The Grapple Shot (kinda) RUINED Halo Infinite's Campaign 

I personally found the Grappling hook sometimes took away from the level design and gave me too many conveniences and opportunities to bypass/ignore what the level designers set up. Verticality is basically a non-issue in infinite. You never need to “think outside the box” since the hook is absolutely the no-brainer choice.

I played the entirety of infinite's campaign on heroic using nothing but the Halo CE sandbox and way of thinking. No grapple shot or equipment, no hijacking no vehicles or weapons that weren't in that game, and I did it! Sure there were parts where I had to use the grapple shot ( like the platforming on command spire.) However it was fun and a challenge!

Probably one of the main reasons as to why everyone finished the campaign in a couple hours, plus the game is severely lacking any endgame content or random events

Haven't watched yet but I thought this too. The ability to go anywhere at any time without having to improvise a way to get there takes away *some* of the fun. Also I didn't think the point of this video was that complicated but a lot of people seem to think you were advocating that the grapple is bad. That's not at all what you said, rather that it just has unintended consequences on other elements of the game. If the fastest option from point a to b is to skip a bunch of the map by just grappling over the wall or up the side of a cliff, it feels like I'm hindering myself by using other methods of travel and therefor missing out on beautiful scenery and design on the normal path. Even if I choose to not use the grapple, knowing that its still an option (and a better one) takes away some of the enjoyment and experience.

One problem with the grapple is it allows you to cheese fights, especially boss fights where you can just grapple away when you might have died instead.

I would've liked Forerunner/Banished sections with surfaces that the grapple wouldn't attach to.

When you spoke about the mountain climbing part on zeta halo I got a cool idea for infinite. If you were grappling up a cliff the rocks could fall down giving you a challenge.

While I see your point and can agree, since my first playthrough on heroic went really smooth, I grappled anywhere possible while exploring. However, in a firefight, my Halo mindset usually took over and sometimes I wondered if things could have turn out better if I had used it or other equipments too. Then I played legendary... damn me, if I hadn't started to use every equipment in some kind of combo-ultra instinct play style that really reminded me of Doom Eternal (although Halo is far more relaxed than that game on nightmare difficulty). Basically, legendary made me appreciate all the possibilitied I had in my pocket to outplay the game, that's why I think nobody should start their first playthrough on that difficulty. However, I also believe that you can't fully appreciate it completely until you play on legendary.

As opposed to multiplayer, I found the drop-wall to be over powered in many situations in single player (heroic) - especially when fully upgraded. I overused it too. When fighting regular enemies I could use it and just pick them off until the drop wall ran out retreat for a second then use it again. I could just stand there and shoot them like I had a limited-time invulnerability. I enjoyed Rainbow 6: Vegas' (2006) D-pad weapon and equipment select UI. Basically, it was the same as Halo's but the UI was larger, semi-transparent and in the middle of the screen.

I like the old games where you could just press the button and boom you switch to the next grenade. I think it should be the same with Infinite’s equipment. Definitely would’ve used the other equipment more

I really hated the campaign control scheme. I'm a control player who uses recon and by default, swap grenades and swap equipment are both bound to the D-pad. This means that the game has too many controls. I think the best solution to this would actually be to remove sprint and make equipment single use like it was in Halo 3. Yeah, I know controversial but hear me out. Sprint provides such a minimal benefit to the player in this game (only 9% speed increase) that it is not very necessary to ever use. Then by making equipment single use, you could remove the swap equipment button from the D-pad and now every important control is located on a control that is not the D-pad.

How about adding a skull that disables the grappleshot, turning it into an optional challenge for the player?

I see what you mean with the downsides, but I do think the whole game is “how do I want to tackle this?” Like, that gondola ride with all the Sentinels shooting you? I like to just grapple along the wall and skip the gondola. It’s a fun and crazy way to express this particular playthrough. And it’s something you can only do HERE, so do whatever you want!

Grappleshot go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr past the Art Designer's set pieces

The Tower especially taught me that the grapple was really great at getting me into trouble. Where instead busting open doors with a squad of well armed marines at my back might be the better solution.

Halo traditionally: wow that's a cool set piece it would be cool if I could... oh nice! The map takes me there as part of the campaign! Halo Inf : haha grapple go * ssswzwzwip *

Haven't watched the video yet (going to), but I already want to say the campaign became a very dull experience with the grapple. When I think back about my two playthroughs, I especially remember me grappling from one place to another CONSTANTLY. This sums up Infinite: grapple, grapple, grapple, play a mission, grapple some more, grapple, grapple, grapple, catch a FOB, grapple grapple grapple...

The hook feels smoother than the vehicles, I think halo infinite has one of the worst driving and underwhelming vehicle sandbox, I spent 90% of the time using the grapple shot

Grapple shot doesn’t belong in Halo universe. It ruins the gameplay experience. Batman called and said “where did you get that wonderful toy” 😆 um he wants it back 😂 Anyways, it’s not relative to the science fiction of the game.

The gameplay looks so annoying when someone is running from point a to b. They grapple then just land like a 1 ton soldier on the ground. It's not fun to watch.

Great video as always, Fletch! I'd have donned my Master Chief helmet with you if I owned one. I wanted to comment on your idea for improving the Equipment-switching in Campaign. I personally think a much simpler (and better, in my opinion) solution would be to have us cycle through the Equipment with the D-Pad in real-time. This would subsequently affect how grenade-switching works too, but I think this would also be an improvement. My idea is to assign left on the D-Pad to grenade-switching and right for Equipment. Have each grenade type and Equipment piece take a specific spot in the order (Grapple in Slot 1, Drop Wall Slot 2, et.) similarly to how grenades were organised in Halo 3, and have the cycle loop back to the first option after reaching the last. This way, switching between items would only require one button input, even if sometimes taking more than one press. If 343 wanted to go all out with this improvement, we could remap the switching buttons and customise the order of Equipment and grenades to fit our preferences. I guarantee that I am not the only person to have thought of this, but I have not yet seen anyone pose this as a solution. I'd be very interested to hear thoughts on this, from Mr.UltimatHalo and anyone else who reads this.

on the contrary- the campaign (and all of it's abilities) made me want more out of multiplayer, despite it's shortcomings. what if halo co-op is absent because they're making attrition battle Royale on the campaign map. Also- limited equipment should be a new skull.

I just got done with the second adjutant revolution boss fight. From what I've experienced, I think the world wasn't designed very well for the grappleshot, and the cooldown being short enough to allow you to scale anything was a mistake. Fights against Jackels are awful because you win every time without having to be accurate, and fights just become a little too easy with how fast you can get away. I like the shot, but it's kind of ruining my fights and loops to the point where I actively try not to use it to have fun. To be fair, though, I always do the strategy of running in and trying to annihilate everyone super lethal like. This led to a lot of deaths in previous games though. This game is a little bit like red dead redemption (I'm stealing these from a RU-vidr called DougDoug). In red dead redemption, you have hundreds of ways to take out enemies: stealth, lasso, melee, dynamite, guns, and tons more, but it's been a while since I've played. But you never use any of those options because shooting is too efficient and ammo is cheap. This leads to a kind of flawed game experience.

I was thinking this exact thought after having beaten Halo Infinite. While the grapple shot gives you a wider-range of options in terms of movement, it does so to the point where it overshadows the sense of scale from the open-world map and the weapon/vehicle sandbox. Currently, you can just grapple out of a tough spot with no consequences. You don't have to get creative. It's very easy to assume high ground and shoot at enemies from afar, which the Banished are generally pretty poor at dealing with. or reposition instantly if you mess up.

I figured you would get the Grapple later on in the campaign when we first saw infinite, then I learned you start off with it. However, I do think that I feel that you get access to air vehicles the more you progress, specifically the wasp, and I think that was chosen to give the player later instead of the Grapple. I kinda felt this too, but I would also explore with ground vehicles too wherever there was a place that would catch my interest. I liked the other stuff too.. the threat sensor I used a lot and the shield came in handy too at times. The Grapple is honestly such a damn handy tool for not only traversal, but also combat and picking up stuff. It's very versatile. 👍🏻

I'm gonna be 100% honest: I haven't played the game yet, although I've watched a lot of videos. But I feel like I'm not going to be a big grapple hook fan. For these reasons: 1. Chief is a super-soldier, yes, but he's not a superhero either. Or at least I don't view him as such. I might be biased as I particularly dislike superhero stuff. 2. Too powerful. It should at least be severely nerfed. I think adding climbing like Zelda and/or a jetpack (with limited fuel) would be much better to take advantage of the verticality. 3. Speaking of verticality. Part of the fun of verticality is that it is *not* that easy going from one level to another, up and down. Otherwise, it's just horizontality all over again. And here I also dislike the fact that the fall damage has been entirely removed. If you can jump from a very high spot all the way down without paying attention on how you do it, you remove *all* the subtlety and fun of verticality. In the same way, if you can just grapple your way up, then you loose the fun of finding a way to go up. It would also make improvising not as exciting. Too easy to get out of danger's way through the grapple hook or jumping all the way down some high place. Part of the fun of improvising is to use the environment in creative ways, sometimes in a way that immediately helps you, but puts you in a location that actually makes things harder for you. It's these unexpected things that are fun. The grapple hook and removal of fall damage take a lot of this unpredictability and need of creativity out. Verticality means that you have to think whether you should go lower to kill some enemies, knowing that it could be harder or take longer to go up, or how to go up to gain some advantages. And that up and down are not symmetrical. Going down, there is the fall damage issue and going up again, and going up there is the issue of how to do it. Can you climb quickly? Jetpack in an efficient manner? Or maybe there's a banshee you could take (the latter being more obvious to enemies). Choosing whatever option is going to make the playing significantly different. 4. Exploring the open world. The grapple hook makes it too easy to go anywhere. It removes a lot of the challenge. This is related to verticality. Part of the fun of exploring the levels in the past Halo games was that it was not easy to reach some places. Anyone remembers grenade jumps? If you can basically fly anywhere, you make reaching those places much less exciting. Even having a good jetpack would make things better, because you would be much more in control of yourself, rather than letting the role guide you. I suspect it would also be slower, which would have all sorts of nice disadvantages in combat (like being easier to shoot at). This, in turn, would make things more challenging. 5. You have to apologize if people are hurt because you dare criticize the grapple hook? Come on. It's not some kind of holy thing you should not discuss. Everybody is entitled to liking it or not (or being uneasy about some of its aspects like you).

I agree. It should have been introduced in the last area.

I have completed the game campaign on normal over month ago dispite some sound glitches from my not 4k smart tv. I agree that rite out the graple shot does very much encourage you the player to use this. In fact I relide on it heavyly. Though just walking into banished base is something I really didn't think of till you said a certain banished base has a fuse and a backdoor to sneak into. I'm currently playing through the campaign again. Will try to figure out if there are other ways into banished bases. In the other Halo games I see your point of finding a way in by the means of walking just like the other games. You never know what you might find. Though this will be tricky to not use grapple shot as much.

Grapple is fun but as I play I realize there is no vertical map designs that encourage the grapple to be used. The leaked multiplayer maps feel better for the grapple so I can’t wait to see those

I love exploring the world and refuse to fast travel I also enjoy more walking than driving I only use the graple shot to climb unclimbable areas (on feet)

They should have just added in the ability to climb, and put in more vehicles / events that make use of the different parts of the open world. Just sticking in a way to tarzan yourself around, and nothing else, seemed kinda lazy. AI Marines can't even drive vehicles.

instead of dpad+up/down/left/right i would say just dpad+left/right, in which the abilities are in a list from 1 to 4 (grapple, dropwall, repulsor, evade) So if you are on repulsor (3) you either do right, right, right or right, left, left on the dpad, which can be done much faster, albeit you need to memorise what order they are in

I can say that on my Heroic and Legendary play throughs, I used ALL of the equipment frequently and liberally once I obtained them all. There are times I even allowed myself to die just so I could redo the encounter and really pull off some cool equipment swaps mid battle to make things a bit more challenging. Even so, the grapple shot got the majority of my use though. There are just so many uses for it compared to the other equipment which pretty much has the primary purpose. I'm not sure how this would look outside of being on paper, but it would be cool if the game chose more sprawling levels (like Htiman and Sniper Elite) as a design choice where you had to choose loadouts and what items to bring. Sure, through level exploration, you could stumble across a piece of equipment you didn't put in your load out, but that would require you to actually go out and explore. This level design would also allow a wider variety of biome and terrains. I understand that different Biomes will most likely appear in future DLC, but the monochromatic sprawl of the ring thus far does get a little boring. I dunno how easy that would be or feasible. I love this game though. Legitimately the first Halo game I played over and over again on various difficulties and various skulls activated. And as much as I love the game the way it is, I feel as if there could be some tweaks to the new formula for an even better experience.

Too much freedom can be a bad thing.

I mostly just used the Razorback with rocket marines because “Alien Monke go boom”

In my first play through, I made a rule before starting it to to where I only used the grappleshot in combat, or to places that was literally impossible to get to. So I was able to explore the open world to the fullest an see SO many cool routes, ways around the map with just walking or vehicle. I plan to do that still for the rest of the play through’s cause it just was so immersive and so fun. When I watched other youtubers/streamers use it so much to travel I felt like they would have enjoyed the routes that I took or encountered. I’m excited to do another play through so I can see even more routes or ways into things by going by my rule.

Grappleshot and drop wall are pretty much the only things worth using, even on legendary I never seen the need to use anything else, I used the threat sensor in the Jega fight but that was it, for chak lok the ceiling is so high in that room I just stayed up there 90% of the time and peppered him with fusion coils. I wish the repulser was in campaign over the thruster because the grapple makes it useless especially when it's max upgraded and you get the shock ground pound.

A curse and a blessing

Utility items flat out ruin shooters in the competitive sense. Even in Halo 3, while they are fun to use in certain game modes; there was a reason SWAT was the most competitive gametype as it was based purely on your skills alone

on my first play through i played heroic tried not to use the grapple that much and isn't upgraded anything the second time i put it on easy used the grapple to run past every enemy to get skulls quick and beat the campaign in like a couple hours also talking about the tower i used the scorpion every time to take the tower except my most recent play through and the first time i used the razorback on the excavation site but like they all died immediately this was my first play through

The thing that stops me from grappling nostop everywhere is my unhealthy need to play mommy duck with my boys and girls in green

Really hope 343 sees this video and the comments. I felt the same exact way ..

2:25 I went in with the tank that I found in a base I had just taken, very satisfying

Reminds me of an old cheat code like NoClip. Lot of fun to mess around, but really kills the experience of everything else around it. Really drains the variety out of the game I agree, not just in player choice though but in how unique encounters are built into level design. Talking about scale was a really good point too. I hope there's an infinite campaign in the future that strips you of the grapple and returns to a more layered, but I'd also like to see something designed specifically for the grapple because there's a ton of untapped potential for encounters there

I agree, but I think it would be far better if the equipment was handled the way multiplayer handles it. Only one slot and limited uses. My reason for this is that this encourages the player to use the grappleshot more sparingly while still allowing it to be an option from the start because they won't know how quickly they'll find another. Additionally, while you could find them littered about like weapons, it would take the gameplay so much further if the Banished could use equipment too.

I primarily used the grapple as a mountain climbing tool. I walked around most of the time

as Infinite has been (rightfully) compared to BOTW more than Far Cry, I think Grapple Hook should've been treated as the "Master Sword" of the game, a mid-end game hard to get equipment (maybe after the shield or the thruster) to make the game feel like its many regions have been "unlocked" once you've acquired it. But also nerf the usability of the Hook to be more used as a escape route during fights, and only when it's upgraded you can rly get to spider-spartan around the game.

IMO, the campaign should've been littered with like "EMP zones" or something that knocked out your armour abilities and forced you to think differently. They could've crafted so many interesting scenarios if it wasn't for the goddamn grapple hook

If you play in legendary you will thank the gods that you have a fully upgraded grapple shot, it’s the only thing that lets you get even close to being a match to a base level elite. Imagine upper level opponents.

Great video fletch! Btw, if you ever happen to need an editor, keep ya boi here in mind please? 😅

I enjoyed trying to climb mountains by just sprinting and clambering up them as fast as possible, I only used the grappleshot when I was impatient. Imagine if the grappleshot was actually physics based and realistic. It wouldn't be nearly so powerful, it would require good planning and aim.

It may not be a solution for Xbox players, but I think the ability to bind shield dropping and the other abilities to user-defined keys would make it better for a lot of us. 343 should add some kind of achievement or other unique reward for beating a campaign that's forcibly locked to one ability. I realise some bosses are dependent on certain abilities but I'm sure there's be a way around that. It would give everyone the chance to fully experience and master each ability as well as being a huge longevity boost.

The best way for grenades is the same way halo 3 did it where it shows you on the top right which you have and you just swap through with one click of a button.

Regarding selection wheel: I really wouldn't like this -more finicky and annoying I think. I saw someone advise learning the grenade and equipment selections as button combos before I played the campaign and it worked great. More of an issue for me was the HUD (I really would like a more traditional layout spread over 3 or 4 corners) - I would find that I would do a little inventory run through of which grenade types I had before an encounter - a waste of time. Taking away the grapple for *reasons' would have been an interesting way to change up missions and boss fights. I enjoyed infinite but I find myself constantly thinking "This could have been AMAZING if.....story elements/vehicles/dynamic world events/proper day+night/boss fight variety etc etc. On another note, maybe I am in a minority but I don't really enjoy huge health bar bosses in any game. To me Halo's boss fights were mostly about a situation with a large variety of enemies/vehicles etc in a curated space that provided an arena with stepped up challenge. I find it so cheap when I take out a bosses shield, hit em with 2 rockets and a skewer through the head and it's just a sliver off the health bar. It makes the weapons feel cheap and breaks my immersion.

I'm still not sure why the most fun sandbox-interactive equipment, the repulsor, wasn't in the campaign.

The grapple introduces so many problems in many aspects of the game and the best solution would honestly be just to make equipment limited use.

I do agree, I felt this way too while playing through. On my second playthrough I tried to limit my grapple usage to ONLY combat. So to get from point a to b I have to find other means to get there. You can miss sooooo much by using the grapple everywhere

I'm actually going to try playing without the grapple on my next run.

Make sure you watch it all because it's not a black and white what I'm trying to illustrate! But do you agree with my points? 🤔 EDIT: Please consider watching before you bring out the pitch forks, seeing a lot of folk disagree without actually addressing my points - which it's fine to disagree by the way, I encourage it if anything!

i genuinely think the grapple hook completely destroyed the entire emersion and experience, like staten wrote ab a story where he was ambushed in a forest but all of us woulda just grappled past, also on top of that i played thru on heroic and there were literally no stakes or concequences to running in the middle of all the enemies coz i could just grapple away, no tactics or nothing

I found for the open world that playing on legendary sorta took me off using the grapple hook since it made my life easier to get a bunch of marines in a razorback

It didn't ruin it but I did spam it all the time to beat legendary. Also fusion coils are what truly ruined Campaign . That and the many bugs and tricks to cheat your way through it. LASO now has no meaning.

On higher difficulties, it isn’t a get out of jail free card in a firefight though I do think it should cost a charge to open up a jackal as I often found myself spamming it at them. I do agree that the grapple shot does trivialize traversal once you get the second upgrade. If that upgrade was nerfed, it’d make each shot a bit more precious, especially when scaling cliffs

The game desperately needed scarabs or some sort of enemy that could match you with the grapplehook, 9/10 times I died on legendary was because of jackal snipers and nothing else.

a solution i could think of would be to have equipment like halo 3, or like in multiplayer, you can find like 5 grappleshots and once you're out you're out

This was especially true on LASO. Skipped so many fights with the grapple shot

Maybe just like portal 1 and 2 the Grappling hook only works in the solid surface but can’t work in soft surface like snow and sand.

The one perfect solution to this problem is to have one button to switch items with juusst one press. Wwhyy have it complicated, when you can juusst press one button to switch stuff, and if it’s nnoot the one, juusst keep pressing one button to switch until you get the one you want.

The problem isnt the grappleshot breaking the game, the issue is the game spaces arent fully designed around the grapple. The levels must be designed with the grapple in mind instead of just giving the player a tool that need not be used (i cant think of a single place where use of the grapple is a requirement), or somewhat breaks the game when used. This is why a non open world halo would have been more interesting imo.

Damn, I thought I was the only lol, although my solution would be entirely different. Instead of giving the grapplehook right from the getgo like Infinite did, I would've given the repulsor by a marine after Outpost Tremonious was conquered. Main reason for this is that the repulsor has more nuanced interaction within the environment and the sandbox, which could allow for far more interesting and unique plays imo. But it's also limited enough to not make highjacking vehicles so cheap. The grappleshot I would've made limited use for mobility (or grappling enemies/vehicles), but unlimited for grappling weapons and fusion coils, instead of upgrades, spartan cores would have been a recharge for the grappleshot, allowing maybe 5 or 10 per mission. Unlimited mobility would've been unlocked near the end (in the final level). Overall, I think I mostly agree with your video, except for the solution.

Your equipment wheel is a good idea it also allows other equipment to be added coughs "repolser" I like the grapple way to much to get rid of it How did titan fall combine the grapple and it's beautiful environments?

My idea is to take away the grapple shot from the player and replace it with the repulsor

i think that the grapple shot should have been taken away from the player at some point in the campaign, it was almost too good. and it made it so that encounters were all the exact same, being vulnerable was never a feeling i experienced in this campaign

While I like it. I hope it doesn't become a permanent staple in all Halo games now. The core should always be run and shoot. Aditions should be treated as such.

I actually did the examples in the way you used them, I guess because I was focused on finding everything and also bringing my marines with me.

I've explored the entire zeta halo with just the grapple shot

Tho I do love using it and how flights play out differently with it But I also really like more grounded halo experience as well where you can’t just latch onto vehicles at range or not ever be pinned down as you can just Spider-Man away im kinda hoping equipment is limited charges in some Spartan ops esk mode otherwise 4 grappling Spartans will just be impossible to create difficult encounters without bullshit.

I for one want the grappleshot in every game. Also it is not required to use except maybe once or twice. So..

The Grapple shot is the most fun part of halo infinite for me.

Yeah I would limit the grapple shot as much as I love it keep chief tactical. Also the other equipment I rarely ever used to keep it tactical.

Grapple shot is great..the problem is the empty open world, pacing issues, and lack of characters. A great gameplay loop doesn't make a great campaign, but halo has never played better (grappling shot included). I just wish we had an incredibly engaging story to go with it.

nah grappleshot go zoooooooom

I think in general it probably was in the games best interest to hand you the grapple from the start, but the quick charge upgrade that makes the it such a get outta jail free card, should have been the final upgrade for the grapple. That would have made vehicles more relevant. I do think the ability suits the open world quite well, but when it comes to the linear missions that’s where I’m kinda torn. One thing I’ve always loved and appreciated about halos missions is the replay value, and whether or not people realize it. Having curated elements really drives that. Example truth and reconciliation feels completely different vs assault on the control room for more reasons then just the biome. The selected available sand box is completely different, really making those missions stand apart. While I love infinite, I do have to admit having the choice to bring any weapon into any mission, and always have access to the grapple does make the missions blur in my mind. Would be interesting to see how the game would have played out if on one mission you had a threat sensor, and repulser. While on another you had a grapple and thruster. Good vid 👍🏻

Maybe only grant infinite grappleshot after you've completed a campaign run on a save?

Personally I used all of the equipment all the time, and found the main entrance to the tower on first place through 😂

i kinda love the grapple in combat, not in traversal

With there were some levels without the grapple

I would like to see someone do a entire Playthrough not using the grappleshot. Then we will see if after that they don't beg to have it lol

The other halos had this solved already with nades. Just cycle through with the dpad

Grapple shot was the best part of the campaign. Biggest innovation the series has ever introduced and the story would have been awful otherwise. Giving the player the ability to play any way they want is objectively better than forcing them to play a specific way.

Better than the grapple shot is to combine everything with it! Grapple and thruster combo is RAD!

I agree.

That's my favorite part of the game

agree 100%

I just have to say respectfully that I disagree. Not that I think you're advocating for removing the grappling hook. But I hold a counter opinion that the Grappling hook makes exploring in halo very enjoyable. The overworld map could be designed a bit better, to better allow for ground vehicle exploration. But actually walking, or even sprinting a distance in excess of 1000 on the map would be so time consuming without the grapple.

No

It’s awesome , love it !

I 100% politely disagree

This game is amazing just leave it alone

As a fan of the original trilogy, it's pretty sad to think that we will most likely never experience another classic linear Halo campaign ever again. With Halo Infinite being a games as a service game with a 10 year plan, it's very unlikely they will return to a linear style game. Heartbreaking.