Halo Infinite Season 5; quick review

Source: 343 Industries

This is a quick review that will cover the two new maps, forge AI toolkit (playing not building), the Extraction game mode, and xp progression. Unfortunately, I will also touch on SBMM because, as a casual Infinite player, logging on every 2-3 months to get destroyed for the first 3 matches is not fun. It does has an affect on one of the new maps, which I will go into detail, and it's something you should keep in mind when you boot up this new season.

New Maps

Forbidden:

Right off the bat, I will say I do not like this map whatsoever. However, I can see it playing well for a specific kind of player (the sweaty kind). So, what's wrong with it? Layout. The layout of the map is extremely unbalanced in favor of a dominating team. There is a section of the map, right in the middle, that's like an open bridge. From there, you can see almost all sides of the map and the opposing team must funnel to get to that position. It makes for perfect spawn killing and since you never have to go into the enemy's spawn, they will stay there. On top of all of that, it's a very open map in terms of spotting. If you have a solid shot, you can pick off enemy's from the middle of the map. They won't ever get a chance to meet you since they have to funnel or flank out in the open. That's probably the biggest problem. Why are the flanking routes open to the middle of the map? You can clearly see the enemy moving around to get behind you, so you can just pick them off and they'll be right back at their spawn. It also doesn't help that I never got anything other than slayer. So, for a slayer heavy playlist that encourages unbalanced spawn trapping, the map is not good. It's also strange how unusually large the map feels. Playing against a 4v4, players stick out like a sore thumb when you see them. Given the little cover for flanks, a competent enemy team can squad wipe until it's game over. Rant over.

Prism:

Unfortunately, I didn't play this map a whole lot. I guess the playlist really likes Forbidden. However, this is actually a solid map. There are multiple routes to take that offer both teams the chance to coordinate successfully. Overall it's a very nice looking map that's surprisingly not too dark. There are also multiple levels to some sections that are easily accessible (grav launces too!). In my opinion, it's diffidently a step up from Forbidden on all fronts, gameplay and visuals.

New Mode

The new game mode, Extraction, sort plays like a Hardpoint match. This time though, the rules of capturing and completing an objective a little different. Every player spawn in with their own "extraction device." Once one is planted on the one and only site you must defend it from the opposing team. The enemy team can take over your dropped extraction device and the timer will restart. There is no time limit to this mode and the only way to win the round is to have fully completed the timer on your own extraction device.

Forge

There was a new update to the forge that added programable AI to whatever map you choose to make. This has players already creating their own versions of the upcoming Firefight game mode. The range of tools are pretty expansive as you can have a ton of allies (at least 2-3 squads worth) and a ton of different enemy types. On top of that, the maps that people have already put out, about 2 days into this update, have been pretty impressive. It's nowhere near the level of polish as official maps (some anyway). Even so, if people can dish out maps this quickly that function like this, even if it is simple, just imagine what the community is going to create months from now. This leads me into the xp progression system.

Progression

Last season we were introduced to an actual ranking system (crazy right?). With the addition of the new forge assets, we can finally earn xp in our custom games. I'm not too sure of the extent of how much you earn. I'd imagine it takes into account farming and deducts some xp from your game. However, having it in there, in the custom games browser, is an absolute win. Remember when the game launched with no progression system at all? No, a battle pass is not a progression system! While some have argued that this should have been in the game on day one (like many other things), it's nice to see that we got it at all. 343 could have easily let this game die, cut their losses, and went to work on the sequel.

This is a solid package, and we haven't even gotten the official firefight yet! It's supposedly coming a few weeks from now, don't worry. I guess NOW is the start to the "next 10 years of halo."