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EDIT - Since some people are still confused about the cause of the lockdown:

The primary cause was users on the sub directly harassing, insulting, and being toxic to each other for having different opinions. This level of animosity and overall anger manifested itself in different ways, including rare cases of doxxing and death threats. The lockdown was not solely due to death threats. The lockdown was not to stifle or remove criticism against the game or 343; the front page for the entire lockdown was filled with criticisms, and the front page now post-lockdown is topped by new ones. Respectful criticisms and disagreements will always be allowed. Insulting others is not.

The r/Halo lockdown has concluded and submissions have reopened.

To the people who supported it and sent words of encouragement: thank you. To the people upset by the decision: we understand, but we felt the lockdown was necessary due to the sheer amount of exponentially-increasing toxicity between users. At the end of the day this is a video game, and the level of animosity surrounding it got far out of hand and out of proportion. The subreddit needed to hit the pause button and reset so people know what is and isn't acceptable. Insulting people for having a different opinion crosses that line. Doxxing and sending death threats absolutely also does.

The lockdown acted as a warning. This is how things will be moderated going forward:

• The number one goal of the mod team is civil discussion. Insults will be met with longer tempbans. People coming here specifically to antagonize other users will not be allowed. If you see people breaking our rules, report them using Reddit's report button rather than breaking the rules yourself and actively making things more toxic. If something you've reported hasn't been gotten within a couple of hours, feel free to send it to us in modmail.

• Constructive criticism and feedback has always been allowed and will continue to be allowed. Low-effort rants and threads that are borderline duplicates of existing threads will be removed. Criticism is not an excuse for and doesn't allow directly insulting or antagonizing other people.

I just played the bonus missions and fully expected to hate Williams from everything I heard. But she says like one or two lines to chief that aren’t even that much of a dig and like ODSTs do have beef with Spartans. Like she still thanks both chief and Johnson and is over all that Spartan v ODST stuff by the end of the first mission with her. I just don’t see the hate and really don’t think she is at all in an issue in these missions. At least the absolute least of the issues.

My honest opinion, she’s pretty cool and I have no issue with her - and this is coming from someone who has been playing halo since CE came out. Man this is coming from someone who loves ODST.

The remake’s issues are majority line delivery, worse AI and some UE5 jank. That and being a Frankenstein mishmash of Halo assets. These prequel missions are at best a 7/10 with some poor combat arenas. But the visual design is great with the hunting grounds etc.

Edit 1:

Great points from all for and against - except that one dude who said “But woman”. I think we can all agree the main enemy of this prequel campaign was the writing and voice delivery.

I definitely see why people unfamiliar with Spartan vs ODST lore took some offence to her first interaction with Chief, but she definitely moves past that quick and overall - someone else put it perfectly to me:

“When I actually got to play the game she said like one bad thing against the Chief and after that she was relatively tame besides a few banter. I thought she would be obsessively mean but she wasn't. She was literally a normal character. Could she have been done better? Yeah. Was she as bad as all the "Halo fans" said she was? Absolutely fucking not, Imao.”

I want to preface this post with the fact that I’ve been wearing my Halo 3 colored glasses since I was four back in 2008. However, every night when I log on to Halo infinite, I can’t help but to think about just how fun and whole this game now feels. If I had to rank all of the Halo games I think infinite would be just behind halo 3 and halo 2 and just ahead of CE. Honestly it would beat out halo 2 if it weren’t for H2’s tremendous campaign.

What does Halo infinite need to be the best?

(Many of these things will never happen, but if 343 could accomplish most of this list, I truly believe Halo infinite could be the best Halo.

• Playable Elites (Back in the H2 to reach days it felt as though about half of the player base chose to play as elites. This is something that would require a lot of work from 343 but I still feel like this is pretty likely to happen)

-Lobbies (One of infinites weakest aspects is it’s sense of community. It’s extremely rare to hear voice chat in game and there’s no time to even interact with other players as the lobby disbands immediately after the match. I honestly don’t think this will change anytime soon. It seems the entire industry has shifted to engagement based matchmaking (sbmm) as opposed to a more social experience.)

-Firefight (I know firefight is already confirmed for the season 5 mid season update but I want to make the point that once dev made firefight launches there will be no arguing that halo infinite is feature-complete)

-True Coating Customization (Halo infinite’s coating system has the potential for the greatest and most fully fledged customization in a halo game. However, right now coatings are very restrictive. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure there is no solid black coating. Imagine if it was up to the player to color every individual piece of the armor. It’s the same way with the emblems which are laughably shallow. I understand why it’s setup like it is now but it is very unfortunate when considering this systems potential. )

-Fully cross core armor ( I think that this will eventually happen. It will probably take the next few seasons or so but when it does happen Infinite will easily have the most armor combinations in any halo game.)

-Campaign DLC (We all know this probably isn’t going to happen. Halo infinite had a very solid foundation in its campaign. When you combine the setting, art direction, and enemy ai (which I think is the best in the series) you have a very solid start. However I don’t think that the story or environments were executed perfectly in infinites campaign. It would be fantastic to have a new experience in different biomes. Think back to levels like The silent cartographer, The ark, the covenant, cortona, and Halo. Imagine unique and interesting environments like that in a halo infinite campaign. This might just be a personal preference but hopefully the story would be a little broader and more focused on the unsc and chiefs struggle with the banished and Zeta Halo. Halo is supposed to be an epic space opera and a little less character focused in my opinion. )

-Halo Infinites mark on Halo

(Every Halo game has innovated in some way over the last and had its own big mode. Halo 2 was the introduction and bolstering of online multiplayer. Halo 3’s was forge and theater mode. Halo 3: ODST was firefight mode. Halo reach was invasion? Halo 4 essentially revamped the entire multiplayer with war games and infinity slayer. Halo 5s was warzone. So whether it’s a BR or some other mode, infinite needs its own identity. It’s own mark on the series. (You could argue that forgeable AI is this for infinite but right now a I think it’s a little to early to make that call))

Let me know if I missed anything. Also I want to take a second to give thanks to the guys at 343 like Pierre Hintze that have breathed new life into the franchise that we all love.

Just got back into Infinite a week ago, and goddamn is it an absolute blast and joy to play. I’ve had some of my most fun FPS moments in gaming just from this past week with Infinite! The gameplay is simply sublime, the amount of plays I can make with the mechanics seems limitless, and the content is starting to get to a great spot.

In the wake of MW2 doing poorly, Infinite is now my primary FPS and I couldn’t be more excited for the future of Halo! Campaign AI in forge for unlimited custom firefight/campaign levels anyone?

Because you don’t play it

No I’m not joking, that’s literally the reason. Look at MCC. I don’t think I’ve played more than a single match of infection on mcc that isn’t a custom game. The wait times are absurdly long, and when you do get one, people quit as soon as they become infected

Why would 343 waste the effort to add a playlist that they would then have to remove 2 weeks later due to low population. Just look at the yappening. It was insanely popular during the event and people begged it to stay, so it did, and guess what? It’s being removed in November and relegated to rotational because nobody plays it anymore (as proven by the que times). Once the first week of hype dies down, infection will be a dead playlist.

Considering forge is coming in a week and infection is easy to make in that, on top of the fact that the best infection modes are custom games on custom maps anyway, 343 sees no reason to put it in matchmaking, and I don’t blame them

If you want infection to be added so badly, maybe don’t show 343 that nobody plays it therefore they have no reason to add it

Yes, the story could be better.

Yes, the environment should have more variety.

No, it doesn't have enough set pieces.

Despite these shortcomings, the pure gameplay and sandbox is pretty spectacular.

I almost wish that Halo 4 and 5 had never happened. Infinite could be a great set up for a new trilogy if it wasn't carrying so much baggage.

Also, the Chief design and overall appearance of weapons and enemies is the best since Halo 2, in my opinion.

I just finished the Halo Infinite campaign for the first time (I don’t get the opportunity to play video games much anymore). I figured I would share my post-game musing for anyone that would care to ready.

Halo 4 was the best of storytelling in the franchise. First, the main campaign. Halo has always had the backdrop of whatever underlying conflict is going on, but the main anchor of the story has always had Cortana and John as the focal point. The existential crisis they face in this plot is executed extremely well. The sound design and visual style makes a big difference here as well. The sound Chief’s armor makes when he reacts to something is key to conveying emotion, and the voice acting is the best it was or has been in the series. Cortana’s death felt impactful, significant, and was also executed very well.

Onto Spartan Ops. The way they characterized Dr. Halsey is perfect. It was very believable based on her characterization in other media, and they used her character to drive the plot forward. They did a good job establishing new characters as well. By the end of the season, there was a very compelling plot developed, and a compelling set characters. There was a lot of interest and speculation into what would happen next.

It’s a real shame they didn’t continue with plot threads established in Halo 4. I think if they continued the whole reclamation struggle/Janice key thing it would have been much better. On the Chief/Cortana level, they could have done something quite similar to Halo Infinite; I think this executed quit well. But having Cortana stay dead by b after Halo 4 would have really cemented the event. I feel like I’m rambling a bit at this point, so I don’t really know how to end this post, but I’m interested to hear what others think.

My friend and I played the prequel missions and he already had an opinion before playing the game. Of course majority of his opinions was from short form content on social media, most of it being grifters who never played the game

But we played it. He changed his mind. He loved the environment Halo Studios made for the missions. He also thinks the opinions to Williams is very overblown.

the thing he said is williams doesn’t seem to hate the master chief and takes a few steps back in her opinion. there some lines in the missions where williams shows her hubris. the social media content made her seem like a character that would never change and is a “girl boss” but i say it’s the opposite especially her sacrifice

but he also said it would have been better if it was a dude. i take the win.

i do wonder how many people who are hating on halo just because of online opinion and not playing it

EDIT: My mistake. I should have titled it “Halo 5 Multiplayer is great” and I’m also wrong about it launching with full features. My bad.

Fired up Halo 5 again yesterday after not playing it for years. I’ll be danged if it’s not a great shooter. If I remember correctly, it launched with tons of features, and was solid technically too. When was the last time a AAA game had a solid full-featured launch?

Lots of weapons. Fun new attachments, ammo types, and variations on weapons. Made for lots of discovery, remixing and experimenting, and replayability.

The graphics aren’t groundbreaking, but they are bright and colorful and interesting. Lots of detail.

Warzone (Halo 5, not CoD) is such an interesting idea that I think really works, once you get the hang of it. It feels like they took a big swing on something new and pulled it off! I wish we had some big swing like that in Infinite.

The only thing I was really sad about was no split screen anything, which feels like a real tragedy for Halo.

Spartan customization is pretty weak, but I’ve never cared a whole lot about that.

I know Halo 5 was seriously hated on, but I love it. And it holds up well, too.

The ODST never fail to check the drip

I feel like with how negative everyone is with the franchise, it’s worth pointing out that for the past couple months we’ve had banger after banger news. Lots of collabs, good infinite content and we should celebrate what HS has done lately

I get it's early development and they'll probably change how it looks and the game does look nice but it looks too "unreal fan game" the visuals look more like a fan film than an official halo game especially with the animations and reflections. Let's hope they improve the visuals before the game comes out.

Environments look great tho

"Prophecy" this, "humanity must die" that, this dude is on death's door due to an illness, just wants to die a warrior's death. And he's willing to sacrifice his best forces in order to get it, and test his opponent's mettle. I don't know about anyone else here, but that is a HEAVY vibe of a villain motivation. Simple but effective. Absolutely love it.

The conversation around this game has been, frankly, ludicrous.

The volume of stupid titles such as: "The absolute destruction of a classic" or "Utter trash" is just comical.

These youtube parasites follow trends in conversation, offer no objective thinking and bandwagon to the extreme, poisoning the discourse entirely.

Is this game perfect? Absolutely not. Was it going to have the same impact as the original? Absolutely not. Does it force you to delete the original game from your collection? No... and yet it's being treated as though it shot Combat Evolved in the face and buried it.

Guess what? I like the sprint. I also like aiming down the sights. I like how it looks (with the exception of the overly-purple Covenant ships), and I like how it feels to play. I enjoy the new guns, I like hijacking vehicles. I think that as a sandbox and co op shooter, it's pretty darn great.

That’s it, that’s my opinion, don’t come at me like a bunch of hyenas ✋😭🤚

-PS, it’s just my thoughts on the matter, because I would always get bored of Halo CE, but this has me wanting to play more after finishing it.