, John Halo can jump barely half as high as he could in previous games? It just feels wrong.
I like Halo Infinite. Right now, though, the premise of this game becoming emphatically infinite – a modus operandi for 343’s future endeavors in this universe – is daunting. On one hand, it’s ambitious, which obviously makes it risky. Most of all, though, if this is supposed to be the way Halo functions from here on out, I’d like to see it show more respect to what makes this series so special in the first place. That includes the guns, the characters, the vehicles, and the sprawling or subdued space environments, sure. Most of all, though, it’s the jump – Master Chief never would have reached such enormous heights without it.
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