Played through the whole campaign yesterday. I think I'd say that this is 343i's best FPS Halo campaign thus far, and that it actually builds on
Halo 4 and
Halo 5: Guardians in a way that retroactively enhances them a bit while obviously feeling much closer in spirit to Bungie's original trilogy. There are some elements of the campaign's construction and the use of the open hub world that felt like a more refined version of what
Destiny does with its campaigns. I didn't do a ton of exploring of the hub world during this first playthrough, since I wanted to take in the core story first, but I look forward to jumping back in for a second playthrough and spending a lot more time poking around Installation 07, claiming FOBs, fighting mini-bosses, and uncovering the ring's mysteries.
Narratively, I found myself very invested in the happenings on Installation 07 with Chief, The Weapon, and "The Pilot," and can't wait to see how
Infinite is built upon in the years to come with expansions. I do hope some of those expansions expand in scope/scale beyond what we got here in
Infinite, however; I liked the scaled down, single location setting of
Infinite, but I don't think everything we get over the next 10 years or so has to be built around a single hub world the way this was. Would be neat if some of the upcoming expansions have us traveling to different locations over the course of a campaign. Maybe give us some different POV characters as well (an Arbiter campaign, anyone?).
And with the Banished prominently in the fold now, I also wouldn't be opposed to a direct
Halo Wars 2 followup at some point down the line.