YMMV / Halo Infinite

• Anti-Climax Boss: Jega 'Rdomnai has a fair degree of menacing buildup both in-game and in pre-release materials, but is ultimately nothing more than a mini-boss mechanically immediately before Escharum (who averts this trope). His fight is almost identical to Chak 'Lok, down to including a generous amount of Shock Coils throughout the arena to stunlock him with, with the only things really standing out as his Nightmare Fuel presentation and the fact he's entirely a melee-only boss.
  • It's far from anti-climactic given the difficulty of the boss fight on higher difficulties. Many players accidentally headed into the encounter without optimal weapons, and mayhem ensued.
  • Completed averted with his counterpart in Firefight; Jega is a menace: the free form nature of the maps, his one hit slash, and his enhanced stealth capabilities have made him somewhat infamous in the community.
• Breather Boss: Both battles against Adjutant Resolution are pretty easy, even on Legendary, as both arenas have ample cover to evade him and have Shock Rifles aplenty. The strategy to defeat him also isn't too difficult to figure out given the very obvious glowing weak points on his arms (especially if you've seen the Tips Screens advising you how to take down Sentinels).
• Broken Base: Cortana’s Heel–Face Turn. While some parts of the fanbase are happy with Cortana getting a touching sendoff that wraps up her character arc, others view her redemption as forced, undeserving and poorly executed due to having killed billions to enforce peace in the galaxy, especially when her big revelation isn’t that she should not have done that, but rather that she shouldn't have done it without John.
  • The revelation isn't that she shouldn't have done it without John. It's that she and John were a team, and that without him she lost her objectivity and went way too far. She knows that had she been with John all along, she would likely not have done the things she did, and takes responsibility for them. She also makes up for what she's done by ensuring John would have the Weapon with him and damaging the Halo so much that it will potentially take many years or even centuries to self-repair, ensuring the Banished could never fire it.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Atriox being revealed to be alive in The Stinger. After the Villain Opening Scene at the game's Downer Beginning, where he defeats Master Chief in single combat; did anyone seriously believe he'd really be unceremoniously Killed Offscreen after that?
  • The Weapon being a copy of Cortana. How else was she going to perfectly imitate her and trap her? It's so obvious that many players thought The Weapon already knew.
    • It's a case of being obvious to us and Chief, but not obvious to the character herself. The Weapon is a sentient that is around six months old and has very little information that was not relevant to her mission. She didn't even know what the Banished are when you first retrieve her. Since she didn't know Cortana or anything about her, why is it surprising that she only realises later when she discovers she has the same mannerisms?
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Jackal Snipers, especially on Heroic and Legendary. Despite wielding the 3-hit kill Stalker Rifle (which is a 3-shot kill compared to their usual armaments, the one-shot kill Beam Rifle) and the mountains of signposting giving away their presence, they will still snipe players out of nowhere. It's not uncommon for players to end up caught unawares by the Sniper and get routinely 3-cycled by Snipers on Legendary difficulty, where they fire their Stalker Rifle fires so fast that it might as well be a one-shot. This is humorously Lampshaded in the description for Legendary difficulty.
  • Brute Berserkers. They don't have any ranged attacks, but move fast, can take a lot of damage before going down if you don't aim for the head (and even then, their constant movement makes headshots difficult), tear through any Marines you have with you, and can kill you in two hits on Legendary. It's not uncommon for them to wipe out an entire team in Firefight.
  • Cloaked Elites. With the inclusion of the Threat Sensor, it's much easier to spot and kill them... If you can work out that the damn things are nearby before they impale you on an Energy Sword, as their cloaks are some of the hardest to detect in the entire series, and if you end up fighting them before you get the Threat Sensor, well, good luck. They're also much tankier than in previous games, so they can easily survive long enough to get into melee range.
  • Emplaced plasma cannons. Make sure you knock them off their mountings because if an enemy commandeers one, they can shred you in two bursts on Legendary.
  • Brute chieftains, specifically the ones armed with gravity hammers. As usual they are extremely tanky and hit like a truck — they can take three or four hits from a gravity hammer themselves — but their homing lunge attack with an absurd speed and range makes them the deadliest they've ever been.
  • Make sure to prioritize Brutes or Elites with Commandos and Ravagers first. Both of them can drain your shields and kill you very quickly, and hit you accurately even from a long distance.
  • Dropships. They frequently spawn right on top of you, with little cover around, AND they have two mounted plasma cannons, which, as mentioned, can kill you almost instantly on Legendary.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Glibnub, the Grunt comms officer who can be heard broadcasting over the Banished's propaganda towers near-instantly won a fanbase after the game's release for his hilarious and often Leaning on the Fourth Wall commentary on the game's events.
  • Among the game's storyline bosses, Bassus gets perhaps the least attention with little foreshadowing before he ambushes the Chief at the Excavation Site. He nonetheless earned a decent fanbase thanks to his fight representing a sudden but fair Difficulty Spike that needs full mastery of your movement to beat. It is telling that when Season 02 for Multiplayer added a set of "HVT" banners representing various major Banished characters, Bassus is among them as the only plot-inconsequential character among them.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Continuing from Halo Wars 2, Atriox further cemented his reputation as one of the most popular villains in the series by absolutely manhandling the Master Chief one-on-one in the game’s intro.
  • Escharum himself has gained a lot of fans due to his respect for the Master Chief as a Worthy Opponent, and his desire to go out in a blaze of glory by fighting him, capped off by Darin De Paul’s wonderfully hammy performance.
• Fan Nickname: Some have dubbed Echo-216 'Brohammer', in homage to fellow Pelican pilot Carol Rawley's 'Foehammer' callsign in Halo CE.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Maxing out the Grappleshot and securing the Duelist Energy Sword gives Chief a devastating combo, as he can stun enemies, give them the automatic wallop when Chief reaches them, then attack with the sword for a 1-2 punch that will insta-kill anyone but bosses and Bullet Sponge enemies, and even the latter will be seriously hurt unless they have energy shielding.
  • The Grappleshot in general, as players have done Just Cause-esque exploits using it, such as grenading a Warthog and grappling it to traverse the map.
  • The almighty Razorback stack. Despite eventually unlocking Rocket Warthog, Scorpion and Wasp requisitions, nearly every overworld activity can be tackled with a Razorback packed with five Marines wielding power weapons - especially with Volatile Skewers, Arcane Sentinel Beams, the ol' reliable Rocket Launchers and the tried-but-true Sniper Rifle. Riding up to an unclaimed Forward Operating Base, a High-Value Target or a Banished Stronghold will have the Marines taking care of most of the ground troops before the Chief even reaches his destination. Since enemies will typically focus their attacks on Chief when they see him, Chief can provide a distraction for the Marines as they completely wreck the Banished.
  • Of the weapon variants, the Arcane Sentinel Beam is seen as easily the most powerful upgrade to the original and one of the more dangerous standard weapons in the game. Its quirk is that it dispenses all of its damage in roughly three times the speed. While the now shorter burst fire and limited reserves make it close to an All or Nothing strategy, the raw damage per second outstripes anything short of a scorpion cannon. Since NPC marines have infinite ammo and five can be positioned in a support position on a razorback, some have called it the mobile scarab gun.
  • The most powerful gun in the game is ironically a weapon that's not even coded properly. Players can just get an artillery cannon built for puncturing starships that has an infinite range, infinite ammo, and doesn't damage players if players fired it at their feet right after the tutorial. How powerful is it? Enough to take out the Final Boss in four shots.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Grunts, Jackals and Skimmers armed with either Disruptors or Shock Rifles become this while exploring the overworld with vehicles, most noticeably in aircraft. They always come in groups and their weapons disable vehicles in only a handful of shots; it's usually harmless, but it becomes irritating when a player's Wasp or Scorpion gets stunlocked several times in a row because of the sheer volume and surprisingly long range of massed Disruptor/Shock Rifle fire. Skimmers in Firefight meanwhile are frequent swarms and always carry Dynamo Grenades, turning nearby vehicles non-functional without fail and constantly causing rapid area-of-denial assaults virtually every chance they get if they get too close to a control point, especially with the Catch Skull activated.
  • Sentinels, especially on higher difficulties. They end up being able to absorb a surprising amount of damage while wielding powerful weapons that can kill you in a handful of shots, plus their constant flitting around makes it hard for you to hit them, and easy for them to get the drop on you by flying over or around cover.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The September/October Insider Flights saw the brief resurrection of Halo 2's double melee button combo, allowing players to cancel their melee attack animations by reloading their current weapon (BXB) or swapping weapons (BYB). Doing so quickly enough as seen here produces Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
  • Brute Choppers have some odd physics if EMP'd just as they are about to fall off a ledge or go over a man cannon, as gravity seems to stop having an effect on them and they can launch to the other side of the map or outside the skybox.
  • Grappling any Fusion Coil while standing on top of it will launch the player upwards. The results are fairly tame with the low ceiling collision of most multiplayer maps, but doing so in the Campaign's open world will send the player rocketing into the stratosphere.
  • One of the most powerful weapons in the campaign introduced by The Spiffing Brit is not even something players are supposed to even have access to. It doesn't even have a model or a name but when players fire it, it has infinite range, explosion splash damage, infinite ammo, and doesn't even harm the player when they fire it at their feet. And it can be obtained very early in the game.
  • Normally, when spawning, your character does the usual "cock/ready weapon on pickup" animation. However, there's a chance of your character's hands not immediately rendering upon spawn, making it look like your weapon is readying itself via invisible hands.
• Growing the Beard: When 343 made Halo 4, they made some changes to the Halo formula but they still stuck fairly close to the style introduced by Bungie, and as a whole was well-received but not quite as refined as the Bungie games. Halo 5: Guardians made significant alterations to the campaign (four player characters as a team for the entire game) and the general gameplay (enemies were a lot tankier, aggressive and could attack from much farther away), which contributed to its' mixed reaction. Halo: Infinite made even more radical changes to the campaign and gameplay, but had successfully refined many of the concepts introduced in Halo 5 to create a much more tactically satisfying game^note Universal sprinting remained but was not as big a speed increase as before, helping to keep it from upsetting game balance. Ledge clamber works much better in an Open World Environment rather than feel forced in linear levels. The Thruster Pack is altered to be an equipment perk (picked up in multiplayer, toggled gear in campaign) instead of a universal feature of all Spartans. Enemies with longer range also makes more sense in an Open World Environment, preventing you from just sniping everyone and forcing you to navigate the space to close the gap., and was applauded as the best Halo game 343 has made.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When we first see the holographic recording of the Pilot's wife and child, just before he rescues Chief, you might assume he's searching for a way back to them. But as it turns out they're already long dead and he keeps the recording to remember them by.
• I Knew It!: It was widely expected that Cortana would destroy a planet to make clear what she was willing to do to enforce peace on the galaxy. Doisac was considered a top contender for this given the brutal nature of its inhabitants.
• Like You Would Really Do It: After watching Atriox kick Master Chief's ass, he is reported dead by the Banished. After the backlash from Jul 'Mdama's death in Halo 5: Guardians, and with Atriox having a long, developed backstory, people doubted he actually died. The Stinger at the end of the game reveals he didn't.
• Magnificent Bastard: Escharum is a war chief of the Banished who once served as mentor to their warmaster Atriox. Taking command after Atriox goes MIA, Escharum creates a Cult of Personality around Atriox's visage to maintain order in the diverse Banished and rallies to repair and fire the Zeta Halo, possibly in retribution for the destruction of Doisac. Viewing the UNSC Spartans views as Worthy Opponents and desiring a fight with Master Chief himself before his age catches up to him, Escharum creates a specialized team of Spartan Killers to combat them. Killed by Master Chief, Escharum dies happily at having had a glorious Final Battle, and is acknowledged by Master Chief as a soldier trying to do right by his people.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Craig ^Explanation Within hours of its release, a screenshot◊ of a Brute wearing an expression of "I regret all my life choices" from the gameplay trailer quickly became a way of mocking the game's low texture quality. Even better, the fandom has taken to calling him "Craig", something 343 Industries readily approved. With the delay of Infinite, the entire game has been nicknamed "Craig". The release of the Campaign overview and the accompanying Inside Infinite blog led to many people noting that "Craig" (the Brute, but also the game) was looking a lot better. 343 even included an Easter Egg atop the Tower in the form of a shrine with the original "Craig" model.
  • The Pelican Pilot's exuberant "Yes! YES!" has become one, even being incorporated into the Zenimax/Microsoft merger video.
  • Jega the edgy OC ^Explanation The Campaign Overview saw the first (in-game) debut of one of the members of The Hand of Atriox, "sadistic Spartan killer" Jega 'Rdomnai. With his pitch-black/blood-red armour, raspy voice, prosthetic mandibles, robot arm with built-in Energy Sword blades and accompanying Bloodblade, Jega fits the literal textbook definition of an edgy Original Character. Plenty of comparisons have been made with similarly edgy characters, most notably Shadow the Hedgehog.
  • A few days prior to Infinite's surprise multiplayer launch on November 15th, the Pringles website put up a countdown timer to the launch date, despite the fact that the launch was supposed to be a surprise. While it was quickly taken down, the news had already spread throughout the community. When the launch went through, a number of jokes regarding Pringles' trustworthiness were made.
  • "Welcome to my tower, Master Chief." ^Explanation Elite boss Chak 'Lok's greeting to Chief has become memetic on Youtube due to how amusingly casual and friendly it sounds out-of-context, with many commenters comparing it to Mephiles the Dark's memetic "gamer pad" rant from Real-Time Fandub.
• Moral Event Horizon: Cortana is revealed to have crossed it by responding to Atriox's defiance with cracking the Jiralhanae homeworld of Doisac while he was Forced to Watch. While the Spartan training facility she also ordered the destruction of could at least be considered enemy combatants and a strategic asset (as can her destruction of the UNSC Headquarters in Sydney on Earth), Doisac was estimated to have a population of 12.5 billion lives, many of them civilians not in open rebellion against her. This act is made worse by the fact that the Banished weren't even fighting her at all at that point: they just weren't bowing down to her rule, making her talk of "peace for those who do not resist her" feel hollow at best.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Quite a few fans report feeling intense joy upon hearing the classic shield recharge sound in the reveal trailer.
  • The "click" sound when enemies are killed from a long distance to let the player know, yep, they got 'em.
  • Pop! "Yaaaaay!"
  • The immensely satisfying KLUNG produced when using the Grappleshot to deliver a high-speed Megaton Punch.
• Narm:
  • Cortana and the Weapon's use of the former's lines goes beyond being Meaningful Echo to frankly ridiculous over time, as it almost feels like, at least in the case of the former, the script ran out of things for her to say around John and decided to recycle dialogue instead.
    • The Weapon is literally a copy of Cortana, both of whom's neurology is derived from the exact same person (Halsey). Hardly surprising that they would respond to similar situations in the same way. It's even one of the themes of the game, that things are cyclical. The Weapon is even worried when she realises her connection to Cortana whether the same thing will one day happen to her.
  • Escharum's lines can come across as this, from Badass Boast to something more akin to trying too hard.
    • Given Escharum is literally putting on an act given the huge differences between his propaganda to the Banished and his private audio logs, it's not that he's trying too hard. He's literally putting on his bravado so that the Banished stay in line and the Chief will fight him.
  • In the Final Speech by Cortana, her saying that she and the person she is addressing were "perfectly perfect" similarly sounds like someone who ran out of things to say but kept talking anyway, ruining the mood. Then again, it's just so Cortana.
  • The fact that one of the Forerunner facilities you explore is named The Conservatory can be this if you're from the UK: it's a British term for a greenhouse-like room to the rear of a house, and when you hear the name you're thinking of a place to have a nice cup of tea rather than a mysterious alien structure.
• Narm Charm:
  • As usual, Marines are childishly enthusiastic about Chief making them do long jumps in a vehicle, even if they're careening to their death.
    Marine: We're flying!
    Marine: Woo-hoo! DO IT AGAIN!
  • As mentioned in Narm above, Cortana awkwardly trailing off to "perfectly...perfect" may seem mood-disrupting...but at the same time, it is completely in character for the Cortana we know to do so. Adding onto the circumstances (a final recording left for Master Chief and the Weapon) makes it equal parts heartwarming and tragic, as the fumbling and loss of words makes the entire scene feel like Cortana is holding the "conversation" for as long as possible, if only to delay the inevitable and final goodbye in the end.
  • Jega ‘Rdomnai’s design received plenty of criticism for being over-the-top and edgy. In the game, however, the design works well thanks to the genuine Nightmare Fuel that he brings to all of his scenes, as well as his surprising Hidden Depths friendship with Escharum.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The House of Reckoning, particularly if you assumed it was just a bigger prison Chak 'Lok sent humans to after he was done with them. It's really a place where human prisoners are given equipment and made to defend replicas of UNSC bases as practice for Banished troops. And Escharum is very proud to show the place off to Chief.
  • The scream heard when the Harbinger kills Zeta Halo's Monitor 117649 Despondent Pyre, seemingly by ripping her open.
• Older Than They Think:
  • This isn't the first time Halo has used an open-world system. Halo 3: ODST also used an open-world system, though scaled-down and used as a Hub Level for disparate mission levels.
  • While the lack of the Plasma Pistol overcharge shot's ability to EMP vehicles may come as a shock to those used to it, iterations of the weapon prior to Halo 3 lacked this quality.
• Porting Disaster: The PC version of the game, on both Steam and PC Gamepass, runs terribly in the campaign. Machines that should be objectively stronger than an Xbox Series X are unable to achieve a stable 60 FPS regardless of settings, which is compounded by severe stutters whenever the framerate deviates even slightly from whatever the target is set at, meaning trying to target higher framerates has the game feel less smooth.
• Salvaged Story: Halo 5: Guardians had fans disputing a number of problems with the story, from taking the focus off Master Chief, setting up a massive Sequel Hook that creates a new threat for humanity beyond the Covenant War, but the main reason Cortana's Face–Heel Turn so disputed is that it undid the emotional impact of her death in Halo 4. In this game, Cortana is given another chance to perform a Heroic Sacrifice by destroying a part of Installation 07 to prevent the Banished from using it to their own ends, earning her a Dying as Yourself moment with the Chief. The story also sets up the Banished as the new primary foe, relegating the Created War largely to footnotes while not ignoring the impact it had on the galaxy, as the Banished were only able to rise up because of the chaos.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The radar in this game is almost completely useless, as it only really shows enemies that are sprinting, and frequently fails to detect enemies standing even a couple feet away.
  • With the launch of the Beta, the battle pass is proving to be very unpopular with the community. The main complaints are the glacial speed at which progress is made, the lack of XP rewarded to players outside of challenges, and how both of the above pressure players to focus on challenges at the expense of enjoying the game or focusing on the objective. This, on top of the battle pass requiring ten dollars unless one is willing to settle for the bare-bones free version, has left many players feeling irate, as it neuters progression and removes the incentive to play outside of challenges since you literally can't progress if you're unable to finish any for some time.
  • The official Firefight implementation is a King of the Hill mode, meaning controlling points more than the A.I. enemies do by the end of a match. Which also means they're primed on multiplayer maps that can't actually calculate for how to handle spawns beyond "drop enemies at a navigable position". This can result in your entire time being wiped in seconds at virtually any point because a Phantom quietly drops anything, up to several high-class Brutes/Elites and a boss with a One-Hit Kill weapon, directly on top of everyone at the hill, before you even have the chance to duck for cover.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • The Ravager. In the campaign, it's fine, being essentially a handheld plasma mortar for area-denial and indirect lobbing at groups of enemies. In multiplayer, it's damn near impossible to get a kill against another player due to its astoundingly low damage, even against energy shields. Woe betide you if you get a weekly challenge to get player kills with it.
  • The once-reliable Plasma Pistol has turned into this after the weapon balance changes made so only weapons of the "Shock" damage type (Disruptor, Dynamo Grenade, etc.) can disable vehicles, thereby removing the Plasma Pistol's anti-vehicle utility. Even the classic multiplayer "noob combo" is harder to pull off due to the decreased tracking of the charged shot, and many other weapons can kill a player faster and with less risk than the pistol if the charged shot misses.
  • The VK78 Commando is seen as the inferior successor to the Covenant Carbine, being a mid-long range automatic rifle with too much recoil and not enough damage to cover for it. Ideally, you'd want to treat it as semi-auto, but even in that case, its damage isn't amazing compared to other mid-range weapons like the BR or AR. About its only use is as a "support" weapon to help soften enemies for allies to deal the killing blow.
  • The CQS48 Bulldog shotgun is frequently considered this in multiplayer, mostly due the differences it has to previous games' shotguns as listed under They Changed It, Now It Sucks! below. The primary issue is that the majority of the time, one can simply unload a burst of assault rifle ammo into an opponent and melee them in the same time and distance it takes to get off the 2-3 close-range blasts the Bulldog requires. Many players simply prefer to use their defaults instead of picking the thing up.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Infinite is probably the easiest, or at least the most manageable, Halo game to complete on Legendary difficulty. While trying to Rambo at close range will likely get you vaporized just like previous games, the larger more open levels make long range sniping with the battle rifle to avoid close range engagements much more viable, and this strategy cancels out most of the advantages the A.I. has at higher difficulties since most of them aren't armed with hitscan weapons. You also have a number of other advantages such as upgradable shields, the grappleshot for quick escapes, and deployable cover, and can stack the deck further in your favor by going into missions with any weapon selection you wish, and even bringing in a full squad of 5 marines decked out with heavy weapons to help you clear major outposts like Chak'lok's tower. The only really insane sections are the ones that force you into a specific playstyle, such as the Bassus boss fight, the first encounter with the Skimmers, or the gondola ride.
  • As below, the irony is that Infinite's difficulty is actually higher, but the myriad of tactical options available this time around makes the game feel more balanced on Heroic. Normal feels fairly easy especially when sniping from afar or deploying the Razorback Stack. The main challenging parts are the boss fights, which are massively more challenging as you scale up the difficulties because of their higher health.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: However, according to developer interviews, the difficulty in Infinite was tuned higher than in past Halo games. The boss fights can be particularly challenging, motivating players to master their new equipment quickly. Some of the open world areas can also be very tough, as it's quite easy to get caught out in the open with no cover and get shot to death in the back by Snipers, Phantom deployments or randomly patrolling, high-ranking Elites/Brutes.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While not without controversy (specifically in regard to some technical polish, microtransactions, battle pass progression and multiplayer playlists), the game has been highly regarded as merging the stylistic designs and streamlined narrative of the Bungie games with the more evolutionary gameplay and intimate storytelling of 343. The end result is a game that looks very similar to classic Halo but offers the player so many new options in order to explore the setting and take the fight to the enemy, while also introducing many new characters and ideas to the universe. Even Bungie purist reviewers who harshly criticize the campaign's plot, level design, and open world generally admit the actual gameplay and combat are the best out of all the Halo games made by 343 Studios as opposed to Bungie.
• Tainted by the Preview: After the Xbox Games Showcase on July 23, 2020, many fans were left feeling extremely skeptical about the state of the game, especially considering that it's supposed to be a Killer App title for the Xbox Series X.
  • Veteran Halo fans were unimpressed by the fact that not only are sprinting, sliding, and clambering returning but a grappling hook is being added to the game. Many veteran Halo fans have maintained the opinion that the "Enhanced Mobility" hurt the PvP in Halo 5: Guardians and that the addition of a grappling hook will only exacerbate the problem. Luckily, this seems to be at least somewhat alleviated by confirmation that the grappling hook in multiplayer will be more of a pickup similar to equipment in Halo 3.
  • More generally, audiences were left unimpressed with the graphical quality of the game. A common complaint was that the textures looked incredibly low-resolution and very flat, as well as noticeable graphical pop-in (this is most noticeable in that the obligatory "Chief overlooks the Halo and takes in its gorgeous visuals" scene looks distinctly low-res and has clouds popping in and out on mountains). Additionally, some commentators have criticized Microsoft for making the game (and on a wider scale, most of their exclusives) also run on the Xbox One in addition to the Series X, as it limits 343 in what they can really do with the console due to having to accommodate the old hardware. The problematic launch of Cyberpunk 2077, especially its Porting Disaster PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions worsened the issue, with people calling for the cancellation of the game's past-gen version.
  • There was some relief in the rumour that the presentation was recorded several months prior (presumably for the cancelled E3 2020 Microsoft Panel), and the shorter, minute-long campaign trailer that was released alongside it had short shots displaying very improved textures (most notably a shot of the new Brute Mangler in Chief's hand that looked leagues more textured than what was showcased in the gameplay trailer). However, the fact that fans have been waiting on the game for five years and there are still major issues that need to be worked out (like the lack of textures) this close to release has many worried. (This turned out to be a completely fabricated rumour, as the developers later stated that the build was only weeks old, as opposed to several months.)
  • 343 revealed that the color customization system was to be changed to "armour coatings" (akin to Destiny's shader system). While in theory this offered some more interesting texture options (such as chromed, muddy or rusted), past games offered two simple color options for a primary color and a highlight color, giving players more freedom of choice rather than a preset armor coating, and color choices were always completely free at the start.
  • Press releases and developer interviews that seem to suggest Infinite will be a live-service title have also raised concern and received a mixed reception. While some such games have been successful, such as Destiny 2 and The Division 2, others such as Anthem and Ghost Recon Breakpoint have demonstrated the weaknesses of such titles, such as the absence of a complete story on launch, a reduced focus on a single-player experience, and a requirement for a constant internet connection just to play the single-player content.
• Take That, Scrappy!: The developers appear not to have too great a fondness for Spartan Jameson Locke, the divisive protagonist of Halo 5: Guardians:
  • His helmet is incorporated into the shoulder armour of Hyperius, implying he was killed or at least defeated by him, one of the weaker bosses at that.
  • There's also this exchange from the last Recovered Audio Log, where Dr. Halsey questions Chief's psychological fitness to lead the mission to take down Cortana:
    Dr. Halsey: I'm sure Spartan Locke is available.
    Master Chief: That won't be necessary.
• That One Attack: Firefight will rapidly make you begin to detest certain things the enemies can do, because they're notably amped up compared to the campaign. Two cases in particular are berserker Brutes, who move so fast and hit so hard that even a controller auto-aim has an absolute fit attempting to keep up with them, and Skimmers totally loving to throw Dynamo Grenades to sap your shields and paralyze your vehicles. If the Catch Skull enables, expect many Dynamo Grenades to rain upon you at any possible opportunity a Skimmer happens to be around, which is nearly always.
• That One Boss:
  • Chak 'Lok is a hell of a Wake-Up Call Boss, where if the player didn't take the Threat Sensor gadget very seriously they'll want to here. Cloaked and wielding an Energy Sword and Pulse Carbine, he can hide better than most cloaked Elites and then three-hit kill you in seconds if he gets first attack. On higher difficulties he becomes an absolute nightmare, as without stunning him with a Shock Core, he'll never stand still, while his sword becomes all the more lethal. It also doesn't help that he not only abuses lunges, but his sword suffers from a severe Hitbox Dissonance, able to slash you well past the actual model's reach. (Fortunately, a player can create a Threat Sensor bubble, then switch to the Grappleshot while remaining in the bubble.)
  • Bassus, the hammer-wielding brute chieftain who ambushes the player outside of the Banished dig site, is extremely fast, hits like a truck, and takes an absurd level of punishment before going down, not to mention the fact that he's fought in an extremely confined space, where avoiding his hammer is nearly impossible. Less than a day after release many players were venting online about how many times he'd killed them.^note PROTIP: Make sure your Grappleshot is at 3rd level so it has 40% less recharge, and use it to zip behind him every time he charges.
  • Of the overworld assassination targets, Ordo 'Mal and Myriad stand out for being particularly difficult to the point of almost necessitating vehicles where the other captains can be reliably fought on foot. The former pilots a heavily-armored and shielded Wraith and is backed up by multiple Shades that quickly rip even tanks apart on higher difficulties, and the latter are an aggressive Hunter duo with significantly more health than other already-dangerous Hunters.
    • On Normal difficulty, if you load up a Razorback with marines and give them power weapons, Myriad can go down so quickly you don't even realise the marines did it, leaving you to mop up. On Heroic or above, even in a Scorpion the Hunters can destroy it so quickly you have to bail out and fight them anyway in some cases.
  • Tremonius can be a pain for fresh Legendary and even LASO runs. He's armed with a Hydra and Bulldog, hard-hitting weapons that he'll switch between to better combat the player at range and in CQC respectively. Like other Brute Captains, he wears a jump pack that affords him rapid traversal of the arena and a ground slam attack that aggressively homes in on the player. And given how this all takes place before Outpost Tremonius, it's the one boss fight that cannot be cheesed with the Scorpion Gun.
  • The third phase of the Harbinger boss fight is one of the most insane fights in the game, especially on Legendary. Not only do you have a Brute Ultra Chieftain with a gravity hammer chasing you, but there are a dozen Elites and Skimmers all armed with sniper weapons and coming at you from all sides in an arena with almost no cover (at what cover there is you can't use as the Chieftain will get you if you stop moving).
  • If you play Firefight mode, be prepared for every single melee-wielding boss to be this, as not only can Bassus himself spawn, but they often get a tremendous buff to their speeds like him and Chak 'Lok's higher difficulty selves. This means a boss round can not only spawn with a Gravity Hammer or Energy Sword that is by all accounts a One-Hit Kill, but they can now sprint after you like a bat out of hell faster than you can move and wipe out entire fireteams in seconds even if everyone's split apart. All of this plus substantial health and shields boosts that make anything short of power weapon spam or already having Gravity Hammers on-hand ineffectual.
• That One Level: Conservatory, specifically, the section where you must battle Skimmers in the circular control room, is infamous for being very difficult to beat on Legendary. Cover is useless because the Skimmers can fly, their Shock Rifles can kill you in two hits, and worse, Brute Berserkers spawn in the second phase, who are also capable of two-shotting you, and prevent you from taking cover.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The Scorpion in campaign no longer accepts passengers on its four treads. While this was likely done so as to not intrude on the Razorback's role as the designated troop transport vehicle, the feature's absence has been felt within the community.
    • The irony here is that passengers sitting on the treads of the Scorpion never actually made sense in the first place. Any marines that sat on the tank in earlier games seemed to be targeted before the tank would, meaning it was almost impossible to keep them alive. They are hung out on a generally slow-moving piece of armour without any cover, would die horribly well before the tank took serious damage and wouldn't help the player all that much unless armed with power weapons.
  • The CQS48 Bulldog is a fine weapon on its own but has been unfavorably compared to the previous games' Shotguns, which provided consistent one-shot kills in close quarters. The Bulldog is more akin to an auto-shotgun with a higher rate of fire, slightly longer range and faster reload from empty at the cost of losing its lethality; traits which allow the Bulldog to carve out its own CQC niche while also not cannibalizing the Energy Sword's sandbox role of securing one-hit kills at point-blank. It's yet to be seen if further updates will (re)introduce a Shotgun more in line with the prior ones. So far, the Mangler (a Brute Hand Cannon) and the Hydra (a mini-missile launcher) seem to have the sort of kick that previous Shotguns wielded.
  • When it was first introduced in Halo 3, the Chopper had the unique effect of being able to heavily damage opposing vehicles by ramming into them while boosting, enough to instantly total light/medium vehicles like Ghosts and 'Hogs. Infinite initially retooled the Chopper to "enhance the melee fantasy of a vehicle named the Chopper"; instead of instantly totalling vehicles by ramming them, continuously grinding the Chopper's drive wheel into opposing vehicles would rapidly eat away at their health. Many players decried that the "vehicle chopping" mechanic lacked the same instant gratification compared to the high ram damage, arguing that trying to grind away at constantly moving vehicles was a hassle to maintain that made the Chopper an unviable vehicle choice. This eventually led to the Chopper being rebalanced in Season 2, regaining its predecessor's high ram damage while retaining its chopping mechanic for slower, heavier vehicles like tanks.
  • 343 announced they would be removing the Scorpion Gun for Season 2. Note that while yes, it had no view-model, infinite ammo and was otherwise identical to the main cannon of the Scorpion, minus self-splash damage, it didn't really hurt anyone (except the Banished) given it wasn't available for multiplayer at all, so it's baffling why they would remove it. They said it was officially a bug, but it has precedent in the form of the Scarab gun, an easter egg from Halo 2.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Cortana and the Guardians, as they were dealt a Curb-Stomp Battle off-screen, and after Cortana's major revival as a corrupted antagonist in the previous game, she's unceremoniously killed off again by committing a Heroic Sacrifice to foil Atriox via using her last moments to sabotage Zeta Halo. The entire game attempts to work up to this reveal only to slap you with the underwhelming fact that the deuteragonist of the franchise died pitifully to make way for The Weapon becoming a blank-slate "reboot" of her from the ground-up, and the massive threat of the Guardians was swept under the rug to focus on the new threat of the Endless instead.
  • As part of the Soft Reboot approach for the story going back to basics, the cast that are actually relevant to Infinite's plot are small overall — which means the numerous characters and their personal arcs in the past two games plus all the expanded universe material effectively disappeared, many of them left with Uncertain Doom without a single answer to any of their fates. Lasky, Palmer, Fireteam Osiris, Halsey, you name it; the best you get is some audio logs implying Lasky was evacuated from the UNSC Infinity when it went down, but everyone else is unaccounted for.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: While Halo 5: Guardians was held in contempt for its campaign and story, it still had a hell of a Sequel Hook with an evil Cortana leading an A.I. rebellion, the Guardians and an attempt to take over the galaxy as the next major conflict for the series. What does Infinite do with all of that? Nothing directly, as Cortana proceeded to pick a fight with the Banished and got her forces utterly thrashed for it off-screen thanks to Atriox on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, followed by the UNSC getting overwhelmed by the Banished. This means the entirety of 5's ending plot hook was resolved with no input or knowledge from the player, leaving you to only try to piece together what happened through context and audio logs, and deal with the Banished forces in the aftermath. There's no shortage of players that have expressed that for all of 5's faults, the anti-climax of this resolution to go the Soft Reboot route soured many people on trying to pick the story up again.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • After the lukewarm reaction to 343's previous Halo games and the negative response to the Xbox Games Showcase trailer, the launch game won back many veteran fans by returning to the series fast-paced arena shooter multiplayer roots and shaking up the single-player campaign by moving to an open-world format instead to the linear design of past, though even Halo 1's "levels" were gigantic open worlds that allowed for backtracking.
  • The features of the game beyond the campaign was a lot of back-and-forth because of the numerous bugs and glitches, the absence of certain features and options compared to previous games in addition to a shockingly little amount of new content being dropped despite being advertised as a live service game. This reached a head when 343 announced they were postponing indefinitely the split-screen campaign co-op feature. This, understandably, caused a huge uproar as the culmination of all the problems with the game. Soon afterwards official information started being released for the new Forge mode, which so vastly exceeded expectations with the options given fans started getting excited with what they could do. Upon release the game saw a massive resurgence of players as the content they had been looking for was now being more than fulfilled by what the community was building.

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