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
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.
Adjust In-Game Chat In The Settings Menu
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.
You can mute individual players, but it’s a bit counterintuitive finding the place to do so. Pull up the social menu, either by hitting Start on controller or escape on keyboard, and find the roster of players in your match on the Social menu to find their profiles and the opportunity to mute them one by one. You can also 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.
