If you’re reading this, you’re probably at least somewhat aware of this game's initial reputation. A rushed product that at first saw a boom in population, only to swiftly decline after the rose tinted glasses were taken off when fans realized the game had barely 20 maps, no new modes, 4 playlists (slayer not included) and abysmal performance on PC. Well fellow stranger, I am happy to tell you those days are 2 years gone and I can finally recommend the game to any longtime Halo fan or new player.

Let's start with the campaign as this section will likely be as brief as the experience was for most of us. Truthfully, unless you’ve got some friends with gamepass and are able to play it for free - or you can all score a sick deal on it - the campaign is worth looking past. 343 has made it clear that this part of the game is nowhere near the main focus of the franchise going forward and thus hasn’t received a lot of support, but what is there is a complete package albeit short and sweet. I completed almost every achievement obtainable solo and had a decent time, but after a while the same biome gets pretty boring and the story is sadly just slightly over mid. Personally the co-op campaign completely overshadowed that experience for me. If you’ve got just one friend to play along with, this is legitimately one of the best campaigns in the series (and that’s coming from someone who played all the Halo campaigns alongside my dad and friends over the decades). The added RPG elements with FOBs, spartan upgrades, unlimited equipment tied with a really tight sandbox and fantastic AI is an absolute joy to blast through with a buddy. Lots of room for shenanigans and clownary like any good Halo title and the co-op achievements are a fun challenge to spice things up. I’d only recommend checking this out if you’ve got someone else interested in trying it with you.

Now onto the real reason anyone is still here, the free multiplayer. Oh how far we’ve come. Compared to launch, the game now sports:
+A healthy amount of rotating playlists every week with classic game modes and new ones sprinkled in there
+A revised challenge system that isn’t too hard to complete and gives okay to really good weekly rewards for completion
+$5-$10 battle passes that never expire and give you the cash to buy other passes if completed
+A new variation of Firefight which I can’t recommend enough for long time fans
+Well over 70 maps, many of which are community made and added into matchmaking
+A superb sandbox that continues to expand yet stay pretty balanced
+A functioning custom games browser with so much content it makes your head spin
+Custom games XP
+An actual career rank and player progression outside of battlepasses
+Much smoother performance and less crashes (though still not totally ironed out)
+An actual player base that isn’t dead anymore (mostly thanks to our friends on Xbox)
+THE BEST FORGE IN ANY HALO GAME

As I hope you can see, the game has come a long way and is now, finally, a “feature complete” product. That is to say, the only things it has left to add are bug fixes, cosmetics, and sandbox additions which the developers have made clear is the goal looking forward. While I don’t believe the corporate lie that this will be a “10 year title” I do see a very good case for this game continuing to receive support for many years to come especially under 343’s new leadership (the team responsible for reviving and nearly perfecting MCC is now calling the shots for Infinite). Now more than ever before it's worth being hopeful for Halo again. As an insane person who has played over 4000 matches of this game and has not stopped playing since the absolutely disastrous launch, I can confidently say the entire game has never been better and I fully recommend you at least give it a shot. Since the game is free, it's always there to jump back into as well; so even if you aren’t interested today, Infnite's community isn't going to disappear on you like the other revolving titles from legacy FPS franchises that keep releasing rug pulls with more fomo in em than a casino based around crypto.

If nothing else, at least try out custom games with some friends. If you’ve ever had any fun with Halo custom games in the past, Infinite will not only make you reminisce on those childhood memories and tickle your nostalgia but also show you an endless supply of new experiences the beefed up forge is capable of creating. I have had so much fun somehow convincing 8-12 friends on discord to download the game and join me in exploring all of the different wacky game modes this amazing community has managed to make. Like the ancient gaming sessions of old that have had each of us laughing our asses off hours into the night, a hint of that bygone era of gaming is present here in spades and has been something I treasure every time I get the opportunity to host. I can only hope you get to experience some of that too as that form of unbridled joy is hard to replicate.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows however, there are still some major downsides to this game. To keep things somewhat brief in this already too long of a review, BUYER BEWARE of the following:
-Absolutely atrocious monetization (all armor and colors in the shop are bundled together with no option to buy individual pieces of the collection and are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced)
-Bad netcode (this however is being fixed with an entirely rewritten netcode being beta tested in various playlists currently, time will tell if this is ultimately resolved)
-Really stupid skill based matchmaking
-Long load times
-Armor cores don't have full compatibility with other customization options present in separate cores (yet… this is SLOWLY being resolved)
-No commendation system like Halo Reach or Spartan Records like Halo 4

If only some of these issues are resolved I truly believe this will be one of, if not THE greatest Halo game of all time. I know for some that rings of heresy, believe me, I too never imagined I'd see the day where this opinion had any weight to it, but after how much progress has been made to improving the title I am at least optimistic that we've taken a turn from the road to recovery and on to the path of success. Halo has had it rough the past decade, the fans of the franchise even rougher, but the flame isn't out yet. I know that in the next coming years both the devs and the forge creators will continue to flesh out what is possible in this game, and we as a community will finally be able to finish this fight.