Since the first tidbits of Halo: Infinite’s story were teased in the Discover Hope trailer, fans have been scrambling to find as many details about the game’s plot as possible. In the typical Halo trailer style, hints were dropped about the nature of the game’s plot but we are given very little tangible clues as to where the story of Halo is up to in the lead up to the sixth main instalment in the series.
However, there is a lot that we do know post-trailer, as there were several hints, some obvious and some not, as to where we are with this new Halo game following the cliffhanger ending to Halo 5. The fact that the trailer is set on an adrift Pelican, with Chief floating around in space near a critically damaged Halo ring, would seem to suggest that some form of conflict has just occurred, further implied by the Marine’s quote that humanity “Lost Everything”, which suggests that a significant battle took place on the ring at some point that did not go well for the UNSC. Not only that, but the conflict seems to have torn a hole right through the surface of Zeta Halo.
Stalwart fans of the series know all too well that Halo rings are particularly difficult to destroy, at least not without great sacrifice – at the climax of Halo: Combat Evolved, Chief destroys Alpha Halo by overloading the fusion reactors aboard the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, sacrificing the cruiser to annihilate the Halo. Fans have pointed out that, although the damage seen to Zeta Halo is distinctly different from the cataclysm that destroyed Installation 04, it is still very possible that the Humans decided to damage the ring to prevent anyone – particularly Cortana – from using it.
It is known that the UNSC had at least one base on Zeta Halo, so it is possible that the Humans there sacrificed themselves to destroy the base and, in turn, destroy the ring. However, there is a much more likely possibility that has some fans worried – what if the ring was destroyed by the UNSC Infinity? Now, it is unclear how much actual firepower would be needed to do this, and we saw in the first cutscene of Halo 4’s Spartan Ops that the UNSC Infinity was more than capable of ramming through enemy targets with little-to-no damage, but it seems there is only one clear conclusion that fits all the evidence that we have so far. The UNSC Infinity destroyed itself in order to deny Cortana access to Installation 07.
What does this mean for the future of the series? The Infinity was, in many ways, 343 industries’ poster-boy for the post-war UNSC, in that it was an obscenely powerful one-ship fleet that is very, very big. But some fans have complained in the past that this depiction of the post-war UNSC is not realistic, and contrasts with the guerrilla-style warfare that Humans had to adopt in previous Halo titles. It could be, therefore, that 343 are replicating the same feeling of backs-to-the-wall combat that the original trilogy was known for.
So the question remains – where will the story start? If Halo 5: Guardians’ trailer was anything to go by, it could be that we have already seen the opening cutscene to Halo: Infinite, in that the launch trailer is what will kick off the campaign. Provided we get sufficient context as to what happened between the end of Halo 5 and the start of Halo: Infinite, many Halo fans would be more than happy with this – a break from the lore-heavy, ensemble-cast Halo 5 would be seen as a welcome change – and it would place players firmly into the shoes of the Master Chief for some good old-fashioned Lone Wolf Halo action.
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