9 Halo Infinite tips to help you in the campaign on Zeta Halo

Use these Halo Infinite tips to help you fight back against the Banished on Zeta Halo in the story campaign. Filling the Master Chief's boots, you'll be brawling your way across the shattered fragments of the mysterious Halo Ring and trying to reassemble the remains of the UNSC after a devastating Banished assault. With the help of the Pilot and the Weapon, you’ll be completing story missions, rescuing UNSC Marines, capturing FOBs and bringing down Outposts throughout the campaign. That sounds like a lot to do and some high stakes to bear in mind, so we’ve got these tips to help you on your great journey on Zeta Halo in the Halo Infinite campaign.

Halo Infinite map | Halo Infinite length | Halo Infinite story | Halo Infinite ending explained | Halo Infinite Targets | Halo Infinite Skulls | Halo Infinite Craig Easter egg | Halo Infinite Warship Gbraakon collectibles | Halo Infinite Foundation collectibles | Halo Infinite Tower collectibles | Halo Infinite Conservatory collectibles | Halo Infinite Nexus collectibles | Halo Infinite Repository collectibles 

Exploring the Halo Infinite open world is mostly optional

One of the biggest new features of Halo Infinite’s campaign is that it now features an open(ish) world that allows players to freely explore their current region between missions. However, if this puts you off trying out the campaign, you’ll be pleased to read that a lot of the open world exploration is mostly optional or can be saved for later.

You could very easily complete Halo Infinite’s campaign as though it were a traditional, linear Halo story consisting of 10 or so missions. A journey across a large section of broken Halo Ring in a Warthog is all that separates you from a few of the missions. Even if you do take the critical path approach, you’ll still be able to go back and try out all the free-roam activities after you finish the main story as the campaign does have an endgame state.

Spend your Spartan Cores on Grappleshot and Shield upgrades first

As you progress through the Halo Infinite campaign, you’ll find and unlock new equipment for Master Chief to use. Unfortunately, none of it is quite as good as the Grappleshot, so you should prioritise spending your Halo Infinite Spartan Cores – a resource found on Zeta Halo for upgrading equipment – on it. The Voltaic upgrade adds a stunning electrical charge to the Grappleshot, which is great for temporarily immobilizing certain enemies, and the cooldown reduction let’s you climb harder-to-reach areas.

Your next priority should be to upgrade the Shield Core module, which is the second equipment item Master Chief gets. Each upgrade for the shield increases its capacity by 15%, making Master Chief much harder to kill. You’ll quickly start facing more powerful enemies, bosses, and vehicles as you progress through the campaign, so getting up to full shield strength quickly will be helpful.

Use the Grappleshot as often as you can

As previously mentioned, the Grappleshot is easily the best equipment item in Halo Infinite and one of the most versatile and fun pieces of equipment for combat and movement in Chief’s arsenal. The Grappleshot really allows you to use the environment to your advantage and during fights you can swing out of danger to reach cover, or fly into the face of the enemy in an aggressive push. When it’s upgraded with a shorter cooldown, it’s perfect for exploration as you’ll be able to climb pretty much any sheer cliff or superstructure on Zeta Halo and grapple from vertical surfaces like a half-tonne Spider-Man.

You can also use it to grab objects such as weapons, Power Seeds, and Coils. If you’re running low on ammo and need to swap, rather than running out of cover to grab anything, you can simply stay put and grapple a new weapon towards you. You can also grab any kind of explosive Coil at range with the Grappleshot and then throw it at your enemies to quickly clear them out. If a Ghost or Chopper is causing you problems, grappling it will allow you to automatically hijack the vehicle and take it for yourself. There’s almost no reason to use any other equipment because the Grappleshot is just that good.

Use Scan frequently to reveal objectives, items, and door locks

You can use Master Chief’s convenient Scan ability to highlight nearby objects even through walls and ensure you’re rarely lost – on an Xbox controller it’s bound to down on the D-pad by default. It’ll highlight orange objective waypoints and markers that will lead you to the correct place. It'll also highlight consoles and trace an orange line to what exactly the console activates, such as a door mechanism or lock.

Meanwhile, weapons and vehicles will show up as light blue silhouettes when using Scan. This can be really useful for finding an old weapon that you might have dropped by accident, or you remember seeing a vehicle parked up just before a combat encounter and need it to get around. Banished Outposts or areas under their control can also have locked rooms or buildings with powerful items inside. Using Scan could reveal what’s inside so that you know if it’s worth getting into. One of the Outposts we raided had a locked armory room that was full of all sorts of UNSC weapons.

Capture Halo Infinite FOBs to reveal nearby collectibles and unlock fast travel

Halo Infinite FOBs are an important side activity in the Halo Infinite campaign. All of them allow you to call in new weapons, vehicles, and Marines who will follow you into combat. But each FOB you capture also acts as a fast travel point that you can use at any time while you’re not on a mission. Setting aside a bit of time between missions to reclaim as many of the Forward Operating Bases as you can in your current area will really help you in the future, as you’ll be able to fast travel all over Zeta Halo to get to your missions quickly.

After capturing a FOB, you’ll also notice that nearby collectibles and open world activities – Outposts, Marine Squads, Targets, Propaganda Towers, Spartan Cores, and Mjolnir Armories – will be revealed on the tacmap. Completing or collecting any of these will be useful for general progression and upgrading Master Chief’s gear, so your future self will be thanking you for getting some of those FOBs early in the game.

Earn Valor for FOB upgrades by completing side activities

Speaking of FOBs, if you want better weapon and vehicle requisitions at your FOBs, you’ll need to unlock them by earning Valor. It’s sort of an XP system for only FOBs that allows you to permanently unlock new items by increasing your total Valor and reaching certain thresholds. As soon as you can use your first FOB, you’ll have just the Assault Rifle, Sidekick, and Mongoose quadbike unlocked. As you earn more Valor you’ll be able to get items such as the Battle Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Scorpion Tank, Marines with Rocket Launchers, and the Wasp.

The main way to earn Valor is by completing main story missions as each one will give you a few hundred Valor points. Smaller amounts of Valor are awarded for certain side activities, such as clearing Outposts (100 Valor per Outpost), rescuing Marine squads (30 Valor per squad), and destroying Propaganda Towers (10 Valor per Tower).

Mjolnir Armories unlock Halo Infinite multiplayer cosmetics

If you’re more of a multiplayer person, the  campaign still has a few exclusive cosmetic items that you can unlock from only the campaign, specifically by finding Halo Infinite Mjolnir Armories. These Spartan armor lockers can be found around Zeta Halo and are marked on the map by nearby allied FOBs. Each one you collect unlocks a new armor cosmetic for you to apply to your custom Spartan for Halo Infinite multiplayer, however a lot of them do seem to be just Armor Coatings.

Halo Infinite has loads of collectible audio logs to enhance the story

Halo Infinite’s story does feel a little disjointed at times, so audio logs that piece things together are helpful for any Halo lore enthusiasts out there who want to get the whole picture. Be aware that there are four different kinds of audio logs that you’ll need to look out for and there are a lot to collect in total. Unfortunately, they don’t appear on the map either, so you’ll need to do some good old-fashioned exploring to find them in missions and across Zeta Halo.

The most common audio logs you’ll find are UNSC and Banished logs. Both appear as large holographic tablets that regularly beep and flash brightly when you’re nearby. Listening to these will reveal information about the final moments aboard the UNSC Infinity and the Banished’s thoughts on their grand plan. Spartan Audio Logs look exactly the same as UNSC logs but specifically include radio chatter from Spartans.

Finally, Forerunner Archives are the least common of the audio log collectibles and there are only a handful of them in Halo Infinite. You’ll also only find them in the open world as they are miniature-scale Halo rings made of stone and are slightly buried in the ground. If you interact with them, you’ll learn about the Forerunners and Zeta Halo’s purpose.

Look for hidden loot caves for easter eggs and weapon caches

One final tip for your journey across Zeta Halo: look out for hidden Forerunner loot caves. You might find some fun things inside. One that we found on the edge of one of the fragments contained a Forerunner weapon cache packed with Heatwaves, Cindershots, and one special Backdraft Cindershot weapon variant.

Another cave we found within a cliff close to Outpost Tremonius had an oddly placed Halo Infinite arcade machine. It’s unfortunately not playable but it does play a recognisable, chip-tune rendition of the Halo theme. The same arcade machine can also be found on the Streets multiplayer map. There are sure to be plenty of other secrets to unravel on Zeta Halo so keep an eye out for any surprises.