One of the takeaways from this week's new Halo Infinite campaign footage was that it appears the new Halo game is designed purposefully to give players a heck of a lot more freedom than in past games. 343's Joseph Staten doubled down on this in a blog post. He said Halo games have always been about giving players freedom to make tactical choices, but none have ever come to close to what Halo Infinite will offer in terms of player freedom--and this includes the freedom to send AI teammates to their deaths just seconds after saving them, if you so wish.
"Halo games have always been about freedom, and more specifically: the freedom to make interesting tactical choices to optimize your power projection inside a rich physical simulation. While previous Halo campaigns have been chock-full of interesting choices, none have had a world simulation that comes close to Halo Infinite's," Staten said.
In Halo Infinite, players will be trekking across Zeta Halo and taking down Banished enemies who have overrun UNSC encampments. Players will have the freedom to fight the Banished in a variety of ways to get the job done.
"Banished bases like Ransom Keep aren't obstacles across a linear path. They don't have one or two or three avenues of attack; they are approachable from every cardinal direction--and often from above and below as well," Staten said. "They don't just have designer-crafted, pre-placed weapons and vehicles that encourage you to lean into a particular set of tactics. These mighty fortresses stand ready to repulse any arsenal that you choose to deploy against them."
Halo Infinite also changes up the series formula by adding an RPG-type system that allows players to augment Master Chief's equipment to their liking. The image below shows how players can use Spartan Cores to acquire upgrades for Chief's suit.
"Do you want to invest in your Threat Sensor to improve your reconnaissance capability before executing a stealthier base assault? Do you prefer to amp up your Shield Core to enable a more tank-like, smash the-gate-and-danger-be-damned approach? Maybe the Grappleshot is your priority to maximize freedom of movement and manipulation of battlefield objects like Fusion Coils? All of these decisions and more are just fine by us," Staten said.
Finally, Staten joked that Halo Infinite's level of freedom extends to the freedom to send AI teammates to their death just seconds after declaring, "You're safe now." This was one of the sequences in the campaign footage that players latched onto and joked about, and so did Staten. "Because Halo Infinite is a game that always does its best to say 'Yes!' to you and the choices you want to make… and that includes the choice to launch a perfectly good Warthog full of newly-liberated Marines 'safely' off the side of a mountain," he said.
In other news, the blog post showed off Craig the Brute's glow-up.
In a big shift for the series, campaign and multiplayer are separate, standalone products. The campaign is a $60 game, while multiplayer is free-to-play. Both are also included with Game Pass when the game launches on December 8.