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Halo InfiniteвЂ™s multiplayer mode, in a first for the decades-old series, is wholly free-to-play. In fact, you may have already spent many (many) units of lifeвЂ™s most ephemeral currency, time, playing it. Make no mistake: Halo Infinite is already out. ItвЂ™s technically вЂњa beta,вЂќ but cвЂ™mon, can you name a recently released beta as smooth? Plus, you can already spend hundreds of dollars of very real real-world money on it.

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You probably already know the broad strokes: On November 15, the 20th anniversary of Halo: Combat Evolved, developer 343 Industries surprise-released InfiniteвЂ™s multiplayer mode on Xbox and PC ahead of its planned December 8 debut. Of course, the expected wait for Halo Infinite was unexpectedly slashed by several weeks. WhatвЂ™s most worth measuring here is twofold: Was it worth the wait? And does this mean Halo is really, truly back? In other words, the question isnвЂ™t if Halo Infinite is any good. And, to finally put to bed last yearвЂ™s infamous graphics debacle (hi, Craig), Infinite is stupefyingly gorgeous.

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All this, plus itвЂ™s more polished than most games created at this scale.

Amid a trend of open-world games valuing quantity over quality-of tossing the player into worlds cluttered with bland, repetitive tasks- InfiniteвЂ™s open-world section feels refreshingly focused. The shooting is a blast, thanks to a deep bench of enemy classes and an even deeper arsenal of creative weapons, supplemented by a Bond-worthy kit of toys to play with key among them is a grappling hook, an item that, frankly, should just be in every video game. Fan service is, apparently, more fun when you can actively engage with it.Д«ut even if youвЂ™re squarely in the вЂњWhatвЂ™s a Halo?вЂќ camp, thereвЂ™s a whole lot to like about Halo Infinite. These moments are genuinely thrilling on their own merits, and never overstay their welcome. Halo Infinite nails it by including winks and nods for more than the sake of winking and nodding. WeвЂ™ve all seen Hollywood bungle fan service.

You are, once again, a seven-foot-tall supersoldier palling around with a vivid blue artificial intelligence on a ring-shaped space station, hoping to save the galaxy from zealously religious extraterrestrials. At times, it plays like a greatest hits album of iconic setpieces from Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 (which tracks, seeing as Joseph Staten, an instrumental creative force behind BungieвЂ™s trilogy, was brought in last August to help carry Halo Infinite over the finish line).

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John Halo himself makes Halo Infinite feel less like a proper sequel to Halo 5 and more like a follow-up to the venerable original trilogy, when the series was under the purview of Bungie. And in a departure from that gameвЂ™s most notorious misstep, Halo InfiniteвЂ™s story is told entirely from the perspective of longtime series hero Master Chief. Infinite picks up roughly a year and a half after the events of Halo 5, but doesnвЂ™t concern itself with those events beyond some perfunctory, and intermittent, moments of exposition.

Halo Infinite, officially out on Wednesday for Xbox and PC, is the seventh mainline Halo game and the first in six years, following 2015вЂ™s divisive Halo 5: Guardians. So, yeah, letвЂ™s just get the easy part out the way: Every single player is bound to come into this game with their own predetermined definition of what it is and what it stands for. There are so many expectations on Halo InfiniteвЂ™s armor-clad shoulders that youвЂ™d think itвЂ™d crumble apart in a pile of pixels. How do you even consider Halo Infinite in totality? Not just any Halo game but this Halo game-one that was supposed to herald a new generation of Xbox but was delayed out of the launch window one thatвЂ™s had no shortage of public scrutiny over its tumultuous development process one thatвЂ™s not even out yet but has already been the centerpiece of multiple internet-dominating conversations and, most crucially, one thatвЂ™s meant to revitalize a totemic first-person shooter series after a stretch of metabolic dormancy.