Halo Infinite [Fall 2021] [XO, XBSX|S, PC, XGP]

[Deleted member 11852]

I just don’t understand why they showed it to us.

I think Microsoft were in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. They couldn't win here, so kudos to them for being brave and showing what they had knowing/hoping that most gamers are better informed and know work-in-progess is just that.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think Microsoft were in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. They couldn't win here, so kudos to them for being brave and showing what they had knowing/hoping that most gamers are better informed and know work-in-progess is just that.

Well from the youtube video description: "Enjoy a first look at Halo Infinite campaign gameplay, captured real-time and representative of the experience on Xbox Series X running at 60FPS and up to 4K resolution." They didn't exactly advertise this as a rough first look.

There's no mention here of it being a work in progress or highly unfinished. This is basically shown and described as built from the ground up for Series X.

 

[AlNom]

But they want back and decided on a Halo spiritual reboot. And I do agree it's 'Halo' take on FPS. H4 and 5 felt like your typical shooter game with better AI enemies for a campaign. I think every FPS game that's been good has had an identity, and Halo lost theirs. They may have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it a Halo game. And that may have resulted in a lot of re-work and then the eventual realization a new-engine would need to be made. SO they needed to scrap and rebuild. Supporting XBO to XSX to PC is not an easy task either. Most other exclusives do not need to target so many platforms.

Maybe they should have copied Crysis 1.

Space Sharks

 

[AzBat]

Maybe the only person who knows how to record gameplay only has a low end PC at home while in isolation from the Pandemic? Oh wait, this build was from early January, maybe everyone was snowed in?

Yeah, I could see that. Maybe it was recorded for E3 when that was supposed to happen?

Tommy McClain

 

[iroboto]

Well from the youtube video description: "Enjoy a first look at Halo Infinite campaign gameplay, captured real-time and representative of the experience on Xbox Series X running at 60FPS and up to 4K resolution." They didn't exactly advertise this as a rough first look.

There's no mention here of it being a work in progress or highly unfinished. This is basically shown and described as built from the ground up for Series X.

I suppose if people thought it looked great none of this would have been revealed lol.

They had these issues in 2013. I figured they had the foresight to resolve transition issues (X1X for instance was very smooth and given how much studio time before launch they had), Direct X features known in advance, RT being released for 2 years now) this shouldn't have been such a large lift for all of their studios to have something along.

I stand corrected though.

 

[AlNom]

The design of the brute Mauler (pistol shotgun) bugs me. It just doesn't seem consistent with the Brute design philosophy.

Halo 3 version

Now it looks more like a human design ala the Armsel Striker shotgun. :|



Really creative.

 

[PSman1700]

Huh, None said it running on a low spec PC, apart from PSman1700

I was joking there ofcourse. I mean, a similar to xsx specced pc would be atleast a RTX2080, zen 2 8 core cpu and fast nvme drive. Try to sell that graphics to a high end pc gamer

 

[dobwal]

I'm going to quite disagree on the art style. and yes, aiming to run at 60fps for an open world game on the Xbox One has clearly hampered any hope of this being a technically impressive game on any platform (you can do 60 or open world while looking good this gen guys, not both). But compared to the original announcement trailer, the art direction is downright ugly.

Admittedly I'm somewhat obsessed over artstyle, it's a hobby of mine so I'm inclined to be opinionated on it. But I would challenge that any majority would handily prefer the subtler, less blocky/simplistic style of the announcement trailer from 2 years ago versus what the game has actually ended up looking like. For a reminder:

Not necessarily. If I recall Fight Night Round 3 was significantly different between console generations. It was also ported to the iOS and PSP but that didn't stop from being one of the best looking games during the earliest part of the gen.

Start at 35 seconds

It all depends on how much MS is willing to diverge development between the two gens.

 

[AzBat]

There are many ways the game could look good without being gritty or photorealistic. Everyone thinks Breath of the Wild is a beautiful looking game, but it's not a technical powerhouse. It just has a very well executed and cohesive art style. Maybe they could have gone for a painted look like some old sci-fi novel covers.

I would have been so with down with a stylized painted art style like used in concept art or Breath of the Wild. See this concept art that I think is from Halo 4...

Source: Haruspis Blog

Give me that & I believe it could have been done well on XB1 to XBSX & PC.

Tommy McClain

 

[dobwal]

I didn't get to watch the event live but have caught up now. Yeah, the aesthetic really threw me. From the earlier image of Master Chief [@iroboto post] I came away thinking 343 were going for a gritty and grounded visuals but I was way off the mark. This is like Reach crossed with Fortnite.

Yeah, I was expecting the same thing. Its like 343 is so paranoid about changing what makes Halo Halo, they are unwilling to make any bold changes to move the franchise forward.

 

[cheapchips]

I would have been so with down with a stylized painted art style like used in concept art or Breath of the Wild. See this concept art that I think is from Halo 4...

Source: Haruspis Blog

Give me that & I believe it could have been done well on XB1 to XBSX & PC.

Tommy McClain

I don't think any game has really translated that style of concept art successfully to screen. It's something I'd like to see though.

 

[dobwal]

I would have been so with down with a stylized painted art style like used in concept art or Breath of the Wild. See this concept art that I think is from Halo 4...

Source: Haruspis Blog

Give me that & I believe it could have been done well on XB1 to XBSX & PC.

Tommy McClain

Don't do that! How would like me showing you pictures of a perfectly prepared steak with all the trimmings, when you got cheese sandwich on your plate?

 

[Ike Turner]

I don't think any game has really translated that style of concept art successfully to screen. It's something I'd like to see though.

id Software's Rage did it to a certain extend.

 

[cheapchips]

id Software's Rage did it ro a certain extend.

Yeah, I guess. It's still 'hard' surfaces. Using ML to make even the edges and motion painterly, but not too painterly, is what I'm imagining. One day.

 

[AzBat]

Don't do that! How would like me showing you pictures of a perfectly prepared steak with all the trimmings, when you got cheese sandwich on your plate?

I can't afford steak. So I'm ok with cheese sandwiches. LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Oooof, reading this, it's obvious I'm not like the majority of people on this forum.

I play games for the gameplay not for the graphics. I can understand people wanting the game to look better and indeed it might by the time the game is out.

But if I don't like the gameplay I don't like the game. H4 and H5 I hated because the gameplay was so much worse than the Bungie Halos. No amount of graphics was going to save those games for me. They could have had impossible to achieve looking graphics and I still would have hated those 2 games.

For me, I look at the gameplay that has been shown and Halo once again interests me. Better graphics would have been fine. As long as it was in the Halo style that allows for quick and almost instantaneous identification of not only friend or foe but the type of foe as well. IE - not something like a Battlefield or a COD where it isn't immediately obvious whether an opponent is friend or foe.

It's probably why I almost exclusively play indie games and AA games nowadays. The focus is on the gameplay and not the graphics and thus almost invariably indie and AA games have far better gameplay than the vast majority of AAA games.

So, I guess the graphics in what was shown being obviously broken/unfinished/unpolished doesn't bother me, since the gameplay so far looks to be what I want out of a Halo game.

I do hope the graphics get better/fixed by the time the game releases, but I'll likely be playing it and enjoying it regardless. Assuming the series does indeed return to form for a Halo game.

Regards,
SB

 

[AlNom]

Yeah but we're talking about their flagship title.

This is like the time when a Klingon D12 scout ship took out the pride of Starfleet.

Spoiler

NERD

:V

 

[iroboto]

Oooof, reading this, it's obvious I'm not like the majority of people on this forum.

People like graphics. People want to be wowed.

I think there is a good case for wowing. There are also good cases for just gameplay. Halo and Mass Effect are the types of games that I would like to be wowed in and I enjoy the gameplay. It's a different universe, it's sci-fi... I mean... why not?

But I want gameplay, a big focus on gameplay, and I'm willing to concede on technical superiority for gameplay.

However, graphics is a combination of technology and artistic design. And you can have very good looking games without the need to break the bank technically. That's just good art design. And Halo could have had the latter here, despite not having the former even in this scenario.

It might be too late for any drastic changes to the art now. Enough time to fix technical ones though.
They were probably working on this demo for E3. Usually they have about 3 months to complete a WIP for a E3 demo (just working off some timelines I've been passed on other titles). And this AAA studio did create a trailer during covid for a Summer Games event, but upon review they canceled it, so you never saw the gameplay trailer... and that may not have been an option here for 343i.

This unfortunately would have landed them during COVID. And COVID is tough to work through, I have my 3 children here every day beside me and it's hard to get anything done; this is a legitimate excuse as we cancelled a bunch of E3 and businesses for it.

It doesn't come across as scripted as much as I've seen other demos. So I guess it's possible that this game is working through finalization and things are content locked.

I'm hopeful the final version will clean up better, but it's going to be hard to make any changes given their current development status with covid.

 

[milk]

The worst looking AAA game shown so far (Sony included) is probably the most expensive one with the longest development time and the biggest franchise

This part alone is fully internally consistent in my opinion. Nothing to do with MS or anything else. Big projects and large teams can easily spin in circles, be over-confident, lack focus, etc. "Too big to Fail" is a falacy, the very oposite is very often true.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm not particularly excited about the game play, but we'll see. I'm willing to accept that there's a lot more to the game that they haven't shown yet. It was not a successful teaser from my perspective, but it is just a teaser. Still time to show a lot more, and hopefully there is a lot more.