Halo Community Update: Halo Infinite, 343 on Graphics and Visuals + More

343:

In the past two weeks we've unveiled Halo Infinite, launched Halo 3 on PC as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, helped raise money for a good cause, released tons of Halo gear, and so much more. Since this is a pretty hefty Community Update, let's jump right in!

[Jin_Sakai]

So the build was only 2 weeks old? Xbox fans were claiming it was a months old demo. Regardless, It’s not looking good considering it’s out in less than 4 months.

[RamRod88]

They said several weeks. That could be 2 or more. It's hard to say without full clarification.

[umair_s51]

@Jin how do you know the build is 2 weeks old?

[Mr Pumblechook]

"...other aspects of the feedback have brought new opportunities and considerations to light that the team is taking very seriously and working to assess. We don’t have firm answers or outcomes to share yet but the team is working as quickly as possible on plans to address some of the feedback around detail, clarity, and overall fidelity."

Woah, Microsoft and 343i must be very concerned about the public and media response if just a week after the Halo Infinite reveal they are having to make big PR statements to address concerns. Personally I really love the classic aesthetic style but I think Microsoft have been silly to drag out revealing the multiplayer so close to release, as solid detail will get fans hyped.

[Bathyj]

What's the difference how old the build is?
Games like God of war release gameplay 2 years before the game comes out and they still manage to look polished and beautiful.

This old build nonsense is just an excuse. From what I'm hearing this game is in development hell with over use of outside contractors and poor production pipelines. It just sounds like there's no organisation going on at the management level and everyone is just scrambling blind there.

[Marquinho]

Funny how desperate some people are to see Halo failing. I'm confident about 343 Industries. The game will deliver and it's still, by far, the best offering on games at launch.

Sony is playing the safe card. A very small game based on the same assets as on the past generation's Spider-Man. That's all they have for launch, which would be surreal in other generations.

These guys are doing a next-gen full game, with a huge SP mode and Multiplayer + New Engine, all that in the middle of a global pandemic.

If I have to wait a few weeks for Ray Tracing, then I will. I'm very comfortable with that MS is doing for this new generation.

[bouzebbal]

Halo never looked impressive.. Every episode was average looking..this one is just a continuity.
Infinite looks clean, but average even for current gen standards.. It's not about power, it's about having the right developers that can take advantage of the hardware. PS5 puts series x to shame right now..

[Livingthedream]

Game looks great, I don't think it's what the N4G community was expecting, but seems like real Halo fans will be enjoying this thing. Special effects and vistas looks pretty fantastic, either way it'll be interesting to see what kind of improvements they make.

[darthv72]

Not seeing the Chief for so long... I was just glad to see it in action. It looked pretty damn good with all the new effects and vast viewing distance. It's only going to get better.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

It said several. You don't read.

[RamRod88]

"The build used to run the campaign demo was work-in-progress from several weeks ago with a variety of graphical elements and game systems still being finished and polished."

You really have the balls to call someone wrong when it is said right in the article. Show me where it says 2 weeks and I will gladly admit I was wrong.

[Jin_Sakai]

“It said several. You don't read.”

I’m just assuming it’s around 2 weeks. It’s less than a month or they’d worded it differently. Regardless, another week or two doesn’t change anything.

[sprinterboy]

Wether it's 2 weeks or several weeks it's still shocking what they showed considering its a flagship title and only 4 months from release?
The devs said b4 how they miss E3 and winning the show with halo yet after they show the game on a digital event its oh its a old build? So why is it one minute it's gonna win E3 then the nxt oh its old build?
It's just BS PR and MS knows already its gonna cost them launch sales after the poor event and hyping the power of the X yet nothing really looked nxt gen? Bar forza and nyabbe medium

[rainslacker]

Several typically means three. One week difference isn't going to be that much. Even the two month left for release is only going to show a modest improvement, probably on the lighting mostly. Other assets take a lot of work, and most of the shader work seemed like it needed a lot of work.

Nitpicking over 2 vs 3 weeks seems kind of pointless. Even if it were 4 weeks, it wouldn't make much difference. I've seen people go on about how 6 months isn't going to make a difference in the final build, although that is a more appreciable amount of time to get things done.

[BeOpenMinded]

I read the quote, dev said two

[umair_s51]

Whatever Jin

[porkChop]

Where does it say it was two weeks old?

[tagzskie]

several weeks is 2-3 weeks, if its 4+ weeks they have different wording like a month or several months. i assume that 2 weeks hes been talking about is just estimate. Not that really matters it's just a week difference

[Chevalier]

Yeah because a week or 2 makes the difference for something developed over 5 years. 😆

Plus if its over a month they could have said a month or months.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

@tagzskie

sev·er·al
/ˈsev(ə)rəl/
Learn to pronounce
determiner · pronoun
more than two but not many.
"the author of several books"

Several is more than two

[The Wood]

343

Two and a half weeks to a month then. . . Lol. . You guys on defence are splitting hairs. Like some have mentioned, the weeks means very little when they had 5 years.

[chrisoadamson]

Its doesnt . Ppl are just assuming

[rdgneoz3]

@343

If it was 4 or more weeks, they would say over a month ago. 1 is not several. So that leaves 2 or 3 weeks as the time frame of "several"... And according to your definition, 3 weeks is classified as several and it is less than a month. And a 1 week difference is not going to have a huge difference on what's shown.

And if you want to split hairs, you can find "several weeks" or "several months" old videos of Last of Us 2 or Ghost of Tsushima and still see the difference between what 343 / MS showed for Infinite (which is suppose to be next gen) and quality work from Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch.

@cwhit. And a month starts at 4 weeks. It was under a month, else they would have used months instead of weeks. 1 week isn't going to be a game changer.

[porkChop]

@everyone

I never said a couple more weeks would make any difference. I just asked where the amount of weeks was specified because I didn't see "2 weeks" anywhere in the article.

[OB1Biker]

That means it wasnt even old. It was current build 'work in progress'. Even the show is a week old now.

[tagzskie]

@343spark ok im wrong since english is not my first language and only known 4 different language so far. Can i talk to you in japanese? Ok enough english lesson. My point still stand though

[DarXyde]

I'm personally waiting until launch before passing judgment. Though I'm not interested in Series X and won't be purchasing one, I genuinely want to believe there's more to this.

[Yodasfavoritesoda]

4 months is a long time to polish a game

[F0XH0UND922]

That's verifiably wrong. 4 months, in the midst of 5 years is nothing. You're forgetting the amount of time needed for gold certification, stamping, marketing, shipping etc. They realistically have around 2 months for polish, which is nothing. Sorry to burst your bubble, but what we saw in the reveal footage is what you're going to get. Ray tracing will not much either.

[Yodasfavoritesoda]

Hey foxhound you ever actually been in a game development studio or took part in game development in any way? I’m gonna assume ur answer is no because of ur lack of knowledge. Most games have a flurry of work to be done towards the end and 4 months is great for that last level of polish if that’s where they are. Each studio is different but most plan for 6 months and actually get 2 if lucky . So don’t worry ur not busting any bubbles here buddy

[ziggurcat]

It's not really 4 months, though. More like 2 or 3 at most. You have to consider that the game needs to be done with enough time to manufacture all of the discs, etc... You're horribly wrong to believe that they can just develop the game for 4 more months when console's releasing in November.

I've worked in a 3rd party QA house, so I know what goes on from a QA perspective.

"Most games have a flurry of work to be done towards the end and 4 months is great for that last level of polish"

Not true. And again they don't have 4 months. QA virtually stops once a game hits the internal beta stage, apart from the compliance team ensuring that the game passes certification the first time or if any major bug pops up in the pre-certification build. They will generally only focus on major bugs (like crashes or anything that would cause the game to fail certification), and begin marking all minor issues as "known shippable". If it fails certification, that delays things a bit unless MS grants a pass on the condition that any issues that resulted in the game failing certification gets fixed with a day 1 patch (that's why we see day 1 patches, btw).

[gamer7804]

One = One
Couple = Two
Several = Three or more

just for those that don't understand meanings of words.

[F0XH0UND922]

So the build between 2 and 3 weeks old. Wow, very substantial /s

[gamer7804]

Answer = 3 or more

[NotoriousWhiz]

It's obvious that you are no fan of Xbox. Why are you among the first commenter on so many Xbox articles?

[morganfell]

Audio matters to me. A lot. Multiple composers has always been a mistake be it game or film.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Have you heard the Light a Fire in you Heart track?

Wow 😳 it's sooo good

[Zhipp]

Xenoblade Chronicles, Chrono Trigger, Kung Fu Panda, Pirates of the Caribbean. I could go on, but these all had multiple composers

[Tacoboto]

Ori's music is fantastic, and the piece with the demo is perfectly fitting.

[Tapani]

Absolutely not true. Shadow Hearts, Kingdom Hearts, and Suikoden series soundtracks disagree wholeheartedly!

[Ausbo]

Yeah ok. You couldn’t be more wrong. The original halo combat evolved, which so many view as one of the greatest soundtracks ever had two composers. Marty and Michael Salvatori.

Marty was front and center, but if you ever seen the dozens of vidocs on the music of halo, you’d know it was collaborative composition. I wouldn’t expect you to know that though, since you spend a good amount of your time bashing Xbox

[morganfell]

But Michael Salvatore sat in the background. It wasn't even remotely the same as handing over the audio completely to someone else. You couldn't be more wrong. There is a vast difference between letting 3 different people run with matters in their own direction versus a truly tight collaboration where everything operates around established themes guided by a lead.

[Tacoboto]

And morganfell, you know that these guys are totally off doing their own thing and don't talk or plan or coordinate in any way?

[rainslacker]

Xenosaga 2+3 had different composers for the cutscenes and BGM. It worked out OK, although it had two distinct music styles between the two. Cutscenes were pretty epic music, in game music was fairly generic and kind of techno-ey.

But, yeah, unless the main composer is also the music director and arranging the other composers to keep the feel the same, I agree. Halo has had a good soundtrack for what I've heard of it.

[Christopher]

Always seems like an exaggeration here. Let's just see how it turns out before we go all doom and gloom here, no?

[TGGJustin]

Yeah there was no way this build was months old like some people were trying to say. I honestly wouldn't expect the game to look much better at launch. They have 3 months left before launch and the game is going to go Gold around the end of October probably. You'll likely have to wait until some time post-launch to start seeing a lot of improvements.

[Baza]

What the hell were they doing for 5 years!

[sho0ok360]

New engine

[F0XH0UND922]

@shook

Another excuse that needs to stop. Guerrilla games made HZD with a brand new engine, not to mention an entirely new IP. They did all of this, on base PS4 hardware and made a game that looks generations better than Halo Infinite. Oh and HZD is OPEN WORLD!

[Christopher]

Likely worked on multiple engines and went with this one for the final engine after XSX was finalized. Lots of people probably working on other things in the meantime, like design and writing and the like.

It's a hard thing to be a 1st party game expected at the launch of a new console AND to support the last-gen consoles. I don't envy the team. Sure, the game isn't the best it could be or what many expected, but this is no easy task.

At least this isn't looking as poor as ME Andromeda, which went through similar development issues with a change to a different engine within less than 2 years of release.

[aconnellan]

@foxhound

He didn’t say the graphics were bad because they built the new engines - he said that that’s what they’ve been doing for 5 years, building the engine.

To your point, Horizon Zero Dawn has 6 years of development (2011-2017), so the amount of time tracks.

I’m not defending the graphics, I was super disappointed in them, I’m defending the fact that they spent a good chunk of time building the engine, just like with HZD

[kayoss]

Gamers: We want to see gameplay. We want to see the power of the Series X
MS: Dont worry we will show you gameplay and show the most powerful console ever made.
Gamers: Cheers
MS Showcase: proceeds to show old build of Halo and proceed to show CG trailers and no gameplay.
MS: We had the best show ever.
Gamers: Silent but angry.

[Brazz]

"First, we want to acknowledge that yes, we’ve heard the feedback coming from parts of the community regarding the visuals in the Halo Infinite campaign demo. While we see and hear far more positive than negative, we do want to share a bit more context. From our perspective, there are two key areas being debated around the community – overall art style and visual fidelity."

>>>> "While we see and hear far more positive than negative..." realy!? I mean... realy!??

[Stanjara]

It's like Apple says minority of our customers had issues with the keyboard.
Making people fools for 3 years.
Than they make an old keyboard.

[RauLeCreuset]

"The build used to run the campaign demo was work-in-progress from several weeks ago with a variety of graphical elements and game systems still being finished and polished."

Not long at all. Like I thought. That's what I figured when Greenberg started up the "earlier build" excuse. It's a nice bit of equivocation. It makes sense that 343i would have provided their demo weeks in advance of the showcase for which it was the featured attraction. Saying it was an "earlier build" fulfills the function of a lie without actually being one. It gives the impression that the build was from a significantly earlier period, not "several weeks ago." Classic PR move.

[Stanjara]

Classic MSFT

[djplonker]

https://www.343industries.c...

"But while it’s easy to get carried away about the prospect of playing Halo Infinite, it’s worth taking a minute to think about the enormous work put into this playable preview of Halo Infinite. While this is just a section of the final game, it took a herculean effort to make sure this little corner of our Ringworld was polished and pretty enough for its premiere! The art, lighting, design, environment, graphics, production and engineering teams involved in carving out and curating this little slice, are nervous and excited to show people a glimpse of what we’re building."

Funny how they didn't mention an older build in what they had prewritten before the show and backlash......

[RauLeCreuset]

In fairness to 343i, I think they're only mentioning it now because they're having to field a bunch of questions about the deceptive excuse Greenberg put out. I don't recall 343i using that particular excuse, though they have answered questions asking about how old the build was.

[Stanjara]

They were very proud to have that build running and they prepared that for the show.
Everyone at Microsoft were excited and happy.
Phil was Gandalf the gray.

They were all clueless.
It's amazing that Microsoft, that is in gaming industry and has a platform, can be so out of touch with it's target audience.

It's like blizzard fill the hall with PC gamers to present them mobile game.

If they have time to change anything I will clap.

It was late April's fool joke.

[LordoftheCritics]

'It's like blizzard fill the hall with PC gamers to present them mobile game.''

Let's not go there or I'm gonna google all the memes again.

[Stanjara]

That was priceless.

[Christopher]

***It's amazing that Microsoft, that is in gaming industry and has a platform, can be so out of touch with it's target audience.***

But the target audience likes the game... Perhaps you don't realize that the people complaining aren't the target audience?

[Stanjara]

Now their target audience are HC gamers who are going to buy a new console day one.
Also the one that are planing to buy PS5.
I would not have a problem with the show if it wasn't hyped up for power, ssd, velocity arhitekture, variable sharing rdn2 and I don't know what...dlss 2.0 and direct x sauce and cloud.

[Zombieburger638]

"With Halo Infinite, we’re returning to a more ‘classic’ art style which was a key message going back to the very first reveal that garnered enthusiastic and positive responses."

"There are additional variants of each of these, but the classic Magnum and Tactical Shotgun aren’t currently featured in Halo Infinite."

They just don't learn.

[zero_jp]

They had 5 years. That’s all that needs to be said. And this is why Microsoft, Xbox, and the idiots over at 343 will never come close to winning.

The gameplay should have been revealed Michael Bay style guns blazing, explosions, enemies everywhere, and Chief going apesh*t showcasing the power of the Series-X.

Instead what the world saw was a poor mans DOOM running on the Xbox 360. Halo is supposed to be the Xbox Crown Jewel and what they showcased just wasn’t that. It was a boring, bland, pop in filled snore fest.

[Zombieburger638]

Xbox is going to shit and all they can do at this point is lie. Xbox deserves to die.

[Kavorklestein]

*Halo. Halo deserves to die*
A bit Harsh, but I Fixed it for you. If this is the best they can show, than I'm quite sad and inclined to think Halo should have been so much More.

The console itself is powerful and game pass is a good deal, so I say it should remain on the market, and it will be a great place to play games.

This is a separate issue.
Halo Infinite looks like a big corporate boardroom's mish-mash mess of mistakes... the excuse of "people want some old Halo mechanics, so that must mean they want old gfx too'

For 343 to Claim this Is a copout, and it's sad seeing them use this excuse as it doesn't mesh with the goal or scope of what they originally presented with the Slipspace engine reveal, it didn't even come close to the highly detailed and very vivid graphical style that they showed with the Slipspace trailer, or the Deliver Hope Trailers. What they needed to show was the master craft of a team of
top-tier visual artists, with a gift for pushing the boundaries of hyper-detailed Sci-fi imagery. They needed to show Ultra High fidelity Art melding with the Slipspace engine to create industrial machines and Vistas, and glorious Landscapes with truly Alien twists, and locations that look like somewhere Mankind dreams of going someday.
They needed futuristic visuals that make the beholder's jaw drop and are Worthy of Introducing everyone to the Series X's Horsepower.

This was not that.

As soon as they knew they were going to need to scale back their dreams for the biggest IP on Xbox, they should have Released it for Xbox One earlier this year or something. Then allow it to be Series X enhanced later down the line. That wouldn't have looked as bad as saying:
"It will push the boundaries of what the Series X can do, because we had no idea what we were doing trying to create an engine from scratch" and "it only pushes the Series X because we are adding full Raytracing to an Open world title and 120fps multiplayer"

That is far different messaging that I for one, would have appreciated.

I think Xbox is still going to offer me the most Value for my money with Gampass, but 343 is not the studio MS should have trusted to create an engine, and Clearly not the ones who are most Qualified to introduce Xbox fans to next gen.

[talocaca]

The build was "several weeks old"?

Hopefully in "several weeks" the game that has been in development for years stopped looking like a 360 remaster 🙄

[fxa5209]

Digital foundry review is full of lies... once thought of as a credible review source, comes up with lame excuses about in shade and off shade lightning issues as the reason why the game doesn't look good.

DF ignored the bad textures, charchter model, and flat graphics and focused on lighting. They even started comparing lighting from The last of us 2 with Halo from a lighting perspective. ... what a joke.

I have no other reason to believe that DF got some kind of incintives from MS to give excuses of failing to deliver a next Gen Halo game.

[Mister_Wolf]

They did say that there are other factors that are involved in why the game looks bad.

[Agito1987]

They have to get raytracing working on the series x. That would fix a lot of the visual issues (having actual shadows in nondirect lighting).
People compare the game to mainly static lith games. Halo 5 looked ways better because of that. also, this is not just another single-player game. This has to run in 4 players split-screen/multiplayer with the possibility of a lot going on on-screen while running 4k 60fps.

[Bathyj]

Ray tracing isn't going to fix the lack of polish here. Things like the rifle having a muzzle flash but it's not reflecting on the gun meanwhile the pistol doesn't have a muzzle flash and yet somehow the flash is reflecting on the gun. It's just half arsed and not ready. Bush league. Missing bullet damage on enemies, missing shadows on enemies, boring static looking spaceship with no moving parts passing through still lifeless trees,clouds popping in grass popping out. The rifle itself looks like flat Matt plastic with no texture detail. The game is an absolute mess. Cherno said it looks like poor current Gen and that's being generous

and I've heard a lot of people saying it was 4 player split screen co-op but the article only says 2 player split screen co-op

[Agito1987]

Didn't actually know the muzzle flash issues. Yea the popins were the most jarring.
But does it really look worse than current-gen? I mean compared with actual something similar, that uses dynamic lighting preferable an fps. (But I hands down agree on the brute face XD that meme is awesome.)

[IRetrouk]

The lighting wont fix the current gen looking graphics, the low texture detail or the pop in,
Its 2 player splitscreen not 4 and it upto 4k @60fps not native 4k.

[Agito1987]

Fair point, still I hope that they fix some of the issues. I mean I was disappointed with the reveal. Was expecting it to look a lot different XD. But still, I think the game gets a bit much hate for looking current. (Witch it basically is, just running better than base xbox.)

[IRetrouk]

I'm sure the gameplay will be classic halo, the graphics push back can only be expected after being so hyped up by ms and the fanboys(not fans), there really is no excuse for the game to look so basic after almost 5 years in the oven though.

Not sure what's going on at 343 but they need to get their shit together, ms also need to stop over hyping everything, they lead these expectations and make the fans look silly when it doesnt pan out how they say stuff will.

I honestly never expected to be blown away, by the graphics though, I, and many others said from the start it would be current gen upscaled to the new box, not the other way around like ms and fanboys(not fans) were claiming, and it still looked rough, but it is what it is, as long as it's still fun that's all that really matters.

[Agito1987]

True, yea it really seems there are some major issues. just watched video someone posted on insider experience.

I just hope they can fix some things. Liked halo wars 2 story, so I hope some of that will come back in infinite.

But I have to say, its a nice change of pace to have a civil nice back and forth with someone her. XD

[IRetrouk]

I agree, while not a massive fan of fps, I do like the story and lore and do enjoy the campaigns, my favourite so far was probably reach(loved the statue that came with the collectors edition too) so I honestly do hope it releases well for the fans.

I do enjoy a good discussion, sometimes we can get carried away and forget to be civil or become abit blockheaded, human nature I think😂 something I've been working on to be honest😂

[lonewolfjedi]

Ray tracing won’t fix the weak explosions and no damage model

[Hedstrom]

Rumors are that 343i have some fundamental problems!
https://youtu.be/T0sydRujLX...

[Agito1987]

Wow, that sounds really bad...

[Christopher]

TechUSA should not be taken seriously for rumors. They're shit for that stuff and like to oversell things.

[CaptainObvious878]

He's a very heavy ms apologist, though, so for him to come out with this tells me there might be some truth to it.

[Christopher]

He's a heavy dramatic person who will do what he thinks is best for attention. For a while, it's been praising MS. Now it's not.

[Bathyj]

https://youtu.be/Fmdb-KmlzD...

Watch the announcement trailer again. The supposed game engine demonstration.

Microsoft are just bald faced liars. This is like Watchdogs times, well infinite. And Xbox fans instead of screaming downgrade, are instead saying graphics don't matter and Halo was never a graphical showpiece. What absolute lies.

The good thing is I haven't heard someone call PS5 weak because 12 Tflops all week.

[chiefJohn117]

Looks the same as the trailer to me. Some of that was cgi, the actual gameplay from that trailer looks identical. The warthog part specifically. Fans aren't worried about the graphics insiders already said it look good.

[Bathyj]

Whatever you say chief

[Kavorklestein]

No dude, I'm a huge Halo fan, this looked ass.
Slip space Reveal trailer was miles ahead of this.
Discover hope was so vivid that it was the basis for what Got my Hopes up even further. This looked poor and 343 Have no one to blame but themselves. Xbox needs to stop defending their mis-steps.

[Christopher]

Everyone is talking graphics and you're just making it about gameplay knowing full well that people are talking graphics, including the title of Waypoint's own post that we're discussing here.

[Elda]

The foliage,the mountains in the background & the overall look is night & day compared to what they showed last week. The 2018 trailer actually looks like a AAA game where the footage shown last week looks like a arcade-ish $30 game.

[nibblo]

That makes no sense, Watchdogs first showing was actual game play that totally changed when released while the other was a game engine demo against actual game play. I thought they made that very clear at the time.

[maniekz]

quo vadis Phil?
https://i.imgur.com/Ge2KGlV...

[chiefJohn117]

Tried to tell 343 stop listening to the nostalgia Halo community it'll only get you messed up. They need to realize you can't please everyone, so stop trying to!

[Father__Merrin]

I would dalay halo and release as a summer blockbuster when it's done

[Smclaren1985]

I truly have to say guys , Halo Infinite looked really really disappointing . Some are saying it’s an early build , that doesn’t explain the bad acting , writing or animations. It’s going to be like Destiny where they add to it over time. I really couldn’t care less about 120 FPS multiplayer when the game looks like the previous game infact it’s less impressive than that game was at its launch. Microsoft has truly let the fans down this generation and looks like that trend will continue next generation too. I hope I am wrong because there was some cool titles In there , but Halo Infinite is there big flagship launch title and it just didn’t do anything for me except disappoint it’s sad to see.

[DJStotty]

"Microtransactions: Halo Infinite will not include real-money loot boxes"

That's all i needed to know, sold.

[gameslayer2411]

The fact that they only specifically said "Will not include real money 'Loot-Boxes'.." seems like a clever spin to me. Seems like they will have Microtransactions of some kind just not loot-Boxes. Idk sounds like PR spin.

[Phoenix76]

Most likely go the CoD route with a battle pass and bundle packs that you can only aquire if you have Halo points or something that you first buy with real money

[DJStotty]

Microtransactions, fine. You get what you pay for. Cosmetics, skins etc.

Lootboxes, you spend money for a % chance of getting an item, no, just no.

[RauLeCreuset]

"Real-money loot boxes" whatever that means. Does that mean they can be bought with fake, game currency bought with real money? It's an oddly specific way of denying MTs.

[Phoenix76]

'Not real money loot boxes' is just PR 'word play' spin for bundle packs

[TheExecutioner]

343 have done halo before ... aside they are only focusing on halo series.. i am surprised why it looked shit in the demo ...
Usually demo is Upgraded and final build is downgraded ...

[Mister_Wolf]

You know even a FRACTION of this kind of clarity before the demo was shown would’ve gone a very long way.

[Kavorklestein]

Yesh they should have managed expectations. Now they should delay the game in my opinion.
Hire more people to bring that Slipspace reveal quality to life.

[roadkillers]

Halo is still as popular as ever. It has been taking up the news feed ever since the reviews of GoT stopped coming in

[Garodor]

"The build is several weeks old" ... What happened to this "months old/6 months old build" statement everyone was quoting to defend the graphical state of the game.
This quote of 343i made me even more concerned about the development state of the game

[Mr_cheese]

If this is indeed an older build, then what a wasted opportunity and silly move.

Either way, at the end of the day, if you're going to buy it, youre going to buy it.

[Christopher]

You're not going to get a demo of a build newer than several weeks ever. It's typically the best stable build they have and it's usually several weeks old for games as they aim to make that build ready for demo'ing specifically.

[Darkborn]

Lol at them trying to say it was a few weeks old build so the graphics are way better now. I thought some Xbox guy said it was a very old demo. This game is going to be a very old game like anthem was 2 weeks after launch. Just delay the game.

[Ashunderfire86]

Man everyone talk about the damage control from 343’s Halo Infinite, hell what about the fact that none of the games shown was running on Xbox Series X? What about the graphics on those games? How far along are those games on Series X? An this next August event from Microsoft better not have a disclaimer on the bottom saying running on PC with similar specs to Series X! That tell us nothing about the velocity architecture. There is no denying that fact.

Sony’s event they had 12 games showing off gameplay for PS5 not just Miles Morales and not some reused assets too! Horizon Zero Dawn 2 trailer was not CGi like Fable for example. That was Horizon Zero Dawn 2 gameplay cutscenes and bird eye view of gameplay we saw in that trailer! Nothing CGI. Plus Demon Souls remake of most of the bosses shown from the PS3 original was in game cutscenes! If your a fan of that game you know this. Returnal was obviously gameplay, Rachet and Clank Rift Apart gameplay, Hitman 3 the only game that show off a CGi trailer along with a gameplay trailer of a high rise building in Dubai! Let me repeat that one CGi trailer for the PS5 event only one ☝️ Microsoft show off too many CGI trailers for Xbox Series X and they are 15 seconds short too!

[lonewolfjedi]

In the beginning of the demo with the air guns making direct impact with chief ship you saw the airship show any damage he’ll the windshield didn’t even crack

[Saijahn]

End of the day people were always confusing art style with fidelity. I don’t mind the art style going back to its roots, halo was never about realistic graphics etc, but the pop-in and textures should be drastically improved, as well as there should be an improvement in lighting when they add raytracing.

[Yodasfavoritesoda]

Very sensible answer and I agree

[Petebloodyonion]

At least they are giving updates and not gone hiding in a corner.
My biggest grip or fear a this point is that MS will launch the game in a buggy mess like Sea of Thieves.
Now I'm sure the game will be good down the line (just look how Sea of Thieves is now) but this way of doing will hurt MS in the long run.
My suggestion would be to release the game in early access like Grounded and PubG so they can really polish it.

[Minute Man 721]

With the visuals, no one told them "it doesn't look next gen" that's what happens working with "Yes Men"

If I was Spencer and they showed me this garbage I would have given them 2 months to get the assets right.

But Spencer knew what this game looked like and OKed the showing

[kayoss]

MS Showcase: Biggest event of the year to showcase what they can offer in next Gen
MS Logic: "Hey, Guys lets show some old footage of Halo Infinite, our flagship franchise to show consumers what they can look forward to."
MS Fans and PS Fans: WTF is this BS?

[FanboySpotter]

The game looks great the problem is lighting and some stuff missing textures compared to the 1 min trailer. Most things were missing shadows these issues can easily be fixed by the time it launches. Isn't there gonna be a ray tracing update when it launches as well? Anyway can't wait to see what they do with this game GoT looked rough several weeks before releasing as well and looks alright now.

[cooperdnizzle]

You are crazy and are just making up bs. GOT didn't have this issues. In Fact no games this close to launch have this big of issues. You are getting ready to launch you should be in post and getting ready for debugging at this stage. The gameplay has a lot of bigger issues than just lighting. There is a lot a new tech that has existed in gaming for the past 10 years that they are simply to leaving out.

You xbox guys need to demand more from xbox.... If it was up to m$ they would just make an out of date game and re sale it over and over. There is still a lot of work that can go into game engines and developing. This game literally looks like it is being made by amateurs and they have put no passion into the project. Looks like they are not even trying to innovate and push the industry forward. This is all of the xbox division. They are so out of touch and don't even seem to have a passion for making video games. They do it just to get by. Shame one you die hard xbox fanboys. M$ used to be good ten years ago. Now they suck balls to be honest.

[JokerBoy422]

"Classic art style"... just be honest here, you have a massive sandbox game with 4k and Ray Tracing happening. Visual fidelity is taking a hit because of the processing power required for those 3 things first and foremost.

The major issue here is that Microsoft and Sony don't want to come out and admit this going forward because many "Next Gen" games aren't going to look a whole lot better than current gen. That's why we are this close to the launch of these consoles and have barely seen any actual gameplay let alone any pricing. They know this is going to be a hard sell for some especially due to the economy which is why they are so quiet going forward and relying on little bread crumbs of info to keep consumers interested.

They have already stated this many times in the past, that consumers need to understand that graphics, for the most part, aren't going to improve a whole lot going forward, however they don't repeat it too often for investors sake.

Personally I think their hope is that if they delay price information long enough that people will become so desperate to know that it will create a false demand for these consoles, which if you've ever studied Public Relations, is PR 101.

[cooperdnizzle]

Cool story bro. At this point that is false. And people have been saying this every gen. I don't know where you came up with your info/(Lets be real) Story. But I am willing to bet that you will be able to see a difference easily in graphic fidelity and physics, animation destruction etc etc. At least when it comes to sony. I mean m$ already have a bunch of games this gen that look last gen. Sea of thieves, state of decay etc etc. These new console are vastly stronger and if you want to put in the time to make new!! Great!! Games!!! It will be easy to tell the difference

So much for your PR 101. I agree m$ does this all the time. But nah dude you are wrong and I'll be able to tell ya i told you so in like 4 months. Put your money where your mouth is smart guy! hahah

[JokerBoy422]

"You're so wrong dude, but I totally agree with you"... nice argument bro.

[Gr1mmyshadows]

Didn't gears have a similar showing where they showed an ugly looking MP gameplay amd a few weeks later the MP was improved and looked vastly different

[waverider]

When some try to sell the idea of tower of power and their flagship game looks last gen... Its done. There no damage control possible. There were a single thing in that gameplay trailer next gen, much less after the PR Phil spencer is saying from december of last year that is the most powerfull console ever....

[RamRod88]

Oh you're right nothing could possibly ever make up for this PR disaster. *1 week later*

Halo Infinite multiplayer will be f2p and can run at 120fps.

Well look at that.

[waverider]

dude, who cares about 120 frames or free to play. Another word. Halo is done. Even this franchise Microsoft was able to destroy. Sad times. Free to play the top franchise of microsoft.... Another nail in coffin for microsoft.

[RamRod88]

Haha nobody cares? Wrong. Not surprising how you feel about it. The vast majority of gamers are positive about this. This will bring the popularity of Halo back.

[Voltron84]

I'm not sure what the big issue is. Launch game graphics are usually nothing that special. Halo 3 graphics weren't anything special. As long as the games is good.

[cell989]

It is what it is... to this stage that’s the game engine they’re using and no amount of polish can improve the core graphics. It was designed for xbone not XSX in mind. Might still be a fun game to play, regardless of how dull it looks

[Profchaos]

There's lots of information coming out from insiders and glass ceiling reviews that the internal teams working on this are mostly contractors who will never see out the project the company is unorganised no one knows what anyone is doing as they use a multitude of comms systems to keep in touch and to top it off the code versioning is a mess.

It's really a bad combination.and it's not looking promising.

Microsoft have said gamepass is not very profitable right now and common sense will.suggest that games like halo and Forza horizon will.be adopting the gaas model. I'm not sure if halo will be Destiny or anthem like but it will feature some sort of ever expanding world to make sure it keeps gamers subscribed. I also predict the next Forza horizon being a persistent online world that will expand over time.

[nibblo]

Those same reviews also talk about a culture of crunch and burn out at ND, I suspect it's a place where malcontents go to vent so i wouldn't take it too seriously unless you want 343 to be the bad guys of course.

[nibblo]

I thought it's look great and the demo made me excited to play it, don't understand all the negativity. I saw basically a corridor shooter turned into an open world game with RPG lite elements running on a new custom engine with a totally new lighting pipeline. AS DF mentioned in their analysis games like the LoU2 have a pre-baked lighting system that looks really good if you are willing to throw human souls at it to adjust the lighting manually but 343 decided to go for a real-time global illumination system, good for them. If fog kilometres away pops in while looking over a vast open world I'm ok with it, if a flat brute's face who has his helmet hit off for a nano second upsets people who will never play the game I'm also ok with that, though I get the feeling both of those issues will be sorted by launch.