Halo Infinite

Dovahkiin

Well-known member
For those unaware, a new book called Shadows of Reach that will lead into Infinite is coming out soon, and judging by early reactions to it, is apparently pretty damn good.




Same author (Troy Denning) as several other recent books that have likewise been well received. Those who liked Eric Nylund's books should definitely check his stuff out.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
For those unaware, a new book called Shadows of Reach that will lead into Infinite is coming out soon, and judging by early reactions to it, is apparently pretty damn good.




Same author (Troy Denning) as several other recent books that have likewise been well received. Those who liked Eric Nylund's books should definitely check his stuff out.

I definitely will. I have some time before Infinite comesout so
 

Dovahkiin

Well-known member
So, finally found the time and willpower to finish Shadows of Reach. Twas a good read overall, as expected of Troy Denning... although I'm increasingly suspecting he'd probably prefer to work on the smaller spycraft stories involving Veta Lopis and Intrepid Eye more than the 'A Master Chief Story's he's been cranking out lately. Not to downplay the latter's quality, but since there are only so many ways one can mix up Chief introspecting on various aspects of his life while pulling off an intricate, but fairly generic military operation and outmaneuvering a refreshingly competent Covenant opponent... they are starting to feel a bit formulaic in comparison. Not bad by any means, just not as novel as what the former category offered.

That said, with SoR leading directly into Infinite, I thought I'd share a few major takeaways and interesting tidbits from it here.

Blue Team's main mission here was to retrieve from what had been Halsey's lab on Reach 1) a lockbox marked by an Avar saber imprint, and 2) a set of three cryobins. They successfully do so, but are deliberately kept in the dark about their contents, aside from that they'll supposedly be a critical tool against the Created, and their own awareness that these cryobins generally store biological material. The safe bet is that they're probably cloned (and still living to some extent) brains of Halsey's, with which she'll create a Cortana 2.0, basically, who will in turn be the Offensive Bias to Cortana 1.0's Mendicant Bias. And, judging by the dialogue that was found hidden in one of the trailers, possibly interact with some of Cortana 1.0's fragments that were cast off in Halo 4.

Aside from that, the Banished are on Reach to find a portal that leads to the Ark, overseen primarily by Escharum (apparently Atriox's mentor back in the day, the second-in-command of the Banished, wielder of a Gravity Axe, and a legendary figure in his own right), Castor from Denning's prior novels (the Keepers of the One Freedom have been absorbed into the Banished), and a cunning ex-Silent Shadow Elite named Inslaan 'Gadogai. They likewise succeed in finding and activating the portal, and Atriox (plus several lieutenants) passes through it on a Lich. Atriox has left thousands of Banished back on the Ark, but is confident that they'll hold their gains there, and claims there are more pressing concerns he has to oversee personally in the Milky Way. In what is probably buildup for a HW2 followup, Castor then betrays Atriox, boards the Lich with a few dozen Keepers, and heads to the Ark with the intent of finally starting the Great Journey. Accompanying him is 'Gadogai, who's been effectively coerced into the Keepers by this point, and Veta Lopis + her Ferret team, who have actually infiltrated the Keepers and become some of Castor's most trusted operatives.
  • Aside from 'pure Banished' who report directly to Atriox or his most loyal lieutenants, the Banished routinely hire or otherwise absorb smaller ex-Covenant factions into their ranks, which are regarded as distinct 'clans' from that point onward. Banished clans are very loosely aligned, to the point of openly skirmishing with each other over spoils and territory, and are basically allowed to operate however they please so long as they carry out Atriox's orders and don't compromise his broader objectives.
  • Aside from the Keepers of the One Freedom, this book has two other Banished clans in the Legion of the Corpse-Moon and Ravaged Tusks, described as raiders and smugglers/slavers, respectively. Unsurprisingly, they're poorly disciplined and ineffective compared to the Keepers, and are basically manipulated by Castor into being his cannon fodder. And although we don't get their official names, Escharum eventually shows up with a unit of grey armored jump-jet Brutes who are extremely tough and well disciplined, and are accordingly dubbed the Grey Guard by Chief.
  • The Grey Guard have some fairly exotic weaponry, including an incendiary weapon that fires 'sticky' plasma which continually melts through a target, and a new category of 'shock' weaponry (alongside 'plasma', 'needle', 'spike', 'fuel rod', etc.) that utilize electrolasers and have EMP effects.
  • The Banished tolerate some clans (the Keepers in this case) allowing Humans into their ranks, although it seems to be disdained by most of them, including Atriox himself. Who harbored no ill will towards Humans in his comic series, oddly enough. I suspect that's bitterness about Cutter curbing his plans for the Ark.
  • Atriox is able to open the portal to Reach from his end through shards of the the exotic Forerunner crystal from First Strike, the ones that Tartarus delivered to Truth in the novel's epilogue. Seems that Truth stored them in the Forerunner Dreadnought, and they've been sitting there all these years until the Banished retrieved them.
  • Haven't read it myself, as it's detailed in a short story that only comes with Walmart orders of SoR, but apparently the Banished encountered and fought through Covenant survivors in the Dreadnought, who've also been hiding there all this time. "Something something, the Halo was incomplete." I guess.
 
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Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
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Osaul
Both the UNSC and Banished put a great deal of effort into ensuring they don't draw a Guardian's attention to Reach, and Chief mentions that interstellar civilization was sinking into a "nightmarish surveillance state" under Created rule. The Banished also refer to Cortana as 'the Apparition'.

That's about it though.


Any solid specs on Chiefs new armor?
 

Dovahkiin

Well-known member
Any solid specs on Chiefs new armor?
Off the top of my head, GEN3...
  • weighs 400 kilos.
  • has its operating systems partitioned so as to prevent AI from compromising it.
  • has an AI counterintrusion program called SPDR, that was actually glimpsed in one of the trailers, being developed for it.
Wasn't really contrasted with what previous MJOLNIRs could do, but at one point Chief punches a low flying Banshee pursuing him, and actually sends it spinning some distance away.

The new Grappleshot appears, but isn't described much, as does a passive camouflage system that I'm guessing will be another new ability. Unlike active camouflage, which directly bends light around the user, this is a bit more conventional in that it's just a nanofilament coating that adjusts to surrounding terrain. Not quite as effective as active camouflage, but less power intensive.

Side note, the Banished also utilize a new weapon called a Skewer, basically a giant Spiker that fires big, anti-armor spikes.
 

Dovahkiin

Well-known member
My God, some actual news!
TL;DR
  • New release target is Fall 2021
  • Lots of technical info on the graphics WIP from July
  • "Craig" was a result of the AI facial animations not being finished at the time
  • Brute beards and facial hair were also a WIP at the time
  • Coatings (armor skins in multiplayer, for those unaware) will have a decent variety in the starting set
  • Customization is basically Reach, with more options
And some new screenshots, renders, and concept art.

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Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Another update issued by the team and towards the end of the community update, the blog talks about Halo: Infinite.

And sadly no plans yet for a Halo Wars 3 for those perhaps interested in that.

 

Dovahkiin

Well-known member
So, for those unaware, a new book called Point of Light is coming out soon.

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It's a sequel to another recent book called Renegades, which was pretty good. Focuses on a Malcolm Reynolds/Han Solo-esque salvager named Rion Forge (daughter of Sgt. Forge from Halo Wars) and... another character* whose presence would be a spoiler. And apparently, not only is PoL even better, but will be pretty huge for the lore in general.
Haruspis said:
I’m excited because this is the biggest, most universe-shattering Halo story told since Greg Bear’s conclusion to the Forerunner Saga in Halo: Silentium.

Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one!

---

Here’s the thing, it’s really, really hard to do a spoiler-free review of this book.
So. Much. Happens.

You’re going to go into this with a particular set of expectations from what’s on the cover. You can guess which Halo ring that is, so you can infer which Forerunner book this kind of a sequel to.

But you’ll never guess – no matter how immaculately versed you are in the lore of the last twenty years – where it goes from there.

I genuinely lost count of the number of times I said “Oh, fuck!” out loud at some new revelation, some new connection to an old story, character, or even the settings – from previous stories to multiplayer maps (loving this new trend by the way, 343!)
And, like the Forerunner Saga, this isn’t just a story that looks backwards at what’s come before, or sideways to set things up for Halo Infinite. No, Point of Light is a story that opens doors for the future of the series in the long, long-term.

If Halo Infinite is a platform for the next ten years of the series in the format of the games, Point of Light sets things in motion which feel like a platform for the next twenty-or-thirty years for the broader scope of the franchise.
There are questions that are explored here about the galaxy’s ancient past, which reveal truly immense possibilities for its future – for untold millennia to come.
I'll be sharing the big takeaways here once it releases, but it definitely sounds like something to keep on one's radar for fellow lore nerds.

That's none other than Guilty Spark, or Spark as he goes by now, who now inhabits an Armiger body and is a companion of Rion, after having gone through quite a bit of character development with her in Renegades.
 

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Sigh.
This means I've got ten days to get Renegades read.

In other news, I read Shadows of Reach a few months back and it was... there. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it was just there. It was the most there novel in the Halo lineup since The Cole Protocol.

If there's one thing that Troy Denning is good at, it's in writing the interplay between the protagonists and the antagonists when nobody can see each other's hand of cards. Last Light, Silent Storm, and Oblivion were great because both sides had their own agenda, and came to entertainingly wrong conclusions about what the other side had planned. That's present in Shadows of Reach, it's just... bland.

There was an interesting subplot where the Spartans got sidetracked from their mission of retrieving sample containers from Halsey's old lab*. Blue Team ran into the local militia, and decided to help them liberate Reach from the Banished. It was a good one with some moderately colorful characters, it's just that the whole novel was dull and grey enough that I couldn't get engaged, not like Last Light or Silent Storm.
 

Dovahkiin

Well-known member

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And for anyone else who's been worried about the game pushing the Banished too hard (at the expense of the rest of the story), one line in the article seemingly confirms that the Created will also be antagonists at launch.
Inside Infinite said:
Players will not only experience the immediate story of Chief’s reawakening to confront the Banished and Cortana but if they look around, they may find glimpses of the future as well.
Seems there's an audio file in the article as well. Featuring Chief and Halsey in the immediate aftermath of Halo 5.
 
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Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
Still haven't opened Renegades yet. I've been busy. =P
Strangely enough, I find myself worried the most about the gunplay in Infinite. The weapon sandbox of Halo has always been important to me, ever since I sunk hundreds of hours into playing Halo PC. There was something quintessential about Halo's guns that I don't think many other FPSs have captured. It's their look, their feel. Some of the worst FPSs I've played felt like the guns existed on a sliding scale of damage, accuracy, and fire rate, but there wasn't anything to love about those guns.

Sometimes Bungie made mistakes. The Halo 3 assault rifle was... mediocre, and all plasma rifles are pale shadows of their Halo: CE incarnation. But Bungie usually got it right.

343i got it wrong, or at least they did in Halo 4. If I've played Halo 5, it's been so long ago that I can't remember what the gameplay was like. The gunplay in Halo 4 felt lifeless. Though this can be partly attributed to poor encounter design, there wasn't much to recommend the gunplay. This wasn't helped by the fact that Forerunner weapons were just reskinned Human weapons, and the BR and DMR have no business being in the same game as each other. When you have that many redundant weapons, choices become meaningless.

We haven't seen much of Infinite's gunplay, but the gun design looks uninspired. Hope that doesn't translate into gameplay.

But if that art is to be believed, Infinite is going to be beautiful to play. And if there's one thing I've learned from Halo 4, it's that even mediocre gameplay can be salvaged with co-op.
 

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