Here's our first look at Halo Infinite multiplayer

Halo Infinite will have free-to-play multiplayer, Microsoft re-confirmed at its E3 conference today. Also confirmed: Grappling hooks are in, Brute choppers are back, and Capture the Flag is still the best multiplayer game mode in the world (okay, they didn't say that in the footage, but it's true).

Microsoft showed off an exciting montage of Halo Infinite multiplayer action today with a lot of the series' staple sandbox items appearing.

There's no release date specified yet, but it's coming "Holiday 2021." There are a ton more details to go through at the Halo blog.

Here's what stood out to me in the trailer:

The Brute Chopper, Banshees, Ghosts, the Mongoose, Scorpion tank and Warthogs all return
It looks like there's a new human flying vehicle that looks like a compact fighter jet
Spartans can slide like in Halo 5
There's still sprinting
Grappling hooks in multiplayer! You can grab an explosive barrel and chuck it, grapple hook a weapon into your arms, or grapple to the ceiling to give yourself a big jump
The shotgun looks new and sounds *meaty*
Gravity hammer and energy sword are both back
There's a heavy machine gun that looks new (or possibly a rework of a previous weapon)
A Spartan fires off some kind of energy pulse from one arm, and at another point a Spartan pulls up a shield with their arm to reflect a plasma shot. This looks like a new take on Armor Abilities?
Frag grenades'll still kill ya
The announcer is back, and at one point says "Bank shot!" when a Spartan gets a kill by bouncing an energy weapon off the ceiling
BR confirmed
Armor customization looks very varied
Oddball is in, and it's a gnarly lookin' flaming skull
You can use grenades to knock weapons towards you, just like in the old days

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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).