Being a Halo fan the past few years has been... interesting. I remember when Microsoft first launched the Xbox at the start of the millennium, and it was common knowledge that Halo was the reason you would buy an Xbox. Games were released with the promise of being a "Halo killer", and none seemed to be able to do the job. Halo is often cited as the game that proved first-person shooters could be played well on a console. Sales of the game broke records that were previously dominated by Hollywood blockbusters. The story of Master Chief fighting a collective of alien races obsessed with destroying humanity — and ultimately all life in the galaxy — was told with just enough information to give you a purpose in the game, but with enough mystery to leave fans wanting to know more about the universe. The story built upon itself over three games, plus a side story and a prequel, and came to a satisfying conclusion.
Then things changed. Bungie separated from Microsoft and left Halo behind. A new studio was created, hiring some of the original talent, to continue the story. But with the Covenant War story wrapped up, they had to create a new story with a new antagonist, something that would be interesting to fight in a video game. So, 343 Industries went back in time to the race that built the Halo world. Novels had been written about this people and what drove them to build the Halos, so fans that were into reading the literature had a handle on what was going on and who the characters were. But in order to make the story accessible to people who only played the games, Halo 4's story included a lot of exposition-heavy cutscenes. This attempt to tell-not-show the backstory about an unfamiliar enemy was probably one of the biggest reasons the campaign got a lot of criticism. In the end, the main antagonist, the Didact, is defeated. Technically, he isn't destroyed, and the end-game voiceover implies that he may return. But, perhaps in response to the fan backlash, or perhaps without a clear plan for what might be next, 343 Industries elected to leave the Didact's ultimate fate to a graphic novel, never to be revisited in the video games again.
343 Industries introduced a new storytelling technique in the form of Spartan Ops, an episodic feature that explored the story of a former Covenant fanatic, Jul 'Mdama, who sought to claim ancient Forerunner technologies and continue the war against humanity. The story was interesting, but the gameplay was very basic and repetitive. Once again, following public disapproval, 343 Industries elected to abandon the story and finish it off in a graphic novel. The ending of the story would serve as the opening of the next game, where Jul 'Mdama is killed off in a simple cutscene and never mentioned again.
With two failed storylines with different antagonists abandoned, 343 Industries once again rebooted their storytelling with a new threat. This time, they elect to pick up the pieces of a beloved character, Cortana, saying she actually survived her sacrifice at the end of Halo 4. Common theory is that this version of Cortana is from her corrupted fragments that were branched off during Halo 4's gameplay, a view that helps to explain why she turns out to be the main antagonist in Halo 5 (though her actual story was, once again, only explained in a graphic novel outside of the games). For many, Cortana's turn to the "dark side" felt like a betrayal, but that was only the start of the issues with Halo 5's story. An excellent marketing campaign set the stage for a mystery and a showdown, how Master Chief would be at odds with another Spartan team that believes he went rogue and needs to be hunted. The game itself, however, failed to deliver on that story, watering down the Spartan vs. Spartan story to a series of alternating setpieces, with the fan-favorite Master Chief getting the overwhelming minority of screen time. Many felt Master Chief was being sidelined in an underwhelming attempt to pass the torch to a new, unknown Spartan Locke, and there was a lot of resistance from the fanbase. The game's story ultimately ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, with Cortana beginning to subjugate the galaxy, and Master Chief gathering with his former foes without a plan to take her down.
Once again, this storyline would be unceremoniously dropped in a dumpster. 343 Industries attempted to go back to the series's roots, by bringing in a Covenant-like enemy introduced in the Halo Wars real-time strategy series, the Banished. While the narrative tells the end of Halo 5's Cortana story, it's all in flashback cutscenes that happened between Halo 5's ending and Halo Infinite's opening. (At least it's not in a book or graphic novel this time, which is a modest improvement. It is still unsatisfying at best to know we didn't get to finish the fight ourselves and can only watch.) But, unable to resist the temptation to introduce yet another new antagonist, the game makes several references to a new race, the Endless, of which you only see and fight one. There is a promise that the Endless will return in the future, as Halo Infinite is promised to be a "platform" for future stories; but I, for one, can't help feeling a sense of déjà vu that they might kicking this new antagonist into the trash as well.
That's the story. But what about the gameplay itself? Well, it's on even more shaky ground. On the one hand, there's a lot to love about Halo gameplay. While 4 and 5 felt more "un-Halo" (whether by gameplay mechanics, or just general "feel"), Infinite "feels" more like the Halo we used to know, even with the new abilities and mechanics that were introduced. But there's a lack of content. Armor customizations, which started in Halo 3 and really started to take off in Reach, felt way too restrictive, with even colors locked down to defined "coatings". Many customizations were locked behind battle passes, which dripped content much more slowly than even Halo 5's random "loot box"-style of unlocks. Locking armor parts to individual "cores" was even more restrictive, and made even less sense when you could see computer-controlled bots mixing up different combinations (meaning the reason for limiting their use was clearly intentional, not a limitation of the game engine). Slowly, 343 Industries has been opening up these customizations, but it's still very limiting at almost a year after the game's launch. "Seasons", where new content and story elements would be released, have been long-delayed and lacking in content as well. There is still a small number of maps and game types (especially compared to previous games, all the way back to the original).
Perhaps the most egregious issues are the lack of features that have long since been available in Halo. Halo 5 was the first game in the series that lacked split-screen local co-op in the campaign, which was something highly criticized. 343 Industries stated that they were even disappointed with themselves in that omission and promised it would return in future games. Halo Infinite, the "future game" at the time, launched campaign with no co-op features whatsoever (not even over the network). They finally tested a network co-op release, which they promise is coming soon; but they have now, officially, cancelled plans to develop local split-screen co-op.
Forge, too, has long been a part of the Halo ecosystem, ever since Halo 3. The game launced without this feature as well. In a move that I'm not entirely sure was accidental, the unfinished development code was leaked out with the campaign co-op build. On the plus side, modders were very excited and impressed with what they found. This may be one feature that proves to be worth the wait; though it feels as though we've been spending a lot of time waiting for the potential that Halo Infinite can bring.
That is really the biggest issue: the waiting. Six years since the last Master Chief Halo game, almost a full year after the game's "release", and it still feels unfinished and empty. It feels like every communication, every road map, is such a small list of features coming, with no specific timelines, and previous promises are delayed or cancelled. Leaks and data mining revelations are interesting and encouraging, with positive YouTube and Reddit comments; yet analyses of official announcements and communcations are concerning and distressing to the same YouTubers and Redditors. The roller coaster of all these ups and downs is nauseating, and so many people have gotten off the ride at this point that Halo is going to have to work to not only keep players, but try to win them back.
