It's finally to the place it should have been a couple months after launch. Sucks it has taken so long, but it is finally in a good place so if they keep adding content I will keep playing.
Edit: Also M&K finally feels competitive, which is great.
* : Denotes a date based on leaks and, while likely, is subject to change.
It's finally to the place it should have been a couple months after launch. Sucks it has taken so long, but it is finally in a good place so if they keep adding content I will keep playing.
Edit: Also M&K finally feels competitive, which is great.
I put hundreds of hours into multiplayer, gave up this season to play other games. The way 343 handles things is really weird and everything they do is just too slow.
I haven't played the multiplayer much since launch. But these are my thoughts. The gameplay just didn't feel good. All of the technical details that people have pointed out exhaustively just compound this. Additionally, all of the abilities felt like they should have been loadout choices like in Reach or just left out completely.
Everything related to cosmetic has killed any superficial excitement I may have had. Additionally, I honestly expected some kind of armor starter pack for buying the campaign so they could have made a faux-bundle for the two while keeping it F2P.
Then there's the campaign. Halo 5 may not have been great. But at least it continued the Promethean storyline, had a storyline at all, gave us Halo-esque set set pieces, and ended promising a VERY interesting conclusion to the trilogy.
Halo Infinite's campaign is not just bad, it's destructive to the franchise. The only thing I cared about in that game was the flashbacks, which just made me more upset. The gunplay in campaign was fun, but everything about the actual environment was subpar. They somehow made vehicles not fun in the most wide open map in the series.
To add into all of that, they completely abandoned every single thing from the previous games. They could have even used ODST as a template and let you play as different soldiers/Spartans to branch the two stories together. At this point, I feel like the only thing that can save the franchise is to release a "Halo 6".
Halo Infinite was a half-assed shooter built around a store for cosmetics. The Master Chief Collection has infinitely more replayabilty and fun.
I only play Halo campaigns. Even 5. Didn't finish Infinite, just played like... 2 hours. I'm only replaying the Bungie ones, until MS gets their shit together.
Gave it several chances, but I can't stand the gunplay.
I'll play pretty much any FPS you throw at me - add some friends and some beers, and I won't even care. But this game... bullets feel like they're slow, imprecise plastic spheres flying around. It really does feel like a 2004 FPS, and not in a good way.
I dropped it in December 2021 after finishing the campaign and realizing that there were no big updates coming to the multiplayer. The game also ran and looked terrible for me, for a free-to-play multiplayer title during the GPU crypto crisis I decided to take my RX 580 out of its misery and played MCC and TF2.
I have a better CPU and GPU now but I have no desire to re-install Infinite because of the lack of content and broken promises.
I don't play multiplayer, so my thoughts are exactly the same as the day the campaign released, since it hasn't changed a bit. It was bland, uninspired, extremely repetitive... far, far from anything Halo is supposed to be. I played it, what ? two months ago, and I struggle to remember even a couple things from it. A really sad state of affairs. Any gamer picked on the spot could come up with a more interesting story than the one we got. I don't understand this level of incompetence.
Been playing halo since xbox original in early 2000s, own 3 copies of Master chief collection by lazyness and got it on game pass, and have to be honest - never played infinite and probably never will.
The newer games aren't halo - they are FPS games with the same skins and similar weapons. Nothing since 1/2/3 reach has felt right - even odst was a bit off (not even going into halo wars and spartan assault). 4 had its moments and some beautiful storytelling at moments (and thirst traps), but it just brought in soo much new lore, names, characters, enemies, and weapons it no longer feels halo (love Lasky though). The intro mission end cutscene/outro was well done, but the game just felt like shoot a pile of bullet sponges while we speak a new language to you. Spartan ops was nice for a bit, but just couldn't get into it.
Multi-player is now just too much - too tactical rather than 16 (12??) player couch coop with a pile of chips.
I only have 3 problems with the game now. First is the monetization of the game and there is nothing they can do to change this since it's a f2p game and is also the reason I dislike all f2p games because of how they operate but that's a conversation for another day. Second is the customization and rewards you get for just grinding and that leads it into because it was all put into the cash shop. But lastly is being added witch is a spartan ops or firefight some sort of pve game mode to just chill and shoot shit with the homies Because that's fun. Other than that the gameplay has been there mostly from the start. Infinit does alot right
It's a bit heavy to play on my steamdeck but I did solidly enjoy it when I played a while back. But doesn't feel too much like a classic halo though -- it's an e sports title in halo's clothing
I haven't played since after release. I still have yet to play the story.
I just felt very disappointed by various aspects of the multiplayer and went back to enjoying MCC for what it is when I need my halo fix.
I will give infinite a fair shot at some point, but I'm waiting for as long as possible for the game to be improved before I try it again.
I just struggle sticking with one live service for long. Destiny keeps it longest, but even then it's for a year or two at most. I just tend to rotate between that, CoD, and various thirds (Halo, Fallout, Battlefield, even more traditional MMOS). Hearing the positive feedback I'll probably jump back in soon.
Honestly so much this. The fact that I want to play so many "live service games" and so many other non live service trying to finish a lot of a backlog that I did not have money for back in the day. And have a full time job. Just not enough time.
Squad battle seems like it breathed some life back into the game, it has brought me back to play at least a few times a week. I think adding more forged maps in general has been great. This was the first season that I didn’t purchase the pass, mostly because I know I won’t wear the Hazmat core and the other cosmetics in it.
It feels significantly better on keyboard and mouse compared to launch, I have seen others report that as well.
I agree with OP that it is really disappointing that they are dropping the multiplayer cutscenes, I think the story was going in a really interesting direction. They can continue the story with text posts on Waypoint, but that means a majority of players aren’t going to see it, unfortunately.