Halo Infinite tech preview: a promising campaign with tech issues to address

Halo Infinite’s impressive multiplayer component is now available and based on what we’ve played in prior test flights, it’s highly impressive. However, it’s the campaigns that we love to play and in the wake of last year’s controversial gameplay trailer, 343 Industries chose to delay and rework the campaign significantly, re-revealing the single-player component only a couple of weeks back. Despite clear visual improvements, it didn’t answer the key question: do we really need an open world Halo? Can a series defined by skilfully crafted combat encounters work in a sandbox format? After going hands-on with preview code, we’re optimistic – but there’s still significant work to do in polishing the game to perfection.

Let’s quickly discuss what we can talk about in this preview phase. Essentially this boils down to the first four missions of the game, two of which introduce the new campaign and take place indoors, so yes, right away we can confirm that ‘classic’ Halo levels are present in the new game. We can also share our thoughts on a further two missions, both of which take place in the new Zeta Halo open world. Halo Infinite launches on all current and last-gen Xbox consoles and PC, but the code we had runs only on Xbox Series consoles. We’ll be looking at all versions in a much more granular fashion closer to launch.

First impressions? We like it. The first brace of missions do not take place in the open world and what you get instead is a classic Halo introductory mission, reminiscent of Combat Evolved. The vast, grand architecture and Forerunner structures we’re familiar with return, revamped with the new engine. They look impressive and play very well: Halo’s combat has always felt terrific and we’re happy to report that it’s business as usual. There are impressive set-pieces too – a level breaks up in spectacular style and we’re seeing something we’ve not seen before in a Halo game and it’s a great way to introduce the new grapple hook.

In the initial stages we played, the open world also works – because it’s not really delivering the kind of tired sandbox format that, say, Far Cry does. It’s constricted, and we mean that in a good way. The basic lack of width on the halo itself stops the environment from being too vast and too sprawling, tight enough to funnel the player through a more controlled, curated experience. Think of it more as an Arkham-style game, or a very wide Crysis. Traversal across the world – often a tedious exercise in the modern sandbox game – is also well-handled. One of the earliest missions sees you capturing a base that spawns vehicles which facilitate fast and fun travel. The concept of capturing bases may evoke the weariest of open world tropes, but these look to be well-designed, with a wealth of strategies available in how you take them on. We’ve not seen too much of the core open world mechanics based on the limited amount of missions we can talk about in the preview, but what we’ve seen so far looks promising.