8 tips for beginners before starting the Halo Infinite campaign

Halo Infinite defies many established conventions of the Halo series thanks to its open-world trappings, which means even the most well-trained Spartans may enter this new ring with unanswered questions. Having spent several hours with the launch version of the single-player campaign, we’re here to tell you all you need to know about making the most of the newfound wilderness. How should you be upgrading? Is this game as open as it seems? We’ll tackle those pressing gameplay questions below and offer our eight best tips for success.

8) This game is harder than you think

Halo Infinite is by no means among the most difficult games we’ve ever played, but those who are just stepping into the game after an extended hiatus should know its PvE experience is probably harder than you think. In past Halo games, the easiest difficulty would let you melee just about anyone, but even the lowest difficulty isn’t exactly a walk in the park when it comes to Infinite.

This AI is smart and will adapt to all of Chief’s new tools. As ashamed as you may feel, it’s totally OK to start on a lower difficulty and crank it up once you have your space legs. Those who really like a challenge will confront one pretty early on at higher difficulty levels.

7) Shoot stuff

In Halo Infinite, Master Chief interfaces with his world in two distinct ways: by interacting with objects or blowing them up. That being said, sometimes it's a bit confusing as to which method the game would like you to use for a given scenario.

If you see a group of human soldiers trapped by electric wires but don’t understand why you can’t approach them to free them, that’s because you need to shoot and destroy the device holding them captive. If it glows bright red-orange, you can probably shoot it until it blows up. Did you just expose some Banished silos in an outpost but aren’t getting credit for the progress? That’s because you need to shoot those silos down. In other words, any time you don’t see an “interact” prompt, just fire that gun or toss a grenade.

6) Marines won’t stop following you

One of my favorite open-world tasks to complete in Halo Infinite is finding small groups of Marines who’ve been captured by Banished forces. Most of the time, these are marked on your map, but they can also be approached at random too. Take down a few waves of enemies to free the squad, and you’ll get a tiny purse of Valor for your efforts.

The real reward, other than the obvious self-esteem boost of people cheering you on, is just how dedicated these AI forces are. Provided you don’t give them challenging terrain to grapple with, they’ll literally follow you to the end of the map and help finish off any encounters you might come across. If you’re really stuck on a particular fight, maybe find a group of marines nearby and lead them to the site of the battle.

5) There are unmarked Banished Propaganda Towers

Along your journey, you may hear Grunts talking as if from some sort of radio broadcast. This is a sign that a Banished Propaganda Tower is nearby. These are small structures that you can shoot and destroy to receive 10 Valor. That’s basically a pointless reward, but more Valor is still good and there is a secret achievement for destroying 40 towers.

4) The open world has walls

While the opening missions of Halo Infinite’s campaign make a big show out of its supposedly open nature, the game isn’t as limitless as you might think. The main missions have Spartans causing mayhem on one of many islands, but you can’t always move freely between them. Because of this artificial blockade, there may be marked items on your map that you can’t always get to. You might even run into an invisible wall while traversing to a blocked destination. Don’t waste hours trying to reach impossible places.

3) The open-world activities are extremely optional

With that in mind, because the Halo Infinite narrative forces you along with the map, it’s worth noting that completing all those side ventures isn’t all that necessary. You can certainly free groups of distressed marines, capture FOBs, and defeat named bosses to get cool weapon variants, but all it really does is raise your Valor score. Valor allows you to get different types of vehicles at your bases, which isn’t at all essential to experiencing the sandbox that lies in front of you. More often than not you’ll still run out of ammo and be forced to scavenge for scrub weapons in the heat of combat. None of it truly matters.

It may be more accurate to think of Halo Infinite as a campaign that can be digested in a relatively linear way first, with all the extra stuff littered around the map as potential challenges to complete once the credits roll.

2) Find high ground

Halo Infinite features the same UI navigation pip that has existed since the first game in the series. While that system may work decently well when navigating tight halls or indoor missions, it falters when brought out into the open world.

If your navigation pip seems to be taking you in circles or running you into impassable walls, the best solution is to find high ground. Once you scale to the top of a nearby mountain, it becomes a lot easier to see where you need to go. And, because Halo doesn’t have fall damage, you can jump as close as you want without fear of dying. A glider would make this process even better, but a nice high-ground jump should mitigate many navigation foibles.

1) You can grapple anything

One of the most gameplay-altering changes to debut in Halo Infinite is the addition of a grappling hook that can be accessed on a short cooldown with a quick tap of your bumper. Some of the earliest campaign missions might imply that you can get by without using it, but the reality is that this piece of equipment is perhaps the single most important ability in the game.

In traversal, the Grappleshot is extremely capable of latching onto any surface. Want to reach an objective but don’t want to walk around a huge mountain? Just Skyrim grapple your way to the top despite how messy it looks. In combat, enemies can be grappled to offer lighting-fast melee opportunities. You can even grapple vehicles to quickly commandeer them. This Grappleshot won’t turn Halo into a flow-state game like Doom, but it’s insanely useful nonetheless. Upgrade it with your Spartan Cores and you may be shocked by what you find.