Halo Infinite impressions: The multiplayer is on an excellent way

It is still a few months to the final release of Halo Infinite, for the first time playable the shooter of 343 industries in recent days was still. In the context of a beta-like trial phase, which was called by the developers, however, only "Test Flight" was only accessible to selected participants of the Halo Insider program. I have now played several multiplayer rounds and believe that that could be something big.

First time: Full technology test-typical was the scope of the trial version manageable. Playable at the time of creating this article:

• Slayer matches 4V4 (human player * inside against bots)
• Three Cards (Live Fire, Recharge, Bazaar)
• Weapon Drills (Target Challenges for Individual Weapons)

In addition, you could already try some Customization options for your own Spartan fighter as a rudimentary Battle Pass was available.

As a taste of the multiplayer action you can watch a trailer here:

The gameplay: a wonderful mix

Many Halo fans had the question, above all, how does Halo Infinite actually play? And the Multiplayer Flight hardly answered another opinion, as: excellent! And that has several reasons:

• Excellent movement: How to move across the maps in Halo Infinite, just feel good. The control is very direct and precise, jumps, slides etc. After a short time, go well from the hand and through numerous adjustment options in the menus, there are many ways to follow. The sprint function, which was still stem of the impetus in the last two parts, is now much better integrated. There is only a slight velocity advantage, but at the same time you are very fast able to lift and shoot the weapon.
• Great weapon feel: All available weapons in the multiplayer flight have not only properly wumms thanks to scattering sound effects, but also excellent hit feedback, which ensures very satisfying shots. There are no exceptions, both well-known weapons such as Assault or Battle Rifle, as well as new creaking such as the Heatwave or the Ravager. Great also: The "Skill weapons" in the game like the S7 Sniper or the new skewer are somewhat more demanding in handling and accordingly have motivating learning curves.
• EQUIPMENT: These items are distributed on the maps and can be collected. Certainly, among other things, an energy sample, a delayable radar sensor and gripping hooks were. Especially with the latter, cool actions are possible, such as the use of weapons. It's nice that the equipments are subtly inserted and do not actively incorporated.

Through these three important cornerstones, the multiplayer from Infinite for me so far felt after a mixture of Halo Reach (Graphical Appeal), Halo 5 (motion feeling) and Halo 3 (equipments) and mixes elements of the popular bungie halos with the slightly flotter Movement of the 343 halos. And that's a mix that's just fun while playing and surprisingly finely grabbed.

Only a clearer effects for the shields I would have wished for. This is not always clear if an opponent still has its complete shield, only a part or no more.

The Bots: Great supplement with air upwards

Even if it is an old hat for other shooters: Multiplayer bots are something new for Halo and the first test flight was mainly performed to try exactly these bots. Distributed over the days, the degree of difficulty of the Ki-henchmen was continuously screwed to the height (first navy, then Odst, then Spartan) and held the Halo insiders neatly on trot.

For the first impression is very positive, because the bots behave almost humanly in some cases, if they are almost thirsting for a player when a player is almost done, grab powers on the maps or throw almost frightening precise grenades. Especially on the higher levels, at least I was at least alone on lost item, especially since the movement patterns are really difficult to predict and again.

However, more than enough improvement potential is still there. There were regular expansion (for example, if a bot is on a spot and jumped) and generally a round victory itself was never serious at the highest level of difficulty. On the contrary, the victories against the Ki mostly fell very clearly. For training purposes but definitely a great addition.

The cards: surprisingly varied

The available maps in the Test Flight offered a good taste of the supposed card quality of the finished game and offered pleasantly a lot of variety:

• Live Fire: A training grounds with distributed small facilities and multiple action hotspots
• Recharge: The energy system offers several levels and is accordingly very vertically designed
• Bazaar: The city map in the center of New Mombasa visually reminiscent of the CS classic Dust and focuses its action primarily on the market square in the middle.

What I found out: Live Fire was most easily capable of all maps, probably through his classic three-way design. In the case of Recharge I had a little more problems to learn the map as it is clearly nested. Bazaar settled in the middle. In principle, the maps from the test Flight make a very solid impression, without ensuring absolute enthusiasm. But they definitely make you feel like the rest of the map lineup.

Battle passport, technology and the rest

In Halo Infinite there are a lot of opportunities to adapt to their own Spartan soldiers, but the tech test scratched only on the surface. For example, helmets, colors and various arms were changed, but it remained rudimentary as expected.

New items are unlocked via experience points and a Battle pass system, which could be played around a bit, but ultimately no statements about the finished system. Anyway, a class complement is the personal KIS, which the matches partly cool, partly incite.

Surprisingly clean, on the other hand, the technology already ran - at least in consideration of the fact that it was a two-month-old build and it was the first playable contact with Halo Infinite. Of a few disconnects, server-side errors and isolated bugs, the matches ran absolutely easily and on my Xbox Series X constant butter soft.

Optically, the title probably no milestone, texture quality, weapon models etc. but were already outstanding in the Flight version and also make you want more. And I have already torndened the sound design, rarely I have heard in a shooter so good and at the same time recognizable weapon noise.

Tobias Veltin @Frischerveltin

That I would like the first multiplayer rounds in Halo Infinite, I was clear from the outset, after all, I've been able to give up any halo multiplayer a bit, although the last two no longer quite so much. But that I would have such a lot of fun with this quite early version, then surprised me. 343 Industries could actually succeed in this, which has many liked, but at least as many have kept unrealistic: a mixture of the female female of new and old halos, which makes infinite interesting both for newcomers such as veterans.

Halo Infinite just feels good and right so far. The movement is right, the weapon palette and the equipment is fun, the maps look balanced and the bots make a pretty good figure. Of course you can not judge now if the finished free2play multiplayer can hold the end of the year of this level. But it suggests that 343 Industries here has a fairly hot multiplayer iron in the fire, which should also be exciting for halo non-connectors.