[GameSpot] - Halo Infinite Beginner's Tips: 14 Things That'll Make You A Better Spartan

[343iBot]

Halo Infinite's multiplayer beta kind of throws you into the deep end, without much explanation of its new weapons, equipment, or multiplayer modes. There's a lot that's not immediately apparent when you start the game--including the fact that there's a tutorial that can ease you in. If you fire up multiplayer right on the spot, you'll likely find yourself confused.

We've been playing a lot of Halo Infinite over the last few days, and have come across all kinds of useful information about how the game works. These tips will help you hit the ringworld running, give you a few key strategies for its big modes, and help you become a more effective Spartan teammate.

Enroll In The Academy

Try out each of the guns in the Weapon Drills section of the Academy Menu.

It's tempting to jump right into multiplayer, but before you get going in Halo Infinite, you should scroll down the main menu list to the item marked "Academy." This is where you'll learn the ins and outs of Halo Infinite, which includes a quick tutorial. If you're a Halo veteran, most of the tutorial will be stuff you know already, but it does highlight a few tidbits about some of the new gear in the game, and it gives you a quick bot fight to try some stuff out.

More useful for most players will be the "Weapon Drills" option, which takes you to a shooting range where you can try out every single one of Infinite's guns. In my opinion, this is essential to drastically reducing your learning curve in the game. It'll let you try each gun, including the new ones, and see how it works, the range at which it'll be effective, how fast it can kill enemies, and if it sports any alternate fire modes. Getting a quick feel for every gun before you head into a multiplayer match makes it much easier to make decisions on the battlefield about which gun you want to take into any given situation.

Keep An Eye Out For Weapon Racks

You'll usually start a match with the MA40 AR and the Sidekick pistol, but as soon as you start a match, you can quickly find new guns to swap these out. Primarily, these weapons are found attached to racks on walls, and you can just pluck them from there. Guns don't appear immediately on racks once they've been grabbed, though--they'll take a while to respawn, and you can tell how long you have to wait from a blue meter at the top of the rack when you approach it.

Stronger guns, Halo Infinite's power weapons, will spawn at specific places scattered around the map. You'll usually see these marked with yellow icons that'll tell you when the next one is due, and you want to work to nab these guns as often as possible. A rocket launcher or Gravity Hammer in the right hands at the right time can swing a match in your favor--or against you--so make it a priority to control them.

Use The Right Grenade For The Job

Plasma grenades are effective anti-vehicle weapons, while Frag grenades are good against personnel and Dynamo grenades deal prolonged damage in a given area.

Halo Infinite has three different kinds of grenades, and in most matches, you can carry four grenades in total--two of one type and two of another. You can switch between your carried grenade types by hitting left on the D-pad on controller or the N key on keyboard. Make a mental note of where each type of grenade appears on the map so you can snag them when you need them. You always want as many grenades as you can carry, as grenades are a great way to either open a fight with an enemy or finish it.

The three types of grenades mean that they each have different use cases, however, so try to grab the one you need for what you expect to face. Frag grenades, the default, are solid anti-personnel explosives that are good at either knocking out an enemy shield or finishing off a weakened enemy, but their blast radiuses are only decent, and you'll often find that players survive them fairly easily, so huck these with abandon while you're shooting. Plasma grenades are blue and have smaller explosions, but they're sticky--land one on a player and it's a guaranteed kill, and they're effective for bringing down vehicles. Dynamo grenades bounce around on the ground, dealing electrical damage to the area around them over time, which makes them great for closing off or clearing a specific area. Players who stand near them for a prolonged period can also be killed by one.

Seek Out And Use Equipment

In addition to guns and grenades, you'll also find deployable equipment scattered around the battlefield, which are plastic containers marked with yellow lights. These include a grapple hook, deployable cover, a recon sensor that highlights enemies, a thruster that gives you a short-range dash, and a repulsor that can bounce things away from you. They're similar to the armor abilities in past Halo games, and each has very specific use cases. The repulsor, for instance, can stop vehicles cold when they'd normally run you over, or send enemies back when they get too close. The deployable cover gives you a shield you can shoot through but that will stop incoming bullets (if briefly), and the dash lets you quickly move in any direction. You should give all the equipment a try and make sure you always have something equipped--equipment has limited uses, but in the right circumstances, it can save your life.

There are also two kinds of equipment that rank in the same tier as power weapons: the Active Camo and the Overshield. These are highlighted like power weapons on your HUD and usually spawn in the center of the map. You want to grab these as soon as they're available, just like power weapons, because they give a big advantage--the Overshield doubles your shield capacity to make you much harder to kill (although it won't recharge like your normal shield) and the Active Camo renders you all but invisible for a brief period. Grab these, or at the very least, keep them out of the hands of the other team.

Rely On Your AI Scanner

Scan your environment whenever you're looking for a gun or a vehicle, and especially if you're seeking out weapon racks.

A little-known feature in Infinite's multiplayer is the AI scan option. Hit the button for it (Z on keyboard, down D-pad on controller) and you'll send out a scanning pulse around you that can help you identify things on the map. The AI scan will highlight points of interest on your HUD, like weapon racks and empty vehicles. If you're desperate for a gun but don't know where to find one, use your scanner to help point you toward what you need. It won't show you where players are (use the Threat Sensor equipment for that), but it will highlight everything else that's interactable--including launch pads.

Ping To Help Your Team

Like most current team-based first-person shooters, Halo Infinite sports a "ping" system (called "Mark" in the controls menu) that lets you highlight locations or enemies on your teammates' HUDs. The system isn't as robust as in, say, Apex Legends, but it's a useful non-verbal way to show your allies where the action is, where they can find weapons or vehicles you don't need, or where opposing players are congregating. Marking targets can be very helpful to your team, so spread that intel around. Mark defaults to X on keyboard and up D-pad on controller.

Vehicles Will Help You Dominate

Like Power weapons, vehicles are essential to winning a lot of matches in Halo Infinite. They give you a ton of extra mobility and, oftentimes, firepower; you can use the vehicles themselves as weapons or to get out of a tough spot, and their mounted guns generally cut through Spartans without much trouble. Don't leave vehicles to rust on the field or, worse, to get snagged by the other team--use them to your advantage.

Even if you're not an especially effective killer while driving or riding, any vehicle can help you quickly cross the battlefield, draw enemy attention, and create a little chaos; you can even take them onto launch pads to send them flying. A Warthog, Mongoose, or Ghost harassing a group of Spartans means your allies on foot have a better chance of killing them while they're looking at you. Just be sure not to run over your teammates.

Watch For Drops

Don't ignore drop pods--they usually have excellent weapons inside.

Occasionally on big outdoor maps, your AI companion will say something about items dropping from "the heavens," a creative rephrasing of another common notification about orbital weapon drops. When this happens, which for a small pod to fall out of the sky and land on the battlefield. If you approach one of these pods, you'll find a weapon inside--often, a pretty damn good one. Drop pods usually include power weapons like the S7 sniper rifle, the SPNKR rocket launcher, the Plasma Sword, or the Gravity Hammer. You're going to want to seek these out, as they'll give you a serious edge, and they are often missed or ignored by other players.

In addition to pods, you'll also get notifications about vehicle drops in much the same way. When that happens, a Pelican ship will hover over the battlefield and drop a vehicle, often right in the center of the map. As a match goes on, the ordinance in pods and vehicle drops tends to escalate, so you're going to want to move in and control these when you can. Vehicle drops can even include things like the Banshees or the Scorpion and Wraith tanks, which are true game-changers, especially late in a match.

Use Lightning Guns To Take Down Vehicles

Conversely, if the enemy is using vehicles against you--especially airborne ones--you're going to want to deal with them post-haste. A well-piloted Banshee or Wasp can wallop a team on the ground that isn't looking up to handle it. Most standard small arms will do little to most vehicles (although you can usually target their pilots or gunners), but middle-tier and power weapons are highly effective in bringing them down.

The two best guns for dealing with vehicles quickly are the electricity-based ones, the Disruptor pistol and Shock Rifle. A few shots from the Disruptor will disable a vehicle, including a Banshee or Wasp, sending it falling out of the sky. Fully charged Shock Rifle shots can do the same. If you're being hassled by vehicles, seek out the lightning guns--but don't forget that the Hydra, Skewer, Sentinel Beam, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, and Plasma grenade are all effective weapons as well. If a vehicle is giving you a hard time, shoot it, because every little bit of damage helps.

Grapple Everything

If you saw the Halo Infinite multiplayer announcement trailer, you know how useful the Grappleshot equipment item can be. It gives you a grappling hook you can shoot at just about anything, and if you find one, you should use it. The grapple can be used to zip you up to high locations that are great for sniping (and Halo Infinite is much more vertical than is immediately obvious once you start trying to do this). You can also use it to snag weapons or items from the ground ahead of you, allowing you to grab something you need without leaving cover.

Even better, though, you can use the grapple against opponents. Snag another Spartan with the grapple and you'll be rocketed toward them, with your character automatically hitting them with a melee when you arrive (so don't try to time it yourself). You can also grapple vehicles and automatically board them if they're empty, or automatically hijack them if they're not. Use the grapple to get yourself out of a bind or to quickly get yourself into a fight--it's not just for climbing.

Stay Off The Radar

Halo Infinite's radar works a little differently than what you might see in other shooters, or in past games. You only appear to other players on the little radar screen under two conditions: when you fire your gun or throw a grenade, or when you use your sprint. Being judicious about revealing yourself is essential to sneaking up on opponents and killing them without being spotted, so be careful about when you run or when you choose to engage opponents. (You might also want to play with headphones or your volume turned up, as you can usually hear approaching footsteps when opponents draw near.)

This also applies when you're carrying objectives. Most of the time, if you're holding a flag in CTF or a seed in Stockpile, you won't appear on opponents' HUDs. Often in objective games, though, holding an objective and sprinting will reveal you to the entire opposing team. You can also get revealed when you're shot while holding an objective, so bear that in mind. It's okay to toss an objective in order to engage in a fight, then pick it up again after you've won, if the alternative means exposing yourself and getting easily taken down.

Start Capturing A Zone To Stop Opponents From Scoring

In Total Control games, your team's goal is to capture and hold three designated spots on the map. On Big Team maps, your team needs to capture all three locations at the same time to score a point, so when you see your opponents starting to snag that third zone, you might start to panic. There's a strategy to apply here, though. You can stop the other team from scoring simply by beginning to capture a zone yourself. Points are only scored when one team holds all three zones unopposed.

That means that, in these scenarios, you shouldn't necessarily scramble for the zone the other team is about to capture, but rather, one of the two they already have. If the other team is about to score if they capture Point C, you can expect that most of their team is already on it, trying to capture it. That might mean that Point A or Point B are relatively, or completely, unguarded. Step onto either of these spots without an opponent to stop you and you'll begin the capture sequence, preventing them from scoring a point. Just be wary that the other team can also use this trick against you, so it's a good idea to leave members of your team on every point even after you capture it, so they can mount a defense.

Throw Or Drive Batteries For Effective Stockpile Strategies

You can plant extra power seeds on the Razorback to make it easier to bring several to your base at once.

The Stockpile multiplayer mode is likely throwing a few players for a loop. It's a lot like Capture the Flag, but there are roughly nine "flags" on the field at any moment, and a given team needs to return five of them to their base in order to score a point. Instead of flags, though, what you need to claim are "power seeds," small battery-like objectsthat spawn in the middle of the map and are marked on your HUD. Your goal in these matches is to procure seeds while stopping the opposing team from claiming any, but when you pick up a seed, you're unable to fight, much like when you carry the Oddball or flag.

The good news is that you can throw seeds, and it's an effective strategy for several players to group up, grab seeds, and huck them toward their base over and over, rather than trying to carry them the whole way. This way, you can keep moving the seeds while still fighting anyone who comes after you. Vehicles are also good ways to get seeds back home--you can't drive while carrying one, but you can hold one as a passenger, just like the flag. And with the Razorback, the gunless version of the Warthog, you can actually install two seeds on the back bumper. With players piling into the car carrying seeds, that means you can haul as many as four back to base with one vehicle.

Mute In-Game Chat In The Settings Menu

Let's face it: Random other players can be extremely annoying in voice chat.

One infuriating oversight in Halo Infinite is that you seemingly have no ability to mute individual teammates in the game's team chat. If someone leaves their mic on or if a chatty group joins your quickplay match, you might find yourself cringing as you're forced to listen to whatever they have to say--or just as frequently, whatever's happening in the background of the room they're playing in.

While you can't click individual players' names mid-match to cut off their audio input, you can shut down team chat wholesale in the Settings menu. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the Audio menu. You can toggle off voice and text chat in game lobbies and in matches on this screen, although it doesn't seem to be fully effective. Ratcheting down the Incoming Voice Chat Volume slider to 0, however, will make it so you never have to hear anyone in a match ever again.

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