GOODBYE INFINITE // HALO INFINITE RETROSPECTIVE

render by @HaloBoxStudios

     Well folks, we finally made it. The final (major) update for Halo Infinite is just a few days away now, marking the end of an era when Operation: Infinite drops on November 18th. So I figured I'd do a little sort of retrospective on Infinite and my thoughts on the game and my time with it. So prepare for me to get REALLY into 343 shill mode because I LOVE Halo Infinite.
     To this day, Infinite has a bad rep due to it's less than stellar launch. But as someone who has literally been playing (and never even took any sort of breaks) since the flights, Infinite has fought tooth and nail and climbed it's way all the way up my rankings of the Halo games. Sure, this is due in part to getting into the machinima community and making a lot of memories that way, but the gameplay in Infinite really made sure I'd want to stick around to get to that point. 
     I'll try breaking this into sections like I did with my last blog, but also like that one, this is gonna be very stream of consciousness. 

REVEAL AND EARLY DAYS

     Let's start ALL the way at the beginning - E3 2018. I was streaming for DarkTriforceFilms alongside some of my friends (the one in the red was originally supposed to play Eagle in Flying By Wire but couldn't due to scheduling conflicts! The other one I do NOT associate with anymore!) and was fully prepared to not get ANYTHING Halo related. At this point, I was a bit burnt out on Halo. I was (and am) not a big fan of Halo 5: Guardians. Everyone kind of dislikes the campaign, and I think I might be in a bit of a minority that doesn't really like the multiplayer either?
      The art style of course too wasn't my cup of tea for what I think Halo should look like and then of course 5 had other issues like no split screen (which I used to use a lot to play with my siblings) and terrible armor customization. I was BEGGING for a new Halo game and one that would fix all these problems I had with 5. I had become accustom to not seeing Halo at these big events at this point (funny because it still kind of happens now), so from the second the E3 presentation started I was in denial of anything Halo related despite how much I wanted it.
     Then the countdown ended and this trailer started playing. It gave so many feelings of Halo, so many familiar sights but ones that didn't exactly look the way they did in 5, and the music was so clearly Halo. But as you can see in the above clip, I just couldn't believe it. Then BOOM - Master Chief's helmet looking way closer to the classic Mark VI than it had in years with that classic Halo motif playing behind it. I was quite literally shaking with excitement (only to not be told ANYTHING else about the game for the rest of the E3 presentation).
​     My mind was racing for the next couple of years, just buzzing with excitement from each new thing we slowly learned about the game. I remember when they first confirmed split screen and "reach style customization" and I was practically doing backflips in my basement. They showed off the cutscene of The Pilot finding Chief and I watched it 100 times, and I even was obsessed with the gameplay reveal (despite a lot of people having problems with it at the time).  I really was on board from the very start of Infinite.
      The most iffy I got was when they did the multiplayer reveal and talked about armor cores for the first time. I was like "there's NO way they're locking armor pieces to specific cores, right? haha??" and while I wasn't a big fan of that it EVENTUALLY changed. I was too excited to really care about it at the time honestly. I just wanted to play the game... and then finally the flights began.

My first ever look in the first Halo Infinite flight

FLIGHTS

     I thought the game had already won me over just watching the promotional videos, but MAN did I get hooked even more once the flights came out. From the jump, the gameplay was exactly what I wanted from a Halo game. I know a lot of people are so set on saying Halo needs "classic gameplay" but it's 2025 and I think "modern" gameplay elements are to be expected, and in my opinion, preferred! Sure, there are elements from the original trilogy that stand the test of time, and from the start I felt (and still feel) like Infinite combines both modern and classic gameplay in the best way possible. Now, I'm just a casual gamer so I'm sure someone who knows mor about development and gameplay mechanics might have a different opinion, but that's not me!
     Even things like the removal of red vs blue was something I was honestly excited about! As you all know, I LOVE being yellow. So every Halo game up until Infinite I'd always be like "mannnnn" whenever I'd load into a match and I'd have to be red or blue. I can't go taking screenshots in that environment! How is anyone supposed to know that dumb blue guy is me? He's not yellow!!! But now here's Infinite saying I can be yellow ALL THE TIME??? SIGN ME UP!
     I couldn't get enough of the flights, I wanted to play as much as I could. I would go to work and be mad that I wasn't home playing Infinite. The flights would only open matchmaking up at certain times, so I would just open them to go into the training mode and do anything else like flying around the map with a grappling hook just so I could keep playing!!! If I'm remembering correctly, I think the first flights only had bot bootcamp? But that was more than enough for me to enjoy.

     And the MAPS?? What a strong selection right out the gate for these flights. Recharge was great, and I was introduced to what has become one of my favorite Halo maps of all time - Live Fire!!! I LOVE LIVE FIRE!!! It got me hooked on the Academy aesthetic, and I've been obsessed with it ever since (clearly). Also sorry that clip is so low quality it's hard finding any footage I had from 2021!!! 
     The flights would continue and I'd do my best to play every single one. Sometimes even accidentally messing up plans I had with my girlfriend (sorry kristina i stil feel bad about that)! We got to try out BTB and even the new BTB 2.0 (or whatever they called it I don't remember) I was hooked on! 

     The flights were a VERY VERY good first impression on Infinite for me, and is honestly probably part of why I had some leniency for the game going forward.  I was just buzzing with excitement I wanted to play Infinite right NOW!!! Throughout all this we were getting our glimpses of the campaign and I was just as excited for that as I was multiplayer. As I said I didn't like H5's campaign, and it looked like a lot of issues I had would be fixed with Infinite's. The flight's finished and I spent every day rolling around on the floor in pain as I waited for the release. And then, something happened...

A screenshot from Day 1 of Infinite's launch, where I used the Zvezda set so I looked different than everyone else

LAUNCH

     ALRIGHT.... let's talk about Infinite's launch since it seems EVERYONE on twitter still likes bringing it up!!! First of all, I want to talk about some things I liked about Infinite's launch. First of all, dropping it early was so cool!!! I couldn't believe the news, I remember being at work and telling literally all my coworkers that it was coming out the next day. Nobody else cared about Halo at the Target Guest Services desk, but they were hearing allllll about it from me. This was technically a "beta" but not really? I honestly don't really remember how it worked but I was just excited that I could play Infinite earlier than I was expecting to.
     And now here's a HOT TAKE about Infinite: I, mellohyelloh, like that Infinite is Free to Play. NOW HOLD ON HEAR ME OUT!!!! Sure, there are some downsides to the Free to Play model, the shop is annoying and especially at launch really needed some ironing out to get it to a spot that was more fair to players, but at the same time Infinite being Free allowed me to play and share this game with so many more friends, family, and others that I would've never gotten the chance to do so before. I remember barely having anybody to play Halo 5 with, nobody wanted to pay 60 bucks for it when it was kind of known as a "bad" Halo game, and with no split screen I couldn't even let people have a chance to try it out with me.
     But Infinite? They could just download it themselves and hop in! Not to mention split screen was back which meant a lot of at home multiplayer sessions connecting any controller we could find to the Xbox. I really really appreciate getting to share my favorite game with the people I love and make new friends that way. Even the spartan on my left in the above image was a coworker who I had never played any game with but he wanted to try out Infinite with me since I had been talking about it non stop! And I'd take that and having to buy armor or battle passes because to be honest I knew from the start I'd do that any way. I love Halo!! Of course I'll be spending money on Halo!!!
​     The gameplay was fixed up a bit and I loved it as much as the flights (despite missing a few funny glitches like the incredibly fast punching you could do with the sidekick). I was so happy to be playing Infinite that it helped me deal with its.... issues. Look, there's a LOT of things that could've been better at launch for Infinite. No team slayer playlist, no match xp, challenges, no forge or infection, etc, etc. But to be honest, it's been so long and the game has changed so much that I don't even really remember everything I had issues with?
     I remember justifying no team slayer to myself at launch like "well, this means I get to play something new every time and not stay stuck in slayer like I have been in the other games" which was kind of true! I really stayed in slayer playlists in all the other Halos, and Infinite really had me go out of my comfort zone and start playing and enjoying more objective game modes. And this continued on even past launch. I love modes like Assault, CTF, Husky Raid, and more now because Infinite really made me try and start liking them.
     I wasn't too upset about no forge or infection at launch honestly, but probably just because 5 didn't launch with either of those modes too. With the update 5's forge got, I figured Infinite was getting something along those lines and could understand it needing more time to cook. Infection's exclusion I didn't really get but it was whatever.
     Customization I was incredibly happy with besides a few things - armor cores and coatings. To this day, I think this was one of the worst decisions they made in terms of customization, locking armor pieces to cores was something I don't know how they thought people wouldn't be mad about, and coatings COULD'VE been really cool!! Imagine if we got to choose the patterns and grime levels on our colors, or even applied different coatings to each armor piece. Next game maybe!!! 
     Challenges being the ONLY way to get XP was such a headache too, it made it so that you couldn't play the game how you wanted in order to progress your battle pass. With no career ranks, that was the only progression to go for, so I was suffering through ranked matches because I needed to and I HATE playing ranked!!! 
     But all of this I was able to sit through because of how much fun I think Infinite was and is. The core gameplay is so satisfying to me and I want every Halo to keep feeling like Infinite. It really really carried the game through all these issues and even the unfortunate 6 month seasons we were stuck in at launch. Remember seasons by the way? Those were neat! There were a lot of ideas that got tossed around early in Infinite's life - the fractures, operations, drop pods... and I think there really was a lot of missed potential with those ideas. I think that potential also kept me going through Infinite's first years. Imagine if we had regular seasons with these intermittent events like the fractures or operations that dropped even more new stuff into the game! 
     Despite everything, I kept playing Infinite and really enjoying it as much as I could. I loved the art, the gameplay, the maps, everything else I could about the game. I used Mark VII because I never really liked Mark V B in Infinite, which was weird for me because at the time it meant I couldn't use the Mark VI helmet which as been my go to every halo game! But I still was having fun unlocking armor and trying out new combos on all these new maps that FELT so much like Halo  to me. I could barely name any map from Halo 5 that I liked, but with Infinite it was hard to name ones I didn't like! So I persisted through this "beta" to get to the next big thing I was excited about.

CAMPAIGN

     I haven't talked about it too much in this blog so far, but trust me, I was just as excited if not more about Infinite's Campaign as I was the multiplayer. I have been obsessed with Halo's story for years and I am always waiting to see how it continues!! After 5's campaign, I was really hoping for something that would course correct and deliver something that would leave a better taste in my mouth than 5 did. And in my opinion, Infinite did just that. Sure, there were somethings I think they kind of overcorrected on - starting the story months after Halo 5 and kind of skipping over a lot of those plot threads kind of sucked, but the story that was told in Infinite I really did enjoy.
     The new characters like The Pilot and The Weapon I really liked and the dynamic between all 3 of them was so much fun. I really can't wait to see more of them in the future. The Banished were exciting new enemies despite KIND OF being a recolor of The Covenant gameplay wise in this game. I am not an RTS gamer so I was never really formally introduced to them in Halo Wars 2, so it was exciting to finally fight them. Escharum was an incredible leader for them, and I loved the way he was so obsessed with his and Chief's legends tying together and what it would mean for both of them. It was a really cool motivation that added on to this mythic status Chief has that is kind of broken with his story in this game.
     The way he comforts and confides with The Pilot shows us he really is a human underneath all that armor, and goes against this legendary and above everyone else status that Escharum is throwing onto him. The dynamics between all the characters in this game really are so cool and I should replay it now that I'm sitting here writing this!!! 
     Jega 'Rdomnai and the other Spartan Killers were fun bosses to fight and Jega himself is a very interesting character that I hope we get to see more of in the future (no WAY he's dead), and running into and hearing about all these dead Spartans really felt like it expanded the world in a way - knowing so much had happened without us here. Then the addition of whatever The Endless could be and The Harbinger was spooky and I really wanted to find out what it would lead to. I had some disappointment there, with her dying at the end of the game and The Endless not being revealed in this campaign, but I still found them interesting. Overall, I thought Escharum was a much more interesting boss and character than The Harbinger though.
     Now, I'll be honest, as fun as it was to explore and navigate on my first playthrough, I don't think I really liked the Open World for Halo. My favorite moments of the campaign were when it was a more linear mission and felt like a classic Halo campaign. Sometimes the open world would just feel boring or like a list of chores I had to do before getting to the next mission. It was fun to go around looking for things like the armor lockers (but I WISH they would've unlocked actual armor instead of emblems and such), and new upgrades but after my first playthrough all that stuff was just kind of useless on other playthroughs. Part of what's stopped me from doing any actual replays is that I'd have to do all this open world stuff again and I really don't want to.
     But when you'd start a mission and get locked into the linear path I thought every mission was very fun and the environments were very pretty. I really really love the way Infinite looks, even if there weren't multiple biomes! The other thing I hope changes for the next game is no more One Shot cutscenes. I think they were neat and worked for Infinite specifically, building on that very personal and self reflective feel the story has, but I miss the grand cinematic cutscenes and interesting shots that the other games had. The opening cutscene for Infinite is SO cool and I wish the rest of them were similar, even if they wouldn't have been in engine.
     Overall, I'd give Infinite's campaign like a 7.5 out of 10!  I really do want to go back and replay it, especially now that co-op has been added and I never got to do a proper co-op playthrough of it. (Yeah it didn't have Co-Op at first but I didn't mind none of my friends bought the campaign).

Mine and Excelled's armor sometime during Season 1

Mine and Synergy's armors I think around Season 3 or 4?

THE GRIND

     Infinite went through a LOT of changes over the years. After the campaign, all there was to do was stick it out and make our way through the live service the multiplayer had. Which to be completely honest, Infinite wasn't very good at being a live service game for a while! Getting hit with 2 6 month seasons right at the start and then a lot of back and forth on when seasons came out, how long battle passes were, when fractures or operations would drop was a bit frustrating! 
     But through those updates more and more of the issues the game had slowly started being fixed. We got new modes, a slayer playlist, match xp, less reliance on challenges, etc, etc. We even got the completely free winter update that added a ton of the missing Reach armor players had been asking for. Sure, Infinite was in a rough spot but it seemed like 343 was doing their best to listen to player feedback during this time.  
     Not to mention that this was the time the multiplayer narrative was at it's peak, with new cutscenes and story beats being dropped with each new season. And MAN out of everything in Infinite, I have to say I think that was the biggest missed opportunity the game had. Of course, with Microsoft and higher management laying people off, it wasn't exactly 343's fault that this got dropped.

     But it was so cool getting to see your Spartan in cutscenes like this again. I would replay Reach all the time just to see my Spartan in the cutscenes, it makes me all giddy! I really wish we could've gotten more of this, especially seeing the ways the story could've gone with Infection incorporating Iratus and that narrative - going on to when we would eventually get the Battle For The Academy missions. I would've loved if we were apart of that fully every step of the way. Getting to see my Spartan's look evolve with each season in these cutscenes would've been amazing! I'm happy we were able to get the little bit we did, and PLEASE HALO STUDIOS IF ANYBODY THERE IS READING THIS ADD THE OLD ONES BACK IN THE GAME FOR US TO WATCH WITH OUR CURRENT ARMORS PLEASE!!!!
​     During all this, it was easy to say I liked Infinite a lot, but it still wasn't beating Halo 2 out for my favorite Halo game. It had it's issues but it was nice to see there was hope for things to get better. And little did I know, I'd be getting MUCH more involved with the game than I ever expected soon enough, alongside what I think is one of the game's best ever updates - Season 5: Reckoning.

SEASON 5

     Season 5 changed EVERYTHING about Infinite for me. I remember seeing the trailer and reading the blog posts and feeling the same sort of excitement I had for the game before it released. Cross Core??? Mark V and Mark VI GEN 3 attainable??? Flood armor??Firefight?? FORGABLE AI??? It was stuff I never even thought could really make it to the game! Knowing I could finally wear the Mark VI without needing to also wear Mark V B was enough to make me backflip alone! 
     Not to mention this update also brought more amazing maps, I think some of the prettiest ones in Infinite with Forbidden and Prism, the first new weapon added to the game with the Bandit (which is CLEARLY the DMR I will never understand the name change), and I THINK (not fact checking this) the first battle pass to have credits earnable in the pass!!! It really felt like this update revitalized the game in a way it desperately needed at the time. I remember this era of the game being some of the most fun I had during it's entire lifespan up until that point. 
     Forgeable AI meant custom campaign missions, something I was incredibly excited for and I downloaded every single one I could get my grubby little paws on! I'd bring my brothers and sister in and give everyone controllers or invite and direct them on how to join over FaceTime and we'd all blast our way through these custom made campaign missions. It really changed the custom games experience for Infinite and people to this day are still making incredible new gametypes and modes using it. Survive The Undead was even added to matchmaking (AND NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED WITH THAT)!
     But Season 5 didn't just revitalize the game, it also revitalized something within ME, that would make Infinite much more personal to me over the years. I've said this many many times, but I had wanted to make Halo machinima since I was a kid and never could figure out how to do it, how to crack the code and make it work for me. My sister and I had been jumping in custom games and telling stories just to ourselves since Halo 2. I had kind of given up on the idea though with Halo 5 because the lack of split screen made it a LOT harder to do machinima when I didn't have any sort of community that I could get help from like I do now.

Me looking at Keith from FBW Episode 1

     It was probably like a day after they announced Forge AI that I wrote what would become Flying By Wire episode 1. After being burnt out on DarkTriforceFilms stuff, I had created a spam channel named mellohyelloh to throw whatever I wanted on. Since we didn't really do gaming stuff on DarkTriforceFilms at the time, I was like oh I can put this up on mellohyelloh! Then after I finished the script, I had so much fun writing it that I just wrote like 6 or 7 entire scripts all at once. I grabbed good ol' Kippers to be in the first one since we were playing a lot of Infinite together at the time, and then uploaded it on November 1st, just a couple weeks after Season 5's release. 
     What I thought would be a video for me and Kip to watch and get 5 views suddenly BLEW UP!!! I couldn't believe how fast this video went up in views back then. I think it took a week or something before it did, so it was really unexpected. From there, we were thrown into the wider Halo Community and have continued onto where we are now. 
     From there, Infinite really started to improve alongside me getting more and more involved with the community. We quickly started work on the other scripts I had written and started connecting dots to make our little videos into a series that would eventually be named Flying By Wire.

A screenshot of me testing things for FBW Ep 2 before S5 even came out

FULL SPEED AHEAD

     Infinite would go onto get more and more updates, bringing new modes, old modes, new armors, new cores (MARK IV MY BELOVED), and more fixes. I'd start to meet more members of the community who have become great friends now (shoutout the Kre8tor Corn3r), be invited to join in on a bunch of different collabs and voice characters in other people's things (shoutout RED LINE from SpiteBoxStudios!) and it's been just a big blur alongside chatting with everyone all about whatever the next update coming to the game was. Even when we'd get a somewhat lackluster update, there was so much fun to be had discussing it with my friends or getting everyone to hop in on the day the new one came out. There's been so many it's hard to cover or remember them all so I wanna just highlight a few of my favorite additions to the game.
     I would love start with a big shoutout to when Headhunter was added, I cannot tell you what update it was but MAN was I having fun with that. I loved Headhunter so much in Reach and now Headhunter has become a running joke in our group (partially due to the announcer repeating HEADHUNTER over and over when you'd start a match). And while I think Infinite should've had and would've greatly benefitted from new sandbox items being added with all these updates, it did make it a lot bigger of a deal when they finally started making their way in.
​     We'd get the MA5K Avenger, which despite being a kind of kitbashed version of the Assault Rifle (which I do not mind at all), really added a whole new element to the game. I remember being so excited to try this out and honestly it's become one of my favorite guns in the game. I remember HaloBoxStudios got it in a video like a day early before the update and I was like WHAT!!! HOW!!!
     I think around that time, maybe the same update we got the Delta Arena playlist, which brought a classic style gameplay into Infinite. Now, I know I was saying I prefer Halo having the modern elements, but I can't deny this playlist was SO fun. It felt a lot more casual than other modes in Infinite and was so much fun to just jump into for some short matches. RUINED when they added BR starts, I'll say it!! Thank god we at least have the option to play Delta Slayer without them now!!
     Sentry Defense was another big one, I think that was added close to when I was first kind of making my way into meeting people in the community after the first few Flying By Wire episodes, and it really served as a great way to hop in and get to know people. It was a great mix of objective/slayer type action and I'll never forget flying through maps on a Warthog trying to spin the turret to lay into the enemy's sentry. Such a cool idea and way to implement the Forge AI and I wish we got more modes like it in matchmaking. Shoutout BB12 for being the worlds best (worst) driver.
     Assault being added felt just like when Sentry Defense did. It just WORKED in Infinite, and every single match I played was so much fun. Everyone was hopping on to play more Assault and it never got old screaming at each other as we slowly, body by body, dragged the bomb over to the point. This was another mode I wasn't a big fan of in previous games that Infinite made me love. I miss this and Sentry Defense being the featured playlists!!! Bring them back for a week or something!!!
     Of course there's a whole slew of other sandbox items that eventually got added, the Fuel Rod SPNKR was a great compromise for getting a new weapon in with a skeleton team, The Falcon finally made it's return with another one of the best modes Infinite has had, Famished Famished Falcons, The Vestige Carbine came along with that to blow our ears out with it's incredibly loud sound effects, and of COURSE one of the best weapons ever to be added to a Halo game IMO, The Mutilator! What an awesome weapon that really feels HALO, you know? I remember that map that was going around with the unfinished version of the gun on it and just running around thinking "This is gonna be amazing when it finally gets added" and WOW was I right!

     Infinite at the end of the day was really carried by the community. They were making new maps, modes, content, and a bunch of that even made it's way into matchmaking! Where Halo Studios sometimes couldn't carry all the weight, so many amazing community members stepped up. Infinite Machinima really seemed to be flourishing alongside the game, but maybe that was just because I was so involved in that community. I made countless (infinite) memories with everyone over the years, and it's hard to believe I only got into this at Season 5! There is so much Infinite related stuff out there to see and explore, and it really makes it feel like there IS love for the game, you just gotta get out of the ol' twitter echo chamber sometimes. 
     While I do love Infinite and it's gameplay and story and yadda yadda yadda, this is what really has made it become my favorite Halo game. I'll never be able to disconnect it from all the wonderful memories I've made, leading up to even attending HCS Worlds 2025 and working an actual Infinite Machinima booth with the friends I met through this very game!!! Such a dream to be able to make it to the final Infinite one, and it felt like a great way to start off the kind of send off era we're entering in as the final update rears it's head.

A pic from the photoshoot we did when we decided to name our show Flying By Wire

SEND ME OUT WITH A BANG

     With that, we're kind of caught up on Infinite. Tuesday will bring Operation: Infinite to the game and leave us in what will assumedly be the game's final state. It has changed SO much from it's initial release in 2021, so much so that the studio has a whole different name and a ton of different staff! If you're reading this and haven't played in a while because you were disappointed, I urge you to give it another go now. There's so much content you won't even know where to begin, and if you're looking for people to play with, you'll be able to easily find someone in the community willing to hop on with you. 
     Of course, this isn't the END of Infinite, we still haven't even gotten an announcement of what the next multiplayer title will be. Just like always, I know the community is cooking up some very cool things that'll hold us over as everyone decides their final looks and finishes up the Hero Rank grind. I know that I'm nowhere near done with Infinite yet - I'm sad to know we're wrapping up with the game but I'm not ready to go just yet! There's so many stories to tell, Wires to fly by, and Collabs to hop in on in the future, and I don't think those'll be going away any time soon.
     I don't know if this was REALLY a good retrospective on the game, those aren't exactly my cup of tea when it comes to writing, but I just wanted to go back and reflect on my Infinite journey. This game means a whole lot to me now as I've said, and I'm going to be sad when we move on to whatever the next game is. (Not counting the CE Remake). I also just wanted to emphasize how much the game has changed, so many people online STILL complain about the launch of the game - and clearly haven't played it since. So many of their issues have been fixed and there is a great Halo game waiting to be played. I want to share the love!

Photo of the old S1 menu with Me, Synergy, and our friend Sean (dressed as Carter)

     I will see you all in the Delta Arena, Headhunter, and Gruntpocalypse lobbies on Tuesday, I'm ready to get Hero Rank and close the era of Infinite out on top. More Flying By Wire soon - and I hope to see some creations from all of you soon too. Whether that be your own machinimas, art, montages, whatever! PLAY HALO!! PLAY HALO INFINITE!!!

​- YELLOH // LOGAN