Halo Infinite Hub

Halo Infinite is the sixth mainline game in the Halo franchise. Scheduled for release in Holiday 2020 alongside the Xbox Series X, Infinite will follow up on the events of 2015's Halo 5: Guardians, which left off with the United Nations Space Command in tatters, the Master Chief stranded on Sanghelios and the UNSC Infinity on the run, following an uprising by a group artificial intelligences calling themselves the Created, led by Cortana. Now several years later, the Master Chief finds himself awoken on a derelict Pelican by the Pilot in the shadow of a shattered Halo ring, and must face down the Created threat, in addition to the Banished, a mercenary organization seeking control of the ring.

Characters

Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is the main character of the Halo franchise, and the protagonist of Halo Infinite. A SPARTAN-II, he was kidnapped at the age of six by the UNSC's Office of Naval Intelligence and trained from a young age to be the "ultimate soldier", before being given biological augmentations and powerful MJOLNIR armour. Although originally conceived to fight human rebellions, the Spartans proved invaluable in curbing onslaught of the Covenant, an alien conglomeration who declared humanity an affront to their gods and resolved to eradicate the entire species in 2525.

The Master Chief is often credited with having saved humanity from extinction by preventing the activation of the Halo Array, a set of seven ringworlds spread across the galaxy by the Forerunners - the Covenant's gods. Believing the rings to be the key to the Great Journey and hence a pathway to godhood, the Covenant attempted to activate the array. Unbeknownst to them, however, the rings' true purpose was to eliminate all life in the galaxy to stop the spread of a virulent parasite known as the Flood. In the conflict ensuing from their discovery, the Master Chief fought the Covenant, Flood and Forerunner Sentinels across the surface of three Halo rings and ultimately the Ark, where the rings were manufactured. With the help of an AI companion called Cortana, a number of UNSC naval officers and Marines, a Forerunner monitor and a Covenant turncoat called "the Arbiter", the Master Chief was able to prevent the array's activation, eradicate the Flood and eliminate the Covenant's leadership, effectively ending the war.

In the aftermath of these events, however, the Master Chief and Cortana were left stranded in interstellar space, after their ship was badly damaged in the escape from the Ark. They eventually came upon an artificial Forerunner planet known as Requiem, where they unwittingly unleashed a surviving Forerunner warrior called the Didact, who retained an age-old grudge against humanity. With the help of a powerful ship known as the UNSC Infinity, the Master Chief was able to defeat him too, but at a cost: the seeming death of Cortana. Only a year later, however, Cortana returned, having been healed by a Forerunner technology known as the Domain, now hell-bent on seizing control of the galaxy with the help of her Created allies, viewing the organic species as in need of their guidance and protection. Halo Infinite picks up a few years after her uprising, long after the apparent fall of the UNSC, with the Infinity and Master Chief on the run, and many of their allies defeated or in hiding.

The Pilot is the pilot of the Pelican Echo 216. In 2561, he found himself stranded alone in his craft, above a shattered Halo installation. He had a wife and daughter, whom he was cut off from by the Created conflict, left with only a holographic video message to remember them by. After drifting for weeks, Echo 216 eventually floated into the vicinity of the Master Chief, who had become stranded within his armour in open space. The Pilot was able to retrieve him in his Pelican and ultimately revive him, before the two were set upon by an unseen foe.

Cortana was a human artificial intelligence, created from a clone of the brain of renowned scientist Dr. Catherine Halsey, who was once the director of the SPARTAN-II program. Cortana's original purpose was to aid in Operation: RED FLAG, a daring mission in which the SPARTAN-IIs would steal a Covenant vessel, infiltrate the Covenant capital and capture one of the faction's leaders, in the hopes of bringing the war to a close before the Covenant could wipe humanity out. However, this mission was effectively cancelled when the UNSC military bastion of Reach was beset by a gigantic Covenant fleet, and ultimately fell.

Cortana would be aboard the UNSC Pillar of Autumn when it fled the planet and discovered the first Halo ring. Aiding the Master Chief as he fought to seize control of the ring, Cortana would prove invaluable in the battle, even preventing him from activating the ring in ignorance of its true function. She would go on to assist in the human victory over the Covenant in the battle over the second ring, Delta Halo and ultimately masterminded the plot that wiped out the Flood and its centralised Gravemind intelligence at the Ark. However, after these events, she and and the Master Chief were stranded in a broken husk of a ship in interstellar space.

With the Master Chief in cryosleep, she was forced to endure nearly five years of solitude. This, combined with her advanced age (for an AI), led to her developing a terminal condition known as rampancy. Shortly after they were finally reunited with the UNSC, she seemingly sacrificed her life to save the Master Chief from the Didact. However, a little over a year later, she returned with a new mandate: galactic domination. Believing herself to be cured of rampancy by a Forerunner construct known as the Domain and supported by allied artificial intelligences collectively known as the Created, she successfully subdued the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios using Forerunner peacekeeping automatons called Guardians. As Infinite opens, she has effectively gained control of the majority of known space, and what little resistance remains is on the run or in hiding.

News

Halo Infinite will be featured at Xbox's first-party Xbox Series X game showcase in July!
The latest Infinite teaser, entitled "SIGNAL DETECTED. TAG DESIGNATION: FOE", confirms that the Banished faction will be present.
Discover Hope, a new trailer for Infinite was unveiled at E3 2019.
Halo Infinite has been announced at E3 2018.

Confirmed Details

Halo Infinite will release in Holiday 2020.
Infinite will be available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC.
The game will be available in Xbox Game Pass at launch.
The game will feature split-screen.
The game's Forge mode will have undo and redo functionality.
The game will have a beta or test flight before launch.
Black undersuits will be available for multiplayer Spartan customisation.
Infinite features art direction closer to the classic Bungie games, albeit with some of 343 Industries' newer designs retained.
The game has an artbook entitled The Art of Halo Infinite, set to be released later this year.
A novel entitled Halo: Shadows of Reach will release in October 2020, and will be set between Halo 5: Guardians and Infinite.
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