The protagonist is a cyborg super warrior named Master Chief, previously named John, and he’s aided in his fight by Cortana, an AI-based virtual companion. The first three games and the Halo 3: ODST offshoot, which was also excellent, tell the story of the war between mankind and the Covenant, an alien race that worships the Halo rings, a set of weapons created by a long-dead race called the Forerunners.

Finally.įrom a storyline perspective, Halo is a bit complex. And that’s exactly what Halo Infinite delivers. But like those movie franchises, Halo can evolve to make more sense in a changing world while keeping what was special about it in the first place. In many ways, Halo is like James Bond or perhaps Star Wars more obviously, an ongoing success that exists primarily out of nostalgia for a past when it alone dominated. So Halo is important, but that’s been increasingly true for historic reasons in recent years as those newer games, and newer game styles, took over. In the great evolution of shooters that started DOOM and Quake, Halo is the next major milestone before Call of Duty and then battle royale titles like Fortnite. It’s not the first great console shooter per se, but it really is because its single-player and multiplayer components were both instant classics, elevating both story and gameplay. Halo is also important for having essentially created the multiplayer matchmaking functionality that we now take for granted since it’s built into Xbox Live itself. But with the last two games, Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians, Microsoft’s gaming studios lost the script, and I didn’t get very far into either despite multiple attempts.

That is, the first three main titles in the series-remember, there are several offshoots too-are classics, and I played, and replayed, each again and again. This is an important turnaround as the Halo games got less and less interesting over time. I’ve only just started the Halo Infinite campaign, but two things are immediately obvious: the controls are perfect, a rarity for first-person shooters, and the story is a welcome and overdue throwback to the events of the first three Halo titles. UPDATE: I’ve published more Halo Infinite campaign screenshots here.Īfter lurching into uncomfortable territory in the two most recent installments of the series, Halo and Master Chief are back, and in fine form.

Halo 4 edition xbox 360