This past year we’ve watched Xbox be the first to start tearing down the walls of game exclusivity. It began with just four titles, but now we’ve seen the likes of Forza Horizon 5, Oblivion Remastered, and Sea of Thieves become top sellers on PS5, and more are already on the way. The Outer Worlds 2 and Gears of War: Reloaded are confirmed for a multiplatform release, which leaves only one major Xbox IP unaccounted for.
Halo is the last franchise that Xbox hasn’t let go of yet. Perhaps it’s a matter of timing, or concern that seeing Halo on PlayStation will truly be the mark that it has crossed the Rubicon. Many speculate, myself included, that it is only a matter of time before that glass is shattered and we see Halo break free from Xbox consoles and PC. The question, however, is which game should make the jump first? The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite are the two clear targets. After revisiting the latter this week, I believe Halo Infinite could find its second wind if given the chance with a new audience on Nintendo Switch 2 and PS5.
Feels like coming home
This week I stumbled upon a post on a gaming forum detailing a new Halo 3 throwback event going on in Halo Infinite. Looking inside, I was greeted with the iconic Hayabusa helmet as a new cosmetic reward and my mind rushed back to a hot summer day in the back room of my mom and stepfather’s house. Two online friends and I had read about the helmet and had loaded up The Covenant level to jump through the holographic Halo rings in a specific order to unlock the final skull required to get the helmet. It was a memory I didn’t know I still had.
Below the helmet, I saw promotional images of recreations of several iconic Halo 3 maps and knew I had triggered an itch that only a true Halo experience could scratch. Just to satisfy my nostalgia, I downloaded Halo Infinite for the first time in years. I contemplated going for The Master Chief Collection instead to get the pure nostalgic experience instead of a simulacra, but had caught mumblings here and there over the last year or two that Infinite had managed to pull itself together and solve most of its issues and thought I would give it a second chance.
My first order of business was to switch back to my old preferred control scheme from back in the day. Yes, I’m sure mapping zoom on R3 and melee on B isn’t optimal from a competitive standpoint, but anything else just feels wrong. Thankfully, most of the old control schemes are available, but I could fully customize them if needed. With that sorted, I was instantly reminded that Infinite‘s problems never laid with its gunplay.
Getting my hands on a Battle Rifle and nailing my first four-shot in years felt like I was right back in high school grinding Slayer matches late at night with online friends. My ability to navigate maps on instinct also snapped back into place. Somehow, my muscle memory never forgot all the best routes, sightlines, and trick jumps in multiplayer levels I hadn’t set foot in for years.
Beyond that wave of nostalgia I felt, Infinite is just plain fun. While it isn’t the pure multiplayer experience of the past, the battle pass and leveling system are unobtrusive enough to ignore until I feel like exploring them. I was mostly free to enjoy the tense thrills of a CTF match and the exhilaration of pulling off a clutch snipe in a way that feels lost on many of the modern multiplayer games I try out. The best thing I can say about Infinite is that it stays out of its own way of letting me have fun just playing each individual game.
Nostalgia isn’t universal, of course, so I eventually had to leave my comfort zone of classic maps, modes, weapons, and movement style to see if Halo Infinite could stand on its own.
Diving into the regular playlists, my main takeaway was that if this were the package Infinite launched with, the entire narrative around the game (at least its multiplayer component) would be vastly different. Playlists are easy to navigate and I can further tweak what game modes I want to search for within different categories. The map selection is huge, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a ton of community-made maps featured in official playlists with credits to their creator. There’s even a new version of Firefight, the PvE hoard mode that I somehow never knew existed. But it is the community maps and playlist browser that make Infinite, well, infinite. Even though official support is waning, a thriving community can keep this game alive so long as there’s an audience. Launching without Forge may have been the single biggest unforced error that set Infinite into a death spiral.
Daily and weekly challenges are still here, as are battle passes with currencies and cosmetics to unlock. Personally, those were a big part of what turned me off of Infinite in the early days — specifically the challenges. At launch, those could include things like getting kills while holding the Oddball, getting specific weapon kills, and playing specific playlists. Those might seem innocent enough, but since challenges were the only way to progress at the time, it created scenarios where matches weren’t about winning but each individual player trying to complete their own objective.
I knew that had been fixed at some point, and I was glad to see that just playing matches was rewarding me with meaningful amounts of progress toward both a battle pass and individual rank. I might’ve just gotten lucky in my few days back in the game, but all the challenges I saw were as broad as “Play any match,” and “Win X matches” that didn’t conflict with playing the game naturally. Battle passes are another area I remember hearing was overhauled, and that is indeed true. There’s a premium path with extra goodies, sure, but unless you’re really into customizing your Spartan and don’t want to wait to earn enough currency naturally, there’s no real pressure to invest. Plus, you can pause and go back to any battle pass previously released so there’s no sense of FOMO gnawing at you if you take a break.
For those who have been paying attention, none of this is new news. Infinite has been on this path of redemption for years now and probably deserved a big comeback story long ago. Sadly, I believe that era is over for most games. Infinite had its shot at a good first impression and fumbled it. People have moved on and, like me, have plenty of new games to play.
Many PS5 and Switch 2 players know what Infinite is. They might even only know it from its initial bad reception. However, we’re still early enough in this experiment of Xbox games coming to competing platforms where just the novelty of a Halo game on PlayStation and Nintendo hardware will draw people in for the sheer novelty of it. Being free also goes a long way to entice anyone with only a passing curiosity to pull the trigger. We’ve already seen Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 enjoy this effect. Both games, despite their age, topped the sales charts when they came to PS5.
With full cross-platform support, Infinite could elevate the Halo IP back to its glory days with a fresh audience. The Xbox has already seen how well PS5 players take to its games, but the Switch 2 is a budding market still hungry for new experiences. Infinite could be the only game in town for a polished multiplayer FPS. And if it could incorporate the new mouse controls, it could be the best way to play. Everyone on PC and Xbox who was willing to stick with, or return to, Infinite has done so already. I’m not done playing it, and know that it could have a fresh start with a new audience.
