This is something I actually, shockingly have not seen mentioned a lot. Generally across the board in most games I play, I use audio cues a lot. Halo included, actually it’s probably a skill I picked up from Halo to begin with. In general this game’s audio cues are bad, in terms of knowing what weapons enemies might have and so on.
However, the foot steps are by far the most noticeable thing. It’s way, way too easy to sneak up on people or to get flanked in this game due to the lack of audio feedback. Visual cues can only go so far, given I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. This is an issue with and without the radar, due to how short the radar range in this game actually is.
As someone who plays on PC, and plays shooters exclusively on PC, that is a ridiculous reason for them to make a change like that. Especially given crouching silences your footsteps in older Halo titles.
dude the whole games based on crossplay thats why theres no team killing and thats why you can walk right through your teammates. without that they wouldnt be able to support so many players in btb.
Not gonna lie, I’ve spent days messing with my Nahimic audio settings on PC to adjust the equalizer and surround, because the in-game options are practically nonexistent. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just Halo Infinite that has horrible audio mixing. My character is loud, explosions are super loud, gunfire sounds explosive, but that gunfire and grenade explosion just about 10 warthog lengths away? Practically silent. I cannot find good settings to be able to pick out what weapons are being fired in the distance, and the sounds of footsteps and grenade clinks. It’s just bad all around.
Yea. The sound is pretty bad. Go to a custom and have someone fire directly behind your head. It sounds like theyre shooting from the other side of the map. H5 I was able to tell where someone was from their slide/thrust/shooting etc. You couldn’t sprint and sneak up on someone. This game, heavy spartan footfalls sound like theyre running on air.
I think the audio is just bugged in general. Sometimes when I get shot in the -Yoink!- there is just no audio of them shooting me. Just a completely silent AR unloading into my back
The sound is shockingly bad in this game particularly footsteps from behind which are non existent. Game audio and audio cues are very important to me, and I have a very good headset that picks up directional audio in pretty much every game I play…but the audio cue simply isn’t there in Halo Infinite. It’s piss poor.
On a side note…how the hell is crossplay being dragged into this conversation?! I’m an Xbox player and all for having the option to disable platform based crossplay, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the totally crap audio engine in this game.
No it doesn’t? Halo 5 aside, because I have never played that game, literally no Halo title uses general footstep sounds in a way that games like Counter-Strike or Call of Duty or Apex do. The movement sounds came from actions and interactions. Players landing, players using a grav lift or equipment, players picking up or dropping weapons/equipment. That stuff made sounds that other players could hear. The footstep noises were and still are unnoticeable. The footstep sounds were also the same volume even if the player crouch walked. Very few surfaces made significantly different sounds. In the context of footstep sounds the radar effectively acted like a handicap that raised the skill floor that made listening to footsteps pointless.
I can’t even find search results for anything other than Halo 5.
For the people having sound issues, know that there’s a general bug for all sounds outside of what’s on-screen. The fix that I’ve seen people get results with are to mess with any 3rd party system that interprets sounds. Halo: Infinite outputs the sound in stereo. If your computer is trying to treat that stereo audio as if it was surround sound then change it so that it’s being treated like stereo.
I can’t link it but you can submit a bug report for this issue through the Support thing at the top of the page.
As someone who is severely hearing impaired, and can’t afford a fancy headset to help hear things like footsteps, I have always found this difficult. I do agree though, the sound cues are less clear in this game, but I can’t really use them in most games anyway.
The thing that really gets me is the lack of effective radar and poor visual cues; lots of people have hearing problems, loud homes, and mediocre speakers or headsets. Halo has always mitigated these things very well, in my opinion, by offering strong visual cues, grenade indicators, and a great radar system. These things are all missing from this game, and I really hope that gets addressed, cause right now this game is very unclear to me and gives me a headache to play.