Halo Infinite says 'screw it' and just becomes Halo 3 for a month—complete with grifball

Halo Infinite has announced the start of Operation: Legacy, a range of multiplayer tweaks, maps and modes that essentially makes Infinite resemble the golden age of Halo 3. We've been here before, kinda: last year saw Infinite throw a similar Halo 2-themed nostalgia party for that game's 20th anniversary.

But Halo 3 eh? Phwoar. Looking back now this really was the golden age of Halo, for me at least, with Bungie's first HD shooter not only the most anticipated game around but somehow over-delivering, especially when it came to multiplayer functionality: it pioneered features like Forge, included tools for screenshots and video creation, and hooked up with the dearly departed Bungie.net for all sorts of extraneous information. The fact that Halo 3 itself was a brilliant multiplayer game was the icing on the cake.

It was Forge that really gave this extra legs, because it allowed players to create new game modes that in some cases have become part of Halo ever since. One of my favourites, sadly not represented in this Legacy event though I'm sure it can be found easily enough, was Halo Kart, simply a mode where players raced mongoose buggies across the map. Another beloved mode, however, has made it: Grifball.

Imagine American Football but played with gravity hammers and laser swords. That's it, that's the mode. The Infinite version of grifball has those deliberately wonky physics, ten new arenas, and four modes with two being played in third-person. The mode also reduces the cooldown on the gravity hammer, juices up the impact of the hammer physics, and uses the Duelist variant of the energy swords, apparently to "make use of its long-range feints for dancing."

Operation: Legacy offers a retro Delta Arena playlist, versions of Halo 3 maps, Grifball, and some of the most memorable helmets from the 2007 glory days. The Delta playlist includes 11 Halo 3 maps in total including the likes of Guardian, Narrows, Cold Storage, and Ghost Town being available for the first time in Halo Infinite, and applies the following gameplay changes to all players:

• Sprint: Disabled
• Clamber: Disabled
• Jump Height: 120%
• Starting Weapon: MA5K Avenger or BR75 Battle Rifle
• Secondary Weapon: None
• Friendly Player Collision: On

The playlist has the following modes, all under the "Legacy" banner to reflect the map pool and other tweaks: Slayer; KOTH; Oddball; CTF; One Flag; Assault Neutral Bomb; Assault One Bomb.

Last year, Infinite developer 343 Industries announced a name change to Halo Studios, as well as a shift in focus to its future Unreal Engine projects. "Halo Infinite was the last remnants of how we made Halo games in the past," said VP and studio head Pierre Hintze at the time. "That was our recipe and what we're doing now, we're changing the recipe."

Halo 3 was a pretty good recipe though, wasn't it? And to be fair to Infinite, in the years since a wobbly launch it has become a genuinely quality game that exudes a certain kind of 2000s shooter energy: and continues to be impressively supported by events like this. The Halo 3 Legacy event is live in Halo Infinite until July 8. Once more, it's time to finish the fight.