Small Details You Missed In The Halo Infinite Gameplay

After Microsoft's last Xbox games event, many had high hopes for the showcase that took place on July 23, 2020. The bar was admittedly low — Microsoft promised gameplay in its last event, and in terms of actual in-game action, there was very little to be found. Still, Microsoft wouldn't make the same mistake twice, right?

It didn't. There was plenty of gameplay in the July showcase, including a rather meaty look at this year's big Xbox release, Halo Infinite.

In many ways, Halo Infinite looks like all of the Halo titles you might have played before. You again assume the role of Master Chief. You can jump in your warthog and go on a joyride. You can still melee grunts to high heaven. But there are a few things you might have missed in the Halo Infinite gameplay that aired during the July event.

Here they are.

Mainline Halo titles have typically taken gamers on a linear journey. When you load up a mission, you proceed through it as the developers intended. Halo Infinite, however, appears to be taking a different approach. If the free-roaming gameplay in the trailer didn't make it obvious enough, another piece of footage certainly did.

Halo Infinite is going to have a world map, with points of interest, icons, and more. Eat your heart out, Ubisoft.

This is obviously a big departure from the standard Halo fare you might be used to. But Halo Infinite isn't like all the others that came before. The name alone implies this game could be around for quite a while. If that's the case, new content could come in the form of new missions for Master Chief to take on and new dots on the map to explore.

Whether Halo Infinite will become a platform for future Halo content remains to be seen. At the very least, though, it looks like Master Chief will be marking some waypoints and clearing out some towers, Far Cry-style.

Halo games used to be fairly basic shooters. For quite a while, Master Chief couldn't even sprint — a point really driven home by this cheeky little guide. How do you sprint in Halo? "YOU CAN'T." Over time, however, Master Chief added quite a few new tricks. Later Halo titles finally gave him the ability to move a little more quickly, for instance.

And Halo Infinite? It looks like the next entry in the series will be outfitting the Chief with a grappling hook.

This new feature is bound to upset some franchise purists, but it's hard to deny the hook doesn't look really, really cool. Here is Master Chief using the grappling hook to zip to an enemy. Here's another clip of the Chief using it to grab an explosive, which he then throws at a turret. The grappling hook could add some variety to the gameplay of Halo Infinite, which could help this latest installment feel more fresh.

It could also come into play in other ways, too — but you might have to wait until Halo Infinite launches to see if that's true or not.

It's tough to argue that Halo Infinite doesn't look pretty. The game looks to be taking full advantage of the Xbox Series X to deliver some really nice visuals. Unfortunately, there is one aspect of the trailer that showed Halo Infinite is not quite ready for prime time just yet.

As you can see here, as Master Chief floats upward to get a rather sinister lecture from a bad guy, some clouds are still popping in around the mountains. It's not the biggest crime in game development, sure. But this slice of gameplay was likely chosen specifically for this event, and still has this noticeable flaw.

Microsoft and 343 Industries still have time to whip Halo Infinite into shape before it launches later this year. This is just a reminder that, at this point in time, the game isn't finished yet.