Halo Infinite gameplay demo showing off wide area, map system, and the new grappling hook system definitely drive people to think that the game is shaping up to be an open-world FPS. Not to mention 343 Industries themselves boasted that Infinite is Combat Evolved with “freedom” to explore. That assumption is half-right and half-wrong, apparently.
Speaking with Destructoid, Halo Infinite‘s Associate Creative Director Paul Crocker said that the game won’t be a full open-world FPS game like Far Cry. Instead, it might have taken some clues from adventure titles like Metroid or Castlevania (or ODST), where more areas will be unlocked as you play through the story mode. And then with new tools, you can look out for more stuff to find.
And grappling hook might not be the only new item Master Chief can use throughout the whole of Halo Infinite gameplay. Head of Design Jerry Hook added that by exploring more of areas on the Halo ring you could not just find but also upgrade more equipment.
Personally I think this is good news. Yes, even ever since Halo CE Bungie did experiment with open maps such as ‘Halo’ and ‘The Silent Cartographer’. But making a ‘fully open-world’ game seems like a misguided attempt to attract wider audiences and could end up making Halo Infinite gameplay and level designs not as focused and tight as previous titles. Besides, a huge open-world means more processing resources need to be spent on graphical quality as well. For instance, draw distance, textures quality and transferring, et cetera.
