343 Industries give a chunky new look at the Halo Infinite campaign

343 Industries give a chunky new look at the Halo Infinite campaign

A lot has changed in the last year for Halo

Today, Microsoft and 343 Industries gave us a brand new look at Halo Infinite‘s campaign. The video above details the direction that the campaign will be headed, and shows some significant upgrades that are on tap.

First and foremost, the plot will follow Master Chief as he works with new AI “The Weapon” on his quest to infiltrate Zeta Halo and find out what happened to Cortana, his previous AI beau.

The studio-narrated video details the more open world structure of the game, in which Chief will follow what may be the most mission-centric spin on the series, with plenty to do and see outside of the typical linear game style of its predecessors. It almost reminds us of Far Cry, from a first look, which could mean that a lot of new and exciting ideas are coming to the game. As Chief completes missions and frees specific areas, he’ll be pushing back the Covenant’s own stranglehold on the maps. As an added bonus to the overall narrative, he’ll be hunted by a Covenant-controlled psychotic Spartan named Jega ‘Rdomnai.

For many fans, though, the visual upgrades will be immediately noticeable. When the game’s campaign was first revealed back in the Summer of 2020, the aesthetics seemed to let down players who were hoping for a more “next gen” visual style (whatever that is), even though Halo hasn’t necessarily been focused on groundbreaking visuals as its usual selling point. Anyhoo, the upgrades are definitely apparent here, and look like they may do well to be pretty on our big screen TVs.

There’s also an entirely new upgrade system for Chief, allowing him to spend “Spartan Cores” as he improves his different abilities. Spicy!

Halo: Infinite‘s campaign and free-to-play multiplayer launch on December 8th.