Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is a beautiful dance

Halo Infinite is built different.

It’s a timing thing. In the vast majority of modern online FPS games, the victor is decided by who sees who first. Snap your aim down the sights, pull the trigger and watch them drop to the floor. Seconds later, you’re the one dropping as someone repays the favor. 

Halo Infinite is built different.

I fell out of love with Halo a few games back. To me, it felt like the series lost its magic along with its original developer, Bungie. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer launch is the series’ new developer, 343 Industries, proving me wrong.

There’s something beautiful about Halo Infinite’s deadly dance. When you’re one-on-one with an enemy, it doesn’t matter what weapons you both have, it generally feels like the better player won. Sure, a full clip from a needler will make you explode in crystalline death, but you get a few seconds to break their line of sight, forcing them to reload before turning the tables. Rockets might seem overpowered, but you can always jump over them – or, better yet, bat them back at your attacker with a gravity hammer. 

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I love the Halo dance. I adore the push and pull of it. If someone gets the drop on you, all you need to do is find some space and recover your shields – as soon as they charge up, you spin around and become the aggressor. It’s more about movement than aiming, pulling off subtle feints before changing direction as soon as you’re obscured from view to catch your opponent slipping. 

Look at this feint (30 secs in) during a last-minute flag capture – it’s butt-clenching tension at its best:

Then there’s the gun switching. Outside of ranked modes, everyone starts with a standard assault rifle and a pistol. Put a full clip into someone with the assault rifle and you’ll likely take them out, but you can quickly switch to your pistol to finish them off if you fall just short – if they choose to reload, you win. Sometimes it even pays to do it the other way around since the pistol is more accurate at mid-range than the assault rifle – soften them up before they reach effective range, switch to the assault rifle and watch them ragdoll to the floor. 

When you’re doing well, you enter a zen-like flow state akin to the feeling you get while playing synesthesia arcade games. You’re moving, shooting, spinning, jumping, grabbing special weapons from gun racks and fallen enemies and mulching through the opposition with an ever-changing arsenal – it makes you feel like an action hero.

In some ways, Halo reminds me of a fighting game. When you’re face to face with a single opponent, you’re playing footsie, both of you testing range to see if you can safely step in for a last-minute melee attack. A fully shielded spartan will go down in two melee strikes (unless you hit them in the back of the head, which kills them in one), but it only takes one if you soften them up with bullets first. The key to victory is often in knowing when you can safely close the gap and land that finishing blow before they do. 

I haven’t even mentioned grenades yet. Halo Infinite refers to guns, grenades, and melee attacks as the “golden triangle” – use all three effectively and you’ll win more fights than you lose. If an enemy ducks around a corner to replenish their shields, lob a grenade around after them to delay the recharge or finish them off. If you backpedal over the lip of a hill, toss a grenade up to catch a pursuer. Lock areas down with explosions and stick people with plasma grenades for a guaranteed kill. Look at this – so satisfying: 

Even sprinting is thoughtful here. Rather than just being useful for faster traversal, it’s a tool of deception. Sprinting reveals your location on the radar, which might seem a bit unfair until you learn to use this to your advantage. Sprint down a corridor, turn around and jog back the way you came before popping back into the same corridor from the side – you’ll catch someone off-guard if you time it right. There’s tactical nuance behind every single mechanic here, and all of them are tied to timing – knowing when to push and when to pull.

Each of the maps is built so everyone gets a dance partner. You are sometimes outnumbered, but the majority of your battles are duels in the small team modes. Maps are built to flow. Fights are over quickly and shields regenerate not long after, so you have every opportunity to avoid being third-partied. 

After years of military shooters, Halo Infinite is the punch in the back of the head that the FPS genre needed. Yes, there are some issues with progression on the season pass and it would be nice to be able to select game modes, but it’s refreshing to play a shooter with actual depth beyond aiming and pulling the trigger. 

Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.

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