Then and now: ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ (2001), top, and ‘Halo Infinite’ (2021) 343 Studiosįor those just joining the fun, Infinite is Halo’s eighth FPS installment, following five titles developed by Bungie and two previous games made by the current steward of the series, 343 Industries, which inherited the Halo IP when Bungie split from Microsoft to develop Destiny. In Infinite, it finally has the map to match.
From the start, the series strained to deliver a less restrictive experience than the technology of the time typically allowed: Even in 2001, Halo had the spirit of an open-world game. But it also comes closer to qualifying as “combat evolved” than any entry in the series since the trilogy that concluded 14 years and two console generations ago. Halo Infinite, released on Wednesday for Xbox systems and Windows, has the Halo feel that instantly transports longtime players back to 2001: the floaty physics, the gratifying gunplay, the existential stakes.
Now Halo has sized up, too, adopting a newly limitless title to go with an extra-expansive setting. Twenty years later, Microsoft’s market cap is bigger than ever, and the company’s latest, greatest Xbox system, the Series X, outweighs the trailblazer by a pound. Halo helped kill the murky, claustrophobic corridor shooter of old and drag the genre into the 21st century, via a trip to the 26th. Master Chief may have looked like Doomguy, but Halo didn’t look like Doom. From any spot on the surface, the rest of the ring stretched outward and upward, a gleaming invitation to examine its mysteries. When Xbox players took control of Master Chief for the first time on November 15, 2001, they discovered vast environments that sprawled above and beneath the exotically landscaped skin of the game’s titular alien ringworld. The Xbox and its flagship franchise were behemoths worthy of Microsoft’s market cap.Įven aside from the size of its famous Spartan supersoldier, Halo has always felt huge. Master Chief, the protagonist of the Xbox’s breakout launch title, Halo: Combat Evolved, stood 7 feet tall and weighed 1,000 pounds in his armor (even more than the Xbox). Most video game characters associated with certain consoles-even the ones with an attitude-were cute, cuddly, and a few feet tall: Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, Pikachu, Kirby. And then there was the system’s helmeted mascot. The controller it came with was so strangely rotund that children had trouble reaching its thumbsticks while grasping its bulbous sides. The system itself was a whopper-the largest, heaviest, and fastest gaming machine on the market. In late 2001, everything about the brand-new Xbox was big.
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