First of all, I want to thank 343 for delaying the game, the visuals are much improved now and I think it was totally worth it.
The only thing, however that I feel did not have any improvement at all since the first gameplay are the effects. The explosions, fire, lightning, plasma, the muzzle flashes, the infamous character outlines, overshield and all the effects in this game still look really bad.
They all lack weight and particles, they barely have any bloom or lens flare or anything (the energy sword barely glows) and on top of that they all have this oversaturated tone feeling like a flat cartoony ball of magic cutout that does not belong into the environment.
343, I hope you address this problem, even if it is an art direction choice, consider at least toning down the saturaded colors on the effects and make them glow, please.
> 2533275010793662;1:
> First of all, I want to thank 343 for delaying the game, the visuals are much improved now and I think it was totally worth it.
>
> The only thing, however that I feel did not have any improvement at all since the first gameplay are the effects. The explosions, fire, lightning, plasma, the muzzle flashes, the infamous character outlines, overshield and all the effects in this game still look really bad.
>
> They all lack weight and particles, they barely have any bloom or lens flare or anything (the energy sword barely glows) and on top of that they all have this oversaturated tone feeling like a flat cartoony ball of magic cutout that does not belong into the environment.
>
> 343, I hope you address this problem, even if it is an art direction choice, consider at least toning down the saturaded colors on the effects and make them glow, please.
Yeah 343 is infamously bad with explosion. They’ve been bad since Chief blew up that cruiser in H4’s Dawn. Idk why explosions are so hard for them.
Yeah I feel like the particles were too big a lot of the time and very unnatural looking. The red fire/banished explosions look a bit strange, but I think the normal explosions looked quite good.
Basing that off my memory of the wasp being blown up by an AA gun followed by chief shooting rockets. That all looked very fun.
With Infinite’s very specific art style, I feel like 343 tried to stylize them too much. They’re so overexposed that it seems like they don’t fit the world, but maybe we won’t notice when we play. Speaking to that, I didn’t really notice explosions looking particularly bad in the flight.
343 has always had problems with effects, but now it’s really becoming apparent with Infinite. Worst part is the Phantom’s just puffing out of existence when destroyed. I miss Halo 3’s destructible Phantom, where the entire vehicle would break up into several massive pieces of debris and litter the map.
> 2535418396667043;5:
> 343 has always had problems with effects, but now it’s really becoming apparent with Infinite. Worst part is the Phantom’s just puffing out of existence when destroyed. I miss Halo 3’s destructible Phantom, where the entire vehicle would break up into several massive pieces of debris and litter the map.
I mean, I never really noticed anything too bad in particular with 343’s effects, they all seem to blend well and feel good enough for me to not notice anything wrong. Now with Infinite everything is just too flat to not notice.
> 2533275010793662;1:
> First of all, I want to thank 343 for delaying the game, the visuals are much improved now and I think it was totally worth it.
>
> The only thing, however that I feel did not have any improvement at all since the first gameplay are the effects. The explosions, fire, lightning, plasma, the muzzle flashes, the infamous character outlines, overshield and all the effects in this game still look really bad.
>
> They all lack weight and particles, they barely have any bloom or lens flare or anything (the energy sword barely glows) and on top of that they all have this oversaturated tone feeling like a flat cartoony ball of magic cutout that does not belong into the environment.
>
> 343, I hope you address this problem, even if it is an art direction choice, consider at least toning down the saturaded colors on the effects and make them glow, please.
I was surprised to see this hadn’t been addressed. Everything looks like a splash of paint!
343 have always made terrible explosions. Go look at reaches explosions which are 10 years old and two generations of console ago, and compare them to 4,5 and infinites explosions and it becomes EXTREMELY apparent.
I’ve been saying since H4 released how disappointed I was with the explosions and it sounded not picky but it really does take a lot away from the experience when you’ve come from amazing explosions to shockingly bad ones.
Not to mention 343 also made vehicle wreckage disappear in a stupidly short amount of time, not enough time to make use of it as wreckage, but long enough you could see it briefly and it just looked awkward. This tiny explosion, huge prices of debris then 1-3 seconds later it’s gone…so odd
they look a little too meta; as if the game is deliberately telling the player the effects you’re making, but circumventing any sense of tension for the characters in the world.
In other words, way too arcade-like for a game which revels in storytelling and worldbuilding. The Brutes are also so ridiculous now, it takes away any suspension of disbelief of the players as well.
> 2533274866840661;8:
> 343 have always made terrible explosions. Go look at reaches explosions which are 10 years old and two generations of console ago, and compare them to 4,5 and infinites explosions and it becomes EXTREMELY apparent.
>
> I’ve been saying since H4 released how disappointed I was with the explosions and it sounded not picky but it really does take a lot away from the experience when you’ve come from amazing explosions to shockingly bad ones.
>
> Not to mention 343 also made vehicle wreckage disappear in a stupidly short amount of time, not enough time to make use of it as wreckage, but long enough you could see it briefly and it just looked awkward. This tiny explosion, huge prices of debris then 1-3 seconds later it’s gone…so odd
True, but the plasma effects, the Promethean desintegration effect looked really nice and 343 carried it over from previous Halos.
Now every single effect in Halo Infinite, no exception looks really bad, the plasma effects are now an over-saturated flat blue color that looks like paint, the promethean/forerunner desintegration fades out almost instantly with almost no particles.
It is deliberately simplified to the point it looks like a cartoon.
> 2533274866840661;8:
> 343 have always made terrible explosions. Go look at reaches explosions which are 10 years old and two generations of console ago, and compare them to 4,5 and infinites explosions and it becomes EXTREMELY apparent.
>
> I’ve been saying since H4 released how disappointed I was with the explosions and it sounded not picky but it really does take a lot away from the experience when you’ve come from amazing explosions to shockingly bad ones.
>
> Not to mention 343 also made vehicle wreckage disappear in a stupidly short amount of time, not enough time to make use of it as wreckage, but long enough you could see it briefly and it just looked awkward. This tiny explosion, huge prices of debris then 1-3 seconds later it’s gone…so odd
This was big for me. I often would dash over to a vehicle and use it as quick cover. Only for it to despawn because it was destroyed a moment prior and I hadn’t noticed.
I actually love H4, but the effects weren’t up to it.
This is something that needs to be addressed and not overlooked, a game from 2007 that is a part of the same franchise should not have better explosions than a game in 2021, it shouldn’t have even been a thing in 2012 with Halo 4. Vehicles need to have large explosions when destroyed and blow up into multiple pieces and those pieces should remain for a long period of time end of story. Of course this isn’t game breaking but it’s been an issue with every 343 game and it should be fixed sometime post launch.
I know it’s a very minor thing, but I’m also disappointed with how blood has been treated; it’s been more and more diminished with each subsequent 343 title (and further adds to the unreal feeling of in game actions). I’m not sure if it’s esrb issue or framerate issue, either way I don’t like how “weightless” and cartoony deaths seem here.
I noticed the spark effects in the campaign overview were two dimensional sprites when the wasp was dropped off. This is actually quite lamentable, the could have easily ripped out the spark effects from H5 but we manage to get a downgrade that is actually worse than CE.
I think 343 are doing fine they really have brought back the feel of the old Halo feel. It feels like that Halo CE feel of humanity is on the back foot or the under dogs at the moment and ONLY chief and the weapon can beat Cortana the banished and this new rogue forerunner faction all at the same time
There are a couple of flaws that take away from the explosions the way I see it. First, especially with the grenades, they don’t really look like fire; they’re more liquid than gaseous in texture. So things like the plasma grenade end up looking more like burst of bright blue paint than superheated plasma. Second is that they seem too monochromatic. This kind of ties in with point one, as the explosions wouldn’t look so liquidy if the there were multiple tones, as fires usually have. This is especially true of Covenant explosions, which used to explode in a mass of purple, red, and blue flames owing to their exotic materials. There’s also a lot less smoke. Finally, I think they need to improve debris. The vehicles should break apart when they explode and have visible burns and deformations on its texture afterwards. The phantom shouldn’t just disappear into thin air when it’s blown up.
I should also drop a disclaimer, I’m super happy about how the rest of the game looks and the explosions aren’t really an issue for me overall.
The plasma looks like liquid/paint for sure.
I noticed it immediately in the first flight, the plasma grenade effect looked worse than Halo 5 and like a load of blue paint.
The red plasma from the Ravager looked odd too .
I wouldn’t say it bothers me too much but hopefully something they can fix/improve in future.
Maybe plasma looking like liquid is the compromise for the lack of prominent blood effects lol