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

Native 4k is a mistake. 60fps is not. But to be brutally honest, this game looks like it should be running at 120fps on a 12 TFLOP next-gen GPU. It looks like a non-remastered backwards compatibility title.



Halo 5 on One X looks nicer to me, though it's much more limited in the scope of the level design. The thing is, the Series X has at a minimum twice the GPU power, and a massively better CPU, as well as more RAM with more bandwidth. It has all kinds of other efficiencies built in that should allow it to punch above the raw numbers compared to One X. This reveal of Halo Infinite does not live up to that.

I can understand if covid19 has had a big impact on development. That's the most favourable reason I can come up with to explain how this launch title from their biggest franchise (the only triple AAA first-party game they showed gameplay for) looks so crappy. Honestly, if that's the story, then wait to show the gameplay. I know they didn't have other games to show, and they're probably in a worse state, but cancel the event and hold it in late August or September if you think you can show better then. Or put a disclaimer on the video that says, "Early game footage - unfinished" or something. If this is how it looks when it launches, my guess is it's a desperation release to have something at launch, and it's being pushed out early, which is exactly what Phil Spencer said they wouldn't do. He's talked a lot about being flexible with studios so they don't feel like they have to release x games a year, and giving them time to get things right.

 

The game have to run on old gen too, right ?

 

There no doubt that Halo doesn’t look up to snuff. But I never been all that WOW’d by it’s visuals anyway. However, I always felt like this was a major dent in their armor. How can your biggest franchise not compete for best looking title on your platform?

But I digress. I like to know if devs typically and readily separate their optimization of their game mechanics from their graphics optimization.

It would make sense to choose a older more stable build to optimize gameplay. And then update when a newer more stable but visually enhanced build arrives.

 

It seems people took the different art direction of infinite as a downgrade from Reach.

They say it's bland. Not detailed. Like mobile games.

 

Halo's flashy colorful art style has always looked like ass for a Sci-fi setting.. Unfortunately 343i got shitted on when they drifted away from it.. Now we are back to square one with a game held back by shit tier hardware (Xbox One)... Halo 4 is an insane technical achievement on 360 BTW. Halo 5, besides having a shit campaign and story was technically ass because of the Xbox One HW..

 

one feature i loved in old X360 bungie halos, were the photo mode, where the entire mission gameplay was saved, and you coul go through freely.

 

The art style is not the problem.
It also being on Xbox One does not explain much.

 

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:

 

that old trailer looks better. The color grading / composition looks more ghost of tsushima-ey, i like that!

 

I really don't see what is supposed to be "less blocky" about the artstyle itself?

To me the main difference is how it's rendered out.

 

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.

 

As long as they polish up the low-res textures and pop-in, I guess I'll be willing to live with what we got. I do agree 4K is kind of overkill. Especially at 60FPS. I feel 1440p or even 1800p would have been the sweet spot for 343 to deliver great visuals and 60FPS. But I digress. And also, I don't remember anyone asking for a big open-world? We just wanted more level design akin to CE lol. They also added a day and night cycle which is... interesting. They need to give us a beta/demo so I can get a taste already.

Sigh. This is not AT ALL how I envisioned myself talking about Halo Infinite a couple of weeks ago.

 

Ah! You hit the nail! It does feels like fortnite to certain extent. I wonder why.

 

Wait ........................ this was an actual screenshot, I thought someone had gone in and photoshopped a bad graphic of a gorrila on masterchief or something.

Heres an ingame screenshot from the PS2 game kingkong, yes ps2. Just looked at some videos of it on youtube, very good motion blur, yes prolly too much motionblur but it shows what a massive amount of fillrate can do.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...V4keW91pZu_eDPeCe6wxCE_Ix9MLmexjc9RvRSfZX2dgk

''No matter how much I want it to be, Halo Infinite is not about selling Xbox Series X. It's about selling Xbox Game Pass. And its art style is just fine for that.''

 

I thought the “become step inside” trailer is some next-gen cutscene or at least some in-engine video. But it seems neither. So what is that? CGI introduction trailer?

 

Reportedly, Halo Infinite was running on a pc. A low end one at that?