Halo was mainly fun as a co-op first person shooter, and it had silly multiplayer action as well. It was never trying too hard like Call of Duty was; it was just about having fun. So while I skipped playing #5 altogether, I was happy to hear that Halo Infinite was going to have free multiplayer.

I've only played 2 rounds so far at the time of writing. But I can say this: they got it right. The game feels like the old Halo. The music is clean. The guns feel tougher than they used to feel. The time-to-kill is fair to both the shooter and the defender.

I'm not entirely sure I'll buy the full campaign yet, but what I've seen so far has made me more optimistic about it. I'm still a bit concerned about Master Chief's fate, though. Master Chief is up there in terms of popularity and recognizability, so I would love to see him used in more games in the future. The issue with the Halo series, however, is that they are following a narrative path for the games. Unlike Mario, who has endless adventures and games and seems to "respawn" in every new entry, the Halo series follows a Master Chief aging in real time. If a war lasted 5 years, then Master Chief is now 5 years older by the end of it. It's hard to keep putting him into new combat situations and interesting gameplay scenarios when you are constrained by a fake realism. I recommend the writers just give him some Aragorn quality that lets him age super slowly, enabling him to appear in endless titles without getting too old.