Waking up before dawn to play Halo with my childhood best friend is one of my core, formative gaming memories. My mom didn’t allow violent media in the house, so “sneaking out” to the TV early in the morning (and sometimes after bedtime) to play for an hour or two hallmarked our entire playthough of Combat Evolved’s Legendary campaign. That same friend and I continued to grow up with Halo, spending thousands of hours playing 2, 3, and multiplayer, but as college neared and our paths diverged, so did Halo as it moved from Bungie to 343/Microsoft.

I played Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians, of course, but it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be. No Halo game could ever live up to the nostalgia of the early days for me, and that’s okay! Regardless of its legacy for me, the franchise also started to lose some of its identity with those releases, and I think many fans had been waiting for a Halo renaissance.

More than 20 years since those original Combat Evolved memories, I just finished Halo Infinite and find myself, clearly, on a nostalgia trip. I really enjoyed Infinite - far more than 4 or 5 - and just wanted to share a few thoughts about my time with the game:

  • I think the grappling hook, especially post-upgrades, might be my favorite in any game.
  • The world is simply beautiful, and it especially shines after unlocking the Wasp when you can fully/easily explore the game’s verticality. From an environment and traversal perspective, it’s up there with my favorite open worlds ever.
  • Speaking of open worlds, this is the first open world Halo game, and I think 343 got a lot right. Some of the progression feels a bit superfluous, but I’m a sucker for a big map with a lot of icons to conquer, and this totally scratched that itch while still serving an overarching narrative.
  • The story was fine, but it still feels like the franchise is contending with narrative decisions it really wishes it hadn’t made in Halo 4. It was nice to get a bit of closure for a certain core character, but the story is still far from the more grounded roots established in CE, 2, and 3. With a strong open world formula established, I’m really hoping more focus can be placed on the story in future games.
  • Infinite’s multiplayer is the first I’ve felt compelled to play since Reach; it’s really good.

Despite lingering live service-related issues, my playthrough of Infinite gave me a ton of hope for the future of the franchise. I think 343 is finally getting into a groove, and I hope Microsoft lets them keep cooking.