The Jiralhanae were always an outlier within the Covenant collective. While almost everything within the Covenant followed the design principles of the sleek, elegant, shark-like Sangheili; the Brutes were always more crude, harsh and rough. Their role within the Covenant was always begrudging and competitive, and despite the Elites’ distaste for Brute-kind, the Jiralhanae always held their own. For that reason, it makes perfect sense for a Brute faction like the Banished to exist.
The designs we saw for the Banished in Halo Wars 2 were an excellent start. It gave 343i something to build upon; a new faction that could really stand strong as its own. But what we’ve been presented with in the Halo Infinite demo is far from reaching the Banished’s full potential. I ask you to visualise the Brutes in classic Halo 2 and Halo 3; their cruel angular eyes, their protruded jaws and their giant fangs, their thick filthy hair, their inhumanly broad shoulders and long arms that they held out wide as they savagely charged toward you…
And what about their tech? The Jiralhanae developed some technology that was clearly a crude rip-off of Covenant technology. The Brute Plasma Rifle was just an altered Elite Plasma Rifle. Their power-armour was a primitive attempt at copying Sangheili combat harnesses. But there were some weapons and technology that clearly belonged to the Brutes and no one else. Visualise the gritty, sharp, dirty, scratched and unconventional geometry of actual Brute tech. Picture the classic Brute Shot, the Spiker, the Mauler, the Chopper and the Prowler. These are fundamental Jiralhanae weapons. Banished tech should be inspired predominantly by the design principles established across weapons and vehicles such as these.
So, what did we get? The architecture that we received in Infinite looks neither Jiralhanae-based nor Covenant-based. In fact, it doesn’t look alien at all. There’s nothing unconventional about it. There’s nothing crude or aggressive about it. It looks human. I’ve said this previously, but the architecture in Infinite is straight out of Planetside 2. The Banished structure we see in that trailer looks like a Terran Republic base from Planetside 2, which is a very human faction in that game. The weapons such as the Ravager and Mangler are far too human-looking compared with the Spiker or Mauler. They’re too clean, simple and blocky. The Ravager looks like a big, shiny rectangular prism. Aside from the baronet, there’s nothing evocative of anything distinctly Brute at all in its design. And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the Mangler in an old western film before. People have noted that Halo Infinite’s designs look like they’ve been ripped straight out of Halo Wars 2, but honestly, the Banished bases and many other Banished designs in HW2 looked far more Jiralhanae than what we’ve seen in Infinite. Instead of 343i adapting and improving these designs to suit an FPS, they’ve simplified them even further. What went wrong?
Tell me, are you a fan of what we’ve seen of the Brutes so far in Halo Infinite? If so, why? If not, why do you think 343i have failed to capture the essence of the Brutes as created in Bungie’s day? What could be done to fix this major issue?
Their faces were awful. I thought the appearance of Brutes in Halo: Reach were ‘meh’, but this they look like some game trying to do a cheap knock off version of them from Halo 3 and/or Reach. Their drop pods catching on fire well after landing was absurd and their weapons look more like they were from Titanfall 2. I was glad to see them berserk again, and portions of their armor falling apart was at least an improvement from Halo 3 where it fell apart all at once when their shields dropped.
I would be happy if they looked more like they did in Halo 3 and Reach, while using their weapons from Halo 3, or at least something similar.
I’m not entirely sure about the design of the Brutes from the Infinite demo. They looked straight out of Mega Blocks. I understand that 343 has some sort of contract with them about toys, but the design of toys should not carry over into a Mature rated video game. The Brutes need to look tough and menacing, not like this.
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> I feel like 343 has to do something about the brutes’ faces after the Craig meme.
I hope they do, but it’d be a funny easter egg lol. Imagine you go into a room in a hidden area you have to grapple to and back there is a framed picture of Craig smiling.
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> > 2533274964025169;4:
> > I feel like 343 has to do something about the brutes’ faces after the Craig meme.
>
> I hope they do, but it’d be a funny easter egg lol. Imagine you go into a room in a hidden area you have to grapple to and back there is a framed picture of Craig smiling.
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> > 2533274964025169;4:
> > I feel like 343 has to do something about the brutes’ faces after the Craig meme.
>
> I hope they do, but it’d be a funny easter egg lol. Imagine you go into a room in a hidden area you have to grapple to and back there is a framed picture of Craig smiling.
I like it, I like it… almost reminds me of the situation with the Sonic movie. Tease us with a joke-worthy brute just for the online attention… sounds like a good pitch. Worked for Sonic.
It does appear that they have failed to capture them as they seem to be running free in the game. Perhaps the chief can do it.
In all seriousness I would like them to have a bit edgier of a look.
I liked halo 3’s look and this more like reach brutes which is my least favorite look for them.
I’d like to see Halo 2s anniversary brutes come back with the fur and armour style, the banished being a kind of rag tag army in my eyes should have been based on old covenant tech with that kind of Halo 3 Brute metal welded on in places to replace / reinforce old damaged parts, not this random red and weird chunky megabloks covenant phantoms.
In my mind Brutes cleaned themselves up a bit in Halo 3 when they essentially became the elite fighting force taking over from the elites themselves which is why they had no fur. Kind of fits because their idle animations got slightly more regal in Halo 3 with arms folded stood straight and chieftains looking ceremonial.
H2 anniversary brutes with lighter armour and the long faces of Halo 3 / classic Halo 2 would be perfect for me from both design and canonical standpoints.
The look of Atriox in Halo Wars 2 was perfect. Apparently, he’s now gone and dead(?) and now the Brutes are hairless Apes…did they all suddenly get a bald gene? And no offense to the Shaggy facial hair on this new leader guy - his model looks decent, but he’s bald too. Reminds me how the powers that be on Star Trek Discovery decided to change the look of Klingons after nearly 40 years of established continuity. Apparently someone at 343 thought they knew better too.
Halo Wars 2 was excellent. I expected this game to be a continuation of that one, graphically. That’s not what we got. Halo 4 looked nicer than Halo Infinity. I know it’ll eventually be nice looking, but 343 had to make a killer impression with the Infinite demo. They did not, and now Halo has been turned into a meme thanks to that awful Brute design.
Growing tired of the 343 approach of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ mentality.
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> > 2533274964025169;4:
> > I feel like 343 has to do something about the brutes’ faces after the Craig meme.
>
> I hope they do, but it’d be a funny easter egg lol. Imagine you go into a room in a hidden area you have to grapple to and back there is a framed picture of Craig smiling.
Oh my God. I absolutely just laughed so hard at some of those memes, specifically the “Regret. Regret. Regret.” one (found on Twitter somewhere).
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> I’m not entirely sure about the design of the Brutes from the Infinite demo. They looked straight out of Mega Blocks. I understand that 343 has some sort of contract with them about toys, but the design of toys should not carry over into a Mature rated video game. The Brutes need to look tough and menacing, not like this.
Did you ever see the toys made for Halo 3? They were phenomenal. I don’t think the toys have anything to do with it. Mega Blocks can quite easily adapt what 343i design for the games.
Agreed. The brutes are one of the things I’ve been looking forward to the most. And they were the only thing about the demo that really upset me tbh. They were definitely not our average aggressive Jiralhanae. In the older games, you can tell the difference of demeanors between Elites and Brutes. But in the demo, they appeared to act and sound the same. If I was a blind man, I’d not be able to tell the difference of Brutes and Elites in Halo Infinite. Hopefully this improves when the game launches.
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> > 2533274964025169;4:
> > I feel like 343 has to do something about the brutes’ faces after the Craig meme.
>
> I hope they do, but it’d be a funny easter egg lol. Imagine you go into a room in a hidden area you have to grapple to and back there is a framed picture of Craig smiling.
Structures seem to be the biggest thing, I really dig the berserk brutes, I was like woah those are some angry dudes. While I dont want to say this as a good example but it is, the phantom. Possibly the ugliest unit in halo wars 2, but they decided to showcase it here. It definitely fits the banished look though. And if you have seen the mega construx sets the possible new vehicles look it too.
Biggest issue are the buildings, and the brute captain guy with the plasma launcher, they dont quite fit that banished look.
I think you are absolutely right and the fact that 343 failed to pursue what you are saying (which is the obvious for every Halo fan) is simply the incompetence of the team.
I’m sure that their is talented people in the company but we can ALL clearly see that their is a huge issue.
It’s not like Halo 4 or 5 where they start.
For Infinite they had the Halo Wars 2 design that the whole community react very well.
And in 2018 (2 damn years ago) they presented to us the slipespace engine which was awesome.
And they show this demo… unacceptable.
Ever since 343 took the reins they’ve made all the aliens look too similar. They all have dull grey skin, and the same textures when they evolved on different planets. They need to give those brutes some hair, make the Elites have shimmering grey skin, make the jackals actually look like birds again. They said they’d go back to the original art style but its more the same.
The art direction is a joke, i feel bad for the artists that worked hard on this. Brutes look like the childish cartoony bad guy, they re not ominous looking enough. Brutes in older Halo games lacked logic, they were brutes!! controlled by their hunger and raw animalistic impulses, they had spiked weapons and mauls, fitiing for such a species.
“my belly aches…and his flesh is seared just the way i like it!!”
Tartarus gave off the impression that he understood nothing about the Great Journey, he only wanted to command his brutes, and lead the elites to their death. Brutes punched, kicked and scrambled over whos going to wear the honor guard hat after “…this exchange of hats” and mainly communicated in grunts and howls. THOSE are brutes, not the sorry looking orcs made of plastic we saw in the demo.
I am genuinely really dissapointed with how the Brutes look.
The Banished have heavily layered, grey steel armour with red detailing and war paint. Their armour is a powerful aesthetic and is part of their aesthetic narrative as they step away from the Covenant and become their own thing. This is not at all shown in Infinite. The Brutes look awful, armour and faces all.
BAD:
-They are too human-like in behavior and movement.
-Hairless
-Shape of faces are now gorrilla-like and not brute-like
-Not sure yet if I like the architecture. Looks a bit Human and not so much Covenant
GOOD:
-Armor design
-Armor falling off when taken damage
-Raveger
-Tripping when shot in the leg
-Throwing Grunts!!!
