What Halo Infinite's story did well, and where it could have gone better [MASSIVE SPOILERS]

I will preface all this by saying that the gameplay is phenomenal. The best Halo has ever been. That alone makes it worth getting.

Infinite has a middle of the road campaign for me. Not the best, and not the worst of the franchise. A good enough return to form after 5.

The Positives

Chief and Friends: Chief and his allies have interesting, compelling dynamics with one another overall. The Weapon's naivete, while occasionally a little too in your face, works well, and the slowly building trust between Chief and the Weapon adds a layer of personal tension I enjoy. The Pilot is also a character I was surprised I liked a lot. A scared person forced into desperate circumstances, his evolution into someone more sure of himself and his abilities is compelling. The Chief himself also strikes the right balance between badass one-liner man and someone trying to process hard emotions that it's a joy to see on screen. This is probably among the best character writing we see in the series.

Cortana and Halo 5: This will be more controversial, but this game very much salvaged the awful storyline of Halo 5 and I am glad it did not try to keep us going on the Guardians route. Cortana is given her moments of villainy, her moment of clarity, and then a sacrifice. We almost restore Halo 4's ending and open up the plot for new stories.

The Uncertainties

The Endless: We will need to see how good or bad these new opponents are. If they are compelling, I think much of the hype this campaign tries to instill is acceptable. With that said, we probably should see more reasons to be afraid of the Endless, perhaps the remnants of a scene of an attempted escape from the Forerunners on Zeta.

The Negatives

The Banished's Portrayal: The Banished are a faction led by Atriox and are composed of a group of disaffected Covenant soldiers tired of being sent to die without a second thought. None of this is made fully clear in Infinite like how it is in HW2, and little of the Banished's personality shines through. 343 essentially had the Covenant species' version of Outer Heaven from the Metal Gear series as antagonists, and a story about a soldier that has seen nothing but war his whole life, and did nothing with it. It would not be difficult to work into the existing plot of Infinite that the Banished are disaffected Covenant soldiers that want Zeta Halo as genocidal insurance against being attacked, for example.

Villains: Escharum spends most of his appearance making threats at the Chief. He has little personality other than a very played out dynamic of an honor bound warrior and killer. Those moments where Atriox was shown in Cortana's memories were far more compelling, and characterized Atriox far more than we've ever seen with Escharum. The Harbinger unfortunately, also falls into this trap. She very much repeats the usual bad guy lines promising something scary, but has little substance other than when she explains the Silent Auditorium to Chief.

Overall

In the end, if I had to place all the campaigns in a list based on how I liked them from best to worst, this is how it would be for me.

Halo 2>Halo 1>Halo 4 = Halo Reach > Halo ODST = Infinite > Halo 3 >>> Halo 5