We’ve got the sequence we need to enter the Nexus of the Halo ring, and now it’s time to shut down the repair procedure. And from there, we keep going… and going… and going.
What? We’re not done yet!?
Something I’ve said for years is that most big retail release video games are too long, padded in order to fit an abritrary hour count, rather than curated to better suit the story and experience they’re attempt to instill upon the player. Open world games are particularly bad at this, even when focused purely on the campaign and ignoring most side activities. I was genuinely hoping to wrap up Halo: Infinite in this session, which is why I was willing to take the extra time until the loss of progress from the game crashing.
This feeling only got compounded by the fact that the game felt like it was trying to wrap up and hit the conclusion several times over, and just refuses to hit that finale. The climb up the Nexus, where Chief and The Weapon have their big blowup, and sebsequent heart-to-heart, was the first place that felt like a natural stopping point. Then there was the fight with Escharum to rescue the pilot, which made the point to try and fail to characterize and make me empathize with him before he bit the dust. That too felt like a good place to wrap it up, and then we just… didn’t. I’ve looked it up now, and the Silent Auditorium is truly the last level of the game, but this is the third finale we’ve had to stomach and I was already eager to wrap things up.
Out of all the games in the Halo franchise, I’ve only ever had this problem with Infinite. The campaign would’ve been better had it chosen to make a few choice cuts in the editing room before release. I don’t hate it, but my opinion is starting to rapidly drop. Hopefully next week, we’ll either finish or be finished with Halo: Infinite.
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