2020 in preview: Can Halo Infinite recapture the magic?
Truth and Reconciliation.
Now that 2020 is here we're having a little look ahead at some of the year's new games that have us intrigued.
For me, every Halo game has been chasing one moment - or rather, one sequence, because it's probably stretching the boundaries of the word 'moment' to call it that. Anyway, you've come out of deep freeze and left the Pillar of Autumn. You've landed on some weird alien artefact shaped like a ring. And then -
Peace! Peace and space! An artefact that looks nothing like technology, an artefact that is a single redwood forest world - mountains, trees, lakes - rising up into the sky. And it's all yours to explore. And even better, here's a Warthog for you! Get in.
The trick to the first Halo game was that it had moments where you'd absolutely swear it was an open world - and surely, with Silent Cartographer, giving you your own desert island justifies as a bit of an open world. And yet you're lead, guided by the best in the business, while all the time feeling like you're the one picking the direction.
This is what I want from Halo Infinite: I want to go back, not necessarily to how Halo used to be, but back to how I remember it being. I want to be alone in the Pacific North-West, while simultaneously floating through space on a big dumb object with an inscrutible purpose. Is 343 up to this? I have no idea, but that 2018 reveal trailer suggests that's what the team is aiming for at least.
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