Why I HATE Halo Infinite Multiplayer

Hello, welcome back to a new video game

review. So recently I've been playing the

new Halo Infinite multiplayer mode, and as

an avid fan of the Halo series, I just had

to play this game. I was looking forward

to it so much, and it just was kind of

disappointing, to be honest. So there's

going to be a brand new Halo game coming

out in the beginning of December with a

brand new story involving the Master

Chief, and in order to build up hype

around the game, it looks like they've

decided to release the multiplayer mode of

the game in advance. Quite an interesting

tactic, I have to say. And they've even

allowed people to play the game for free

if you have a membership pass on the Xbox

Game Pass. So you don't even have to buy

the game, which is quite nice of them.

But to be honest, if this was a standalone

multiplayer game, I would not even spend a

single penny on this game because it's

just so barebones and basic and so

shallow. Now, this would probably reveal

my age a little bit, but I first played

Halo back when I was a teenager, when the

very first Halo came out on the very first

Xbox. That was all the way back in the

early 2000s. Me and my friends would play

deathmatches. They'd come over to my

house, they'd bring their controllers,

and I would just destroy them using the

scoped pistol. They would have to team up

to take me down, and still I would win

most of the time. I was that good.

Unfortunately, since then it's been over

15 years and the multiplayer game has not

really changed at all since the early

2000s. And instead of getting better, I

feel like the multiplayer part of Halo has

actually just gotten worse over the years.

You see, the thing is with Halo, it's not

really a multiplayer game. You don't play

Halo for the multiplayer. You play it for

the engaging, rich sci-fi story, the cool

characters, and the cool set pieces and

cinematic gaming events. And when it comes

to being an online multiplayer shooter, I

always felt like Halo was like the poor

man's version of games like Battlefield or

Call of Duty or Rainbow Six Siege even. I

feel like there's a lot of popularity

behind the Halo online multiplayer

version, mainly because a lot of people

like me grew up as teenagers and Halo was

their first— for a lot of people, Halo was

our first experience, our first taste of

an online shooting game or a multiplayer

first-person shooting game. And maybe

there's lots of nostalgic value behind

that, reminds us of our childhood. But for

a game that's called Halo: Combat Evolved,

the combat has really not evolved in any

single way. The gameplay is almost exactly

the same as what it was when I played it

as a teenager. It hasn't changed at all

apart from the graphical fidelity has

improved dramatically, obviously, as

technology advances. But really the core

gameplay has remained exactly the same.

And there's a lot of things about the Halo

gameplay mechanics that I really dislike

as an online multiplayer shooter. Number

1, there's no down-the-barrel iron sights

aiming. Usually in most first-person

shooter games, you hold down the right

mouse button and you aim down the sights.

This doesn't exist in the game. Sure,

there's some weapons that do have scopes,

like obviously the sniper rifle, the

battle rifle, a few other weapons have

scopes as well, but it's not really a true

down-the-barrel kind of aiming system. If

you right-click the mouse using any kind

of weapon, it will just do kind of a 2x or

1.5x zoom, and the whole, the whole field

of vision just zooms in slightly towards

the center. It's not down-the-barrel

sights aiming, and I really dislike A lot

of the weapons you just fire from the hip.

It's more like a spray-and-pray kind of

arcadey combat shooter. That's what it

feels like. Another thing I don't like is

the power shields and the armor. So the

Spartans obviously have this very advanced

and powerful shield system which basically

makes everyone a massive bullet sponge. I

just prefer my online shooters to have

more realism when it comes to shooting.

If you get shot by a gun, it hurts. It

should do a lot of damage. If you get shot

in the head, it should instantly take you

down. That's why it's called a headshot.

Otherwise, it just feels very unrealistic.

And in Halo Infinite multiplayer, you have

to empty almost your whole clip of

ammunition into someone's head before it

actually takes them down. It just feels

like headshots don't really mean anything.

And in most encounters, engagements with

enemy players in the multiplayer mode,

it's always just who can spray and pray

most accurately, who can empty their

magazine into the enemy as quickly as

possible and then finish it off with a

melee attack. That's how almost every

single encounter goes. You get players

running towards each other shooting and

then trying to finish off each other with

that overpowered melee attack. I just did

not find the shooting gameplay to be very

fun. The weapons, although they look cool,

they just don't really feel deadly. They

don't feel dangerous. The bullets just

don't really feel like they have much of

an impact when you shoot them and get a

hit on an enemy body. It just feels like

it's bouncing off. Feels like you're

shooting a BB gun, BB gun pellet, or some

kind of air rifle. Now in many ways the

game is very similar to Battlefield 2042

in the way that you have a map and there's

different points you have to capture and

there's vehicles. You've got jeeps,

you've got tanks, you've got aircraft,

all of the vehicles you'll know from the

Halo series. And it does feel very similar

to Battlefield 2042 but in a much more

shallow, diluted version and form.

Everything is just on a much smaller

scale. The maps are much smaller, which

kind of makes it feel meaningless to have

all these vehicles. In Battlefield 2042,

the maps are much bigger, so it makes

sense to have to have vehicles to traverse

the distances and get from point to point.

In Halo Infinite multiplayer, the vehicles

just seem kind of meaningless and

pointless to have there. There's also

barely any customization, so there's no

mods and attachments you can add to the

weapons. They're all very bog-standard

stuff you'd expect from the Halo series.

There's no different classes. There's no

assault, recon, sniper, or engineers.

Everyone's just like the same Spartan kind

of loadout, and the game might be fun for

like a quick few 10 minutes, but after a

couple hours it gets very repetitive and

tedious. There's not really much depth to

the game, and instead of being a game on

its own, it just feels like something to

kill time whilst you're waiting for

something else. It's like some kind of

minigame, like a bonus extra game mode

added to a game. In fact, I'd even say

that the multiplayer game in Halo Infinite

multiplayer just feels like a waiting

lobby whilst you're waiting to enter an

actual game. It's like you're in a queue

for an actual game, and to kill time

whilst you're in the queue, you've got

like a multiplayer mode to mess around in

with vehicles and shooting. It doesn't

really feel like the main meat of the

game, and I guess it's not because that

would be the campaign, which is not out

yet. I also found the maps to be very

boring. All the maps are the same.

There's only a few maps by the looks of

it, and there are always these kind of But

they all just look kind of the same. It's

always in some kind of mountain valley.

There's trees, rocks, streams, a couple

ruined buildings, and that's it. Where's

the variety? Why can't we have some, some

different maps, like on a space station,

or on the Pillar of Autumn, or on a

Covenant ship, or on some kind of space

station orbiting Earth? Why is it always

in some kind of mountain valley with a

load of trees and rocks? And I also don't

like how everyone looks the same. They all

look like the same character with the same

armor? Why are the Spartans fighting each

other unless it's some kind of civil war?

Why couldn't they have one team as

Spartans, the other team as Covenant, and

they play as Elites? That would make it

more dynamic, more interesting in my

opinion. So yeah, I wasn't really

impressed with the Halo Infinite

multiplayer mode. Very bare bones, very

basic, doesn't bring anything new to the

table, very shallow, and I got extremely

bored very quickly.