The Halo Infinite Test Flight Was A Buggy, Frequently Hilarious Mess

Within my first two deaths I was certain Halo Infinite was doing something right. In that short span of time I identified the nearest power weapon, the skewer (which is also the best gun ever put in a video game), and ran for it. I jumped into one of Halo’s signature man-cannons, which launched me across the map toward two other people also going for the weapon. I threw two grenades, popping their shields before I landed, taking one out while the other focused fire on me. It was not, however, their many bullets which ended my life. Instead, it was my friend’s ghost, also fired through the man-cannon, which shattered my poor Spartan bones.

Upon respawning, I returned to the power weapon spot to see my friend had grabbed the weapon for himself. I arrived just in time to watch the two-foot long spear of the enemy’s skewer embed itself in his body. And so I, a fool, approached his body to pick up the now-free skewer, not realizing that the bolts retained collision for a moment after impact. His lifeless body, spear and all, then landed on me, killing me instantly. This is all to say that Halo Infinite is doing what Halo does best: providing moments of incredibly dumb emergent comedy.

Halo Infinite is due to hit this December after a series of delays on account of the global pandemic and general production woes. This weekend marked one of the game’s final test flights before that official launch. The test, all in all, felt great to play, but terrible to actually get running. The build I played was from about two and a half months ago and came with a suite of nigh-unbearable known bugs, including memory leaks, multiple crashes, a broken party system, graphics card-specific performance issues, and more dropped games than I could count among my eight-person party. At any given time at least two of us were experiencing some game-breaking issue.

In spite of this, it was some of the most dumb fun I’ve had playing a video game in months. Halo Infinite’s sandbox, which refers to both the level design and collection of tools you have to play with in-game, is one of the best I’ve ever seen. The interplay between grenades, power weapons, and vehicles is what has defined the series for years. The addition of a grappling hook, a concussive energy blast that sends players and vehicles flying, and brand-new physics interactions has totally revitalized the series. There are new ways for Halo to be funny. Rebounded grenades, grapple hook mishaps, and accidentally throwing a fusion coil into the back of your friend’s head are just some of the new and terrible ways to make dumb shit happen.

Read the full article on Kotaku