Halo Infinite Gameplay Revealed at #XboxShowcase and 10 Year Plan Detailed

Last night at the Xbox Showcase, the most anticipated game was Halo Infinite, a return for the flagship Xbox franchise, set to lead the charge as we move into a new console generation.  During its reveal, we got to see quite a lot in terms of what the gameplay has to offer.

The gameplay begins with a ship crash-landing with Master Chief and a pilot, before John-117 leaves to battle some bad guys.  The gameplay looked pretty much run of the mill, where Master Chief was gunning down grunts, using a variety of weapons and gadgets, and we got a glimpse of the open-world map and the use of waypoints.  However, we also saw that Master Chief will have a grapping hook, which can not only be used directly against enemies, but also to pull objects to the Chief, as well as pulling him towards them.

As the demo came to an end, we got introduced to Escharum, a leader of The Banished, an interesting legion of enemies that we’ve seen in Halo comics and they were also the prominent bad guys in Halo Wars 2.  So I’m happy that they will be getting more of the spotlight in Halo Infinite.  You can watch the eight minute gameplay demo, as well as a short gameplay trailer below.

 

 

Halo Infinite will be powered by the new Slipspace Engine and I’m sure as more gameplay is revealed prior to launch, the better it will get.  But as someone that loves the Halo series, I wasn’t blown away by what I saw.  Yes the game looked fun and it looked nice, but nothing about it screamed next-gen to me.  However, we do know that once the game releases, Ray-Tracing technology will be added via a free update, which is a shame that this wasn’t implemented during the demo.

Additionally, when speaking to IGN, 343 Industries Studio Head Chris Lee revealed the 10-year plan for Halo Infinite.  In the interview, Lee reviewed that Halo Infinite won’t be getting sequels, but instead will be getting content and expansions added via updates, which really plays into the name “Infinite”.

Lee said to IGN “Halo Infinite is the start of our platform for the future,” he added. “We want Infinite to grow over time, versus going to those numbered titles and having all that segmentation that we had before. It’s really about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community.”

It’s all certainly big promises and sounds very Destiny and the problem we have with this live-service formula, is that developers and publishers can promise the years of support all they want, but what they don’t say is that it all depends on the success of the game in question.  So hopefully with Halo being as popular as what it is, the content will be worthy of keeping the player base engaged and thus results in ten years of content support.  Only time will tell.

Halo Infinite will release this Fall for PC Windows 10, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.