Since November of 2001, Microsoft’s flagship gaming franchise has been Halo. It single-handedly solidified the Xbox as a real competitor in the console gaming world, and has been a key driver for their systems ever since. From there, it helped cement the Xbox 360 and carry it through a strong generation, and it’s faltering this generation was another bellwether for the Xbox One’s struggles. Thankfully, Microsoft has allowed 343 plenty of time and resources to build the next generation of Halo. Last year, 343 Industries revealed that Halo Infinite would be there next project, and it would be powered by an entirely new engine, called the Slipspace Engine. This has made a lot of Halo fan excited, while many still hold concerns about the future of the franchise that they love. I decided to take the time today to write up a few hopes and dreams that I hope 343 can achieve with Infinite, and a few landmines that they can avoid.

Craft The Seminal Halo story

Anyone who played Halo 5: Guardians’ campaign can tell you that it was a misfire. The story felt unfinished, padded at different sections like the story was cut in half, and had advertising, like its outstanding Hunt the Truth podcast, that didn’t connect to the game at all. Numerous members of the team at 343 have come out and admitted to the flaws in Halo 5’s story, primarily acknowledging the complaints about a lack of focus on Master Chief. This is a good sign that 343 is open to feedback, and it seems they have been in general ever since the launch of Halo 4.

With the two trailers we have so far for Infinite, its clear that 343 wants to capture two major themes in there story: The wonder we felt when first coming to a Halo ring, and to focus on the relationship between Master Chief and the now evil Cortana. Guardians ended with Cortana awakening AI across the system to join her cause and utilizing the power of the Forerunner Guardians to escape. Our trailers for Halo Infinite make it clear that biological life has already lost to her in the war, and now its up to Chief to try and find a Hail Mary to stop her on this new Halo ring.

Frankly, there are a lot of ways this story could go wrong. Crafting a story around a largely silent protagonist is very hard, especially when the story will center on that protagonists relationship with the antagonist. In Halo 4, 343 managed to tell an emotional story with the focus on Chief and Cortana, and I hope they take the lessons they learned there and apply them once more. The trailers have shown that 343 knows how to capture emotion into a short span, with those moments of a father desperate to meet his children once more, but it remains to be seen if they can keep that going for a 7-15 hour story mode. I suspect the campaign will be in no way short on wonder, with our team exploring this installation to find a way to stop Cortana once and for all. For the story to succeed and for Infinite to be as good as we all for, they have to nail the emotional impact. In a world where we get games like God of War, Red Dead Redemption, and Bioshock, Halo needs to be more and better than they’ve done in the past.

Massive levels to wage war

Think back to some of the most memorable moments from previous Halo games. The Covenant from Halo 3, which saw you assaulting three towers in a massive open space, The Reclaimer from Halo 4, which saw you guiding a Mammoth along to destroy turret installations, and Silent Cartographer from Halo CE, which saw players searching a massive island for their objective. What do these levels all have in common? Expansive playgrounds with varied objectives, along with fun vehicular combat interspersed with close quarters action. That alone is the essence of Halo.

With the initial trailer, 343 showed the wide world of this new installation and I can only hope we get to explore these large combat spaces in almost every level of Infinite. Imagine opening the campaign with a mission where you and your new UNSC friend have crashed onto the ring, and you then use that point as a forward base of operations. Let the player feel like they are taking this ring over from Cortana one mission at a time, with each being a new section of the installation that is fought over. Each section could be varied, with many being massive and open levels like those mentioned above. I’d even love if we got side missions available to us, similar to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, that would allow us to save more members of the UNSC or AIs who are disloyal to Cortana.

Of course, close corridors are a needed yang to this yin, and I’d hope those are used in conjunction with the large levels to add a sense of weight to every conflict and conquest. In the end, I suspect 343 knows what the fans love about levels like these and will apply them as such going forward.

Build a thriving multiplayer community with strong focuses on competitive and social

The online multiplayer has been a focal point for Halo ever since Xbox Live launched in 2004, and each game since has had a strong and thriving community online. It arguably peaked with the launch of Halo 3, and has been falling in popularity and importance as more competition rose, be it Call of Duty, to League of Legends, or modern day options like Fortnite and PUBG. It is harder than ever to solidify a steady population for games, but 343 has shown they are apt to keep up with regular content drops and updates for their games. They will need to be more flexible and open to patches and changes then ever before with Infinite. For it to succeed, their will have to be frequent tweaks to the playlists, maps, and settings to keep the community hooked, along with regular content drops of new maps and gametypes.

Personally, I felt that Halo 5’s multiplayer suite was one of the fullest and most well done of the entire series. It had strong competitive maps and modes, movement options that added to the gameplay rather than detracting from it, and largely well designed maps. At launch, however, the game felt good but almost empty. It only shipped with three main multiplayer modes and lacked franchise staples like Assault, Oddball, and more. These would be added as the game went along, but you only get one chance at a first impression. At launch, Infinite should be rich in both maps and gamemodes for all gameplay types. From fun gametypes like Race and Infection, to competitive main stays like CTF, Assault and I would suggest bringing back Richochet from Halo 4. It was an underrated gametype and could be a perfect fit for competitive.

Lastly, there needs to be a focus of developer made maps for all types of play. 4v4 and Free for All were well supported in Halo 5, but there was a distinct lack of maps for Big Team Battle fans, and those who enjoyed one sided objective gametypes. Zanzibar, Blood Gultch, Avalanche, and High Ground are classic Halo maps, and we got no maps like those from 343. They instead focused on the good but lacking Warzone mode. For Infinite, they need to make sure to support the Big Team community and have developer created maps ready at launch for those players. They may not be as vocal as the competitive community, but they’re no less important to its long term viability.

Lingering questions: Sprint, Battle Royale, and more

To Sprint or not to Sprint? That is the question facing 343 as it develops Infinite. The hardcore community has long despised sprint being added to the Halo franchise, and arguing it, along with armor and movement abilities, are what has caused Halo’s downturn in popularity. This would seem like a gross overstatement, but the question of sprint’s place in Halo is a genuine one. Should 343 put things like Sprint into Infinite? I’d say that it is almost inevitable that sprint will be there in one form or another. The movement abilities in Halo 5 proved to add to the gameplay rather than detract from it, so I could see 343 adapting what worked from that game and adding new features. What those changes might be, I’m not sure. I would be shocked to see Infinite without sprint in some fashion.

The current trend to chase in the game’s industry is Battle Royale, and its quickly becoming a staple in nearly every major multiplayer game. Despite 343’s now infamous comment that the only BR they’re focused on is the Battle Rifle, it would be shocking for Infinite to not launch with some sort of Battle Royale mode or another. An ODST mode where you and your team drop onto a planet or Halo ring to practice write itself into the lore. As long as it doesn’t detract from the main game, I would love to see a Battle Royale mode added to Halo Infinite. Perhaps it could replace Warzone as the wildcard mode for the multiplayer suite.

Of course Infinite should feature a revamp of the Forge map making tool, but I hope that 343 expands it to new levels. An on the computer map making tool was added to Halo 5, but launching with a full map creator for Infinite could be game changing. More options, more tools, and more flexibility for the mode could make Infinite a draw for years to come. As an old fan of Forge, I hope the new version draws me in just like it did after Foundry was released in Halo 3.

We’re just getting started.

I think the future of Halo is bright. The team at 343 has a really good grasp on what makes the franchise tick and has already released one game with a fantastic story, and another with a fantastic multiplayer suite. I hope for Infinite that they can nail both sides of the coin, and hit the ground running when it comes to supporting both competitive and social communities.

343 has an unenviable task ahead of them to build Halo for a new generation, but its release on Project Scarlett, Xbox One, and Game Pass will guarantee a good population for the games. All they have to do is stick the landing.