At long last, the team at 343 industries released a technical test for Halo Infinite ahead of the launch later this year. To say I was excited to be a part of this test would be an understatement as I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this game since 2020. This test was available on both PC (via Steam) and Xbox and offered both a firing range and 4v4 versus bots. There was a limited version of a battle pass present alongside a smattering of customization options for your weapon,vehicle, and Spartan. Below are some of my thoughts so far:
- The game looked visually WAY better than the last time we saw it and I like the updated visuals.
- It was great to finally see some prosthesis options for your Spartan even if it sorta reminded me of the same thing in Call of Duty (heavyweight combat first robotics).
- The weapons (both old and new) “felt” good to fire and were hard to cluster shots, regardless of platform. This really makes me wish Razer offered a mouse with a vibration option.
- The HUD and button mapping feel refreshingly familiar.
- I wasn’t able to get my hands on the new grappling hook thingsbob but at least got to test the gravity hammer (which “fires” WAY slower than Halo 5 and is almost unusable in combat).
- I certainly hope the loading menus aren’t dependent on a cloud connection to function (ala how it is with Halo 1-5 today) as server issues basically prevent you from doing ANYTHING.
- The battle pass looks pretty standard if not vanilla at this point – while I am not particularly thrilled at paying for another battle pass, it does appear to be worthwhile. I have a LOT of XP boosts stocked up from last year so at least I can unlock a bunch of stuff quickly.
- I’m curious to see if you can unlock customizations from the campaign side and if that carries over to the battle pass and vice versa.
- The skins and stuff seem in line with what you could get in Halo 5 via the loot box system.
- I am hoping they do bring back the player vs bots games too (that is usually the version of multiplayer Halo I do these days)
- Unsure if I am automatically in the next Beta or not – here is to hoping!
Friendly reminder: I am raising money for Rainbow Babies and Children’s this year. Can you donate to help sick kids?
