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

[PSman1700]

Alex always does an amazing job at explaining and more importantly visualizing how effects work in visuals. He always puts a ton of work into those videos you can tell. He was an amazing addition to the team. I love the vids he does with John; those two make a good team.

Yes i also like how he talks about tech, like how he always explains ray tracing etc. He has a happy tone to his voice while doing his videos. Imo, DF was mostly only console oriented before Alex joined, which was kinda sad since PC is still the biggest platform out there, where tech always comes first before consoles, like ray tracing, SSD etc. In these premature days, alex then covered and explained what we can expect, and it was spot on i think.

The PC remains a very intresting platform, it can't be ignored and needs dedication which they have solidly covered now, with true passion.

 

[mpg1]

Seems like it's a combination of the lighting and the artistic choices which are really giving it that "flat" look. In games like Breath of The Wild they go much further with the sort of minimalist/clean art style so your brain adjusts expectations. Here it's much more subtle so it just ends up looking like a current gen shooter lacking a lot of finer detail...

Who knows maybe some levels will look better or ray tracing will help(though it won't help Xbox One owners..)

 

[PSman1700]

I think Halo Infinite will evolve over time, there won't be a new halo after that. Abit like SC perhaps, always evolving, hence the name. I can see the game looking just as good as many Sony aaa games in some years, or i hope alteast.

 

[eastmen]

hm... fair enough, I suppose, but it seems lofty to expect them to change everything (particularly campaign).

I'd wager they started this game in the mid 2010s perhaps before xbox one x was intended. They then moved targets to x and then series x. So the plan would be to replace textures originally intended for the xbox one base model with newer textures for the xbox series x and eventually add advanced features to the engine.

That or they royally fucked p some where and its unfixable. But i think MS would have just pulled the plug at that point

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't really understand how things will turn out with the 10 years of content - there's a limit to how much they can change the graphics. Also... download size???

They might be able to scale up encounters later on, but we don't yet have an idea of where they're going for gameplay and metacontent.

There are multiple examples of things like this in the PC space, and now in the console space.

FFXIV has vastly better graphics now than when it launched (PS3 constrained). Although unlike the next example, all art and assets weren't updated so older areas of the game world still looks PS3 gen.

Warframe now (dx11/10) looks almost nothing like when it released (dx9). Rendering and assets are constantly being updated.

There's other examples as well. If done well, graphics rendering and art (assets) can be updated for whatever is currently cutting edge while keeping the core engine and gameplay.

Regards,
SB

 

[Jay]

Alanah Pierce had a behind-closed-door viewing of the exact demo & said that level was about half-way through the game

Oh well, there goes that theory.
So they specifically chose that mission....
Guess it was to demo gameplay and scale? Ouch.

I'm sure it will still do well when it releases.
But to really have had a strong start it needed to come out a year or so ago, even if it meant story starting of a bit smaller.
Then dive into next gen with a strong foundation and community with a next gen patch.

I don't follow social media, and even I'm hearing about it becoming a meme.

 

[iroboto]

Oh well, there goes that theory.
So they specifically chose that mission....
Guess it was to demo gameplay and scale? Ouch.

I'm sure it will still do well when it releases.
But to really have had a strong start it needed to come out a year or so ago, even if it meant story starting of a bit smaller.
Then dive into next gen with a strong foundation and community with a next gen patch.

I don't follow social media, and even I'm hearing about it becoming a meme.

it was 4 hours into the game IIRC, I'm not sure if that's 1/2 way.

 

[Xbat]

SPOILER: 343 picked a poor combination of location and time to capture footage. It doesn't address all of the complaints, but probably the big one. This is actually quite encouraging.

This I don't believe for a second and if it's true whoever is in charge of selecting the time of day in that demo is an idiot and should be fired.

Honestly if anyone believes that for a big show of the first gameplay of your biggest game on your newest hardware isn't obsessed over to be put forward at the best possible light for months is delusional and if Microsoft did just say a day before just record a little section of gameplay and we will put that in I would be flabbergasted.

If anything that time of day was picked because it was the best to show off the graphics in that current build.

 

[AzBat]

Anybody try modeling a ring world orbiting a star & figuring how the day/night cycle would work? If the star was in the center of the ring, wouldn't it be day time all the time?

Tommy McClain

 

[zed]

Anybody try modeling a ring world orbiting a star & figuring how the day/night cycle would work? If the star was in the center of the ring, wouldn't it be day time all the time?

Tommy McClain

Yes, but even more of a challenge than that is how massive it would be, thousands to millionsx times the land area of the earth I guess

 

[deepbrown]

It seems like a generous analysis to say the only problem is the lighting. The texture choices are bad. Art style is subjective - anyone saying it's because it's more cartoony just needs to look at the new Ratchet and Clank. Particle effects are hugely impactful - where are they?

The thing is, I expect we'd be looking at this trailer for Xbox One and thinking - is this it?

On a side point, I am interested to see how devs combine the realism of things like Ray traced lighting with their artistic choices, where they might place lighting. Ghost of T looks like a Japanese movie from every angle, mostly thanks to lighting - you wouldn't want a next gen technique like RT to limit the artistic vision.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This I don't believe for a second and if it's true whoever is in charge of selecting the time of day in that demo is an idiot and should be fired.

I don't believe somebody should be fired for making a mistake, that's kind of overkill. But remember somebody also selected those screenshots for release and some of those could easily be mistaken for lastgen console captures!

It seems like a generous analysis to say the only problem is the lighting.

The DF video does not say that the lighting is the only problem. They call out many problems in their video if you watch it all the way through.

 

[Xbat]

I don't believe somebody should be fired for making a mistake, that's kind of overkill. But remember somebody also selected those screenshots for release and some of those could easily be mistaken for lastgen console captures!

Firstly my point was it isn't a mistake, you think they didn't have a whole team looking even obsessing over that clip before deciding to use it?

So you think it's just some guy and he gets the go ahead to use whatever screenshots or video gets used?

It's there biggest game that's also to showcase there next gen machine.

 

[deepbrown]

The DF video does not say that the lighting is the only problem. They call out many problems in their video if you watch it all the way through.

Have watched. Still seems generous and says the main problem is lighting. There are many games that have characters in shadows which look better. The game looks bad in and out of light. It does however look crisp and sharp, and the resolution plus frame rate certainly isn't possible on current hardware.

I strongly expect Hellblade 2 to blow us away via amazing tech and art direction.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Have watched. Still seems generous and says the main problem is lighting.

The video was focussed on the flat graphics, the video analysis title is: Halo Infinite Gameplay Trailer Analysis: Are The Graphics Really 'Flat'...?

DF may have more analysis on other things but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't because they generally reserve their maximum effort for final code just before, or just after, a game's release.

 

[deepbrown]

The video was focussed on the flat graphics, the video analysis title is: Halo Infinite Gameplay Trailer Analysis: Are The Graphics Really 'Flat'...?

DF may have more analysis on other things but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't because they generally reserve their maximum effort for final code just before, or just after, a game's release.

That's fair. I may more be commenting on people reacting to the video by saying the graphics will be much better if they fix the lighting with RT.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Rich from ReviewTechUSA with XBox insider source info. Demo engine version was 4 months old.

 

[AlNom]

I don't know if I could believe them choosing UE4 though I suppose it's not the strangest idea considering the limitations at the time while MS studios predominantly used it anyway. In any case, I'm sure they would have quickly found out that it would be difficult to create an open world game with it.

:S

 

[JoeJ]

If you actually dissect the 2018 trailer itself I would argue there is a massive difference between the "game engine demonstration" up-close shots at the beginning ....and the end where the warthog is driving which looks more like an actual in-game rendering. The latter looks a lot less detailed than those initial "demonstrations" and closer to what we are seeing now:

That last shot of the warthog driving was all of 5-6 seconds but the "game engine demonstrations" took up most of the trailer. In a way it was misleading...but have we learned nothing from E3 trailers...

In case it has not been said yet, i wonder the most about the hex columns seen in the actual gameplay, but not present when above trailer was produced.
It almost looks like they would have started working on the actual game only after that, but totally from scratch.

 

[PSman1700]

The 2018 trailer totally looked realistic to me, it's clearly not CGI? I wonder what happened, if it looked like that trailer, it wouldn't have been underwhelming, not as much as now atleast.