With the reveal that the Banished will play a part in Halo Infinite, I and many others have noticed that the Banished appear quite different to how they did in Halo Wars 2. In Halo Wars 2, the Banished very much followed the Covenant silhouettes, matching vehicle and infantry shapes while changing it into something new. The design difference between the Banished in Covenant is illustrated and made clear in this graphic made for Halo Wars 2 (sorry about blurry and twitter). Granted we haven’t seen any vehicles outside of the Phantom, which does have the same look. I am going to break this down in two sections: Armor and Weapons.
Banished Armor:
This is probably where I see the biggest issues with the Banished and how they are presented in Halo Infinite. This doesn’t have to do with the graphics of the demo. That is a different debate that is not related to this discussion. In Halo Wars 2, the Banished has a very different style to armor compared to the Covenant. Their armor was bulkier, sharper, layered and very thrown together. Here is concept art of Banished Brutes in Halo Wars 2. In Halo Infinite, the Banished appear much more simplistic and smooth. Similar to that of the Covenant in Halo 3. The Brutes in Halo Infinite seem to very much take more ques from the Halo 3 Covenant Brutes than the Halo Wars 2 Banished Brutes. This an issue with all of the enemies. They look like the Covenant, not the Banished. I think the issue is the color palette to a certain extent. The Banished are metal colored with hastily painted red markings, not fully clad in bright blue, purple and orange. Even Escharum suffers from this a little (not as much as the rest though), his armor appearing smooth and symmetrical with few layers. I think the Mega Bloks Brutes look more Banished than those in the demo.
Banished Weapons:
We haven’t seen that many weapons so not a lot to say here, but a small amount. From the demo, we saw six weapons from the Banished: The Needler, Plasma Pistol, Mangler, Pulse Carbine, Ravager and Energy Sword. The weapons, unlike the armor, really doesn’t change between the Banished and Covenant that much. Yet the weapons still appear more Covenant than Banished. The Mangler and Ravager are pure Banished, though still appear a bit smoother and simpler than weapons presented from Halo Wars 2 (gotta scroll down a little). Weapons like the Plasma Pistol and Needler don’t really change even in Halo Wars 2 (Maybe some red accents?) and the Energy Sword is just the Energy Sword. (Ok, this part really doesn’t have much but still).
In conclusion, this isn’t facts or anything. I’m not trying to persuade people one way or the other (though if you agree that is neat). I don’t mind the models in Halo Infinite that much on their own, but I just think they don’t fit for the Banished based on previous designs from 343. Anyways, that was my small rantish thread.
Honestly could be that 343 realized that it was way harder to get that Banished lookup close than it was in Halo Wars 2 since you only really see heads and in the few times we do see Banished brutes up close in cutscenes it was really dark or they were shown really quick. Also the change could be is that a time jump happened and they upgraded stuff because they got their hinds handed to them by the Spirit of Fire. I can see where you are coming from kind of confusing for me too, but I guess we have to wait and see
Still baffles me that such a simple task like copying them from HW2, zooming in, adding a little detail was something 343 couldn’t do, thats literally all it took and they wouldn’t have anyone bashing their designs because HW2 was actually decent
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> > They just decided to make the game look cartoony instead. That’s probably why
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> Doesn’t look cartoony, just there isn’t enough wear and tear. I’m sure they’ll ad a bit more detail in the final game.
After seeing THIS I am pretty sure they went ahead and made the game cartoony intentionally. I don’t believe with 500 million they just completely misrepresented the art with the 3d model shown in the trailers.
The concept art op linked looks way better than what the brutes have on in the infinite demo. And honestly I like the real look of the banished “original halo wars 2” better.
I think 343 wanted to have something that was easy to make shredded and falling off. Plus, the art direction looks a bit like halo 3 brutes, but with simplicity from halo ce. Which, comes off as cartoony at times.
Time and time again, I say this. 343 probably wants to do their own ideas. They aren’t trying to upset many older fans of the series. They are aware of what they are doing and make things similar but not totally the same, and that’s how they honor us.
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> > > They just decided to make the game look cartoony instead. That’s probably why
> >
> > Doesn’t look cartoony, just there isn’t enough wear and tear. I’m sure they’ll ad a bit more detail in the final game.
>
> After seeing THIS I am pretty sure they went ahead and made the game cartoony intentionally. I don’t believe with 500 million they just completely misrepresented the art with the 3d model shown in the trailers.
Holy -Yoink-… That’s the first I had seen that. I mean, they obviously took cues from that concept but what we saw was no where near that. I wish that’d follow that artstyle more. Not saying fully. It’s pretty dark but still.
To many polygons for current gen plus all the mismanagement at 343i its really not surprising they cant pull off barbarian style armor even though it goes against lore/canon the 2 go too topics they frequently use as an excuse as to why certain features are the way they are or why things are missing.
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> > > They just decided to make the game look cartoony instead. That’s probably why
> >
> > Doesn’t look cartoony, just there isn’t enough wear and tear. I’m sure they’ll ad a bit more detail in the final game.
>
> After seeing THIS I am pretty sure they went ahead and made the game cartoony intentionally. I don’t believe with 500 million they just completely misrepresented the art with the 3d model shown in the trailers.
It’s also important to remember that this is an older build, texturing and final touches aren’t done yet. Final graphical touches are some of the last things done on game dev. Let’s wait and see.
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> To many polygons for current gen plus all the mismanagement at 343i its really not surprising they cant pull off barbarian style armor even though it goes against lore/canon the 2 go too topics they frequently use as an excuse as to why certain features are the way they are or why things are missing.
I doubt it would be an issue for current gen. Nothing said a small simplification of the HW2 style isn’t possible. Some of the Banished armor in HW2 was simpler and more streamlined so they could use that and still be closer in style.
As for the mismanagement… I hope it’s not true, yet the realist in me knows that it is. This isn’t a jab at 343 specifically, but it seems to be suffering from the same pains as many AAA studios, maybe handling a bit worse but its still part of a larger issue. As someone who is going to college with the prospects of being a concept artist for games, all this contractor and mismanagement stuff keeps me up at night on my choices at times.
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> > > > They just decided to make the game look cartoony instead. That’s probably why
> > >
> > > Doesn’t look cartoony, just there isn’t enough wear and tear. I’m sure they’ll ad a bit more detail in the final game.
> >
> > After seeing THIS I am pretty sure they went ahead and made the game cartoony intentionally. I don’t believe with 500 million they just completely misrepresented the art with the 3d model shown in the trailers.
>
> It’s also important to remember that this is an older build, texturing and final touches aren’t done yet. Final graphical touches are some of the last things done on game dev. Let’s wait and see.
I agree on that, but honestly the art still looks better in general. Though that may just be from it going from 2D to 3D. I feel that happens quite a bit, stuff looking better in concept art than in modeled form. I really feel that for Destiny 2 armor.
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> > To many polygons for current gen plus all the mismanagement at 343i its really not surprising they cant pull off barbarian style armor even though it goes against lore/canon the 2 go too topics they frequently use as an excuse as to why certain features are the way they are or why things are missing.
>
> I doubt it would be an issue for current gen. Nothing said a small simplification of the HW2 style isn’t possible. Some of the Banished armor in HW2 was simpler and more streamlined so they could use that and still be closer in style.
>
> As for the mismanagement… I hope it’s not true, yet the realist in me knows that it is. This isn’t a jab at 343 specifically, but it seems to be suffering from the same pains as many AAA studios, maybe handling a bit worse but its still part of a larger issue. As someone who is going to college with the prospects of being a concept artist for games, all this contractor and mismanagement stuff keeps me up at night on my choices at times.
If you consider every enemy on screen at once all holding different weapons to boot its definitely going to be a gpu issue for og xbone thats why everything has simple shapes. Plus if floods back too that’s going to be a hell of alot of stress on this gen’s tech plain and simple… If only they would’ve looked to the future and made the game exclusively for next gen hardware this game would be vastly superior than whatever were getting this holiday.
But that wouldn’t mesh well with -Yoink!- release and their plans to sell us on their game pass/cross system idea which in my opinion will fail but I really don’t wanna rant about all the reasons they are gifting Sony the win this gen despite having the better hardware on paper that’d be a little off topic
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> > >
>
> If you consider every enemy on screen at once all holding different weapons to boot its definitely going to be a gpu issue for og xbone thats why everything has simple shapes. Plus if floods back too that’s going to be a hell of alot of stress on this gen’s tech plain and simple… If only they would’ve looked to the future and made the game exclusively for next gen hardware this game would be vastly superior than whatever were getting this holiday.
>
> But that wouldn’t mesh well with -Yoink!- release and their plans to sell us on their game pass/cross system idea which in my opinion will fail but I really don’t wanna rant about all the reasons they are gifting Sony the win this gen despite having the better hardware on paper that’d be a little off topic
I don’t know. Perhaps I just have more faith in the Xbox One. Halo isn’t really about shoving dozens and dozens of enemies in your face at once. I still think a middle ground that appears much closer to their appearance in HW2 is possible on the Xbox One without causing issues. In this day and age, things can be very easily scaled between different parameters and limits.
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> >
> > If you consider every enemy on screen at once all holding different weapons to boot its definitely going to be a gpu issue for og xbone thats why everything has simple shapes. Plus if floods back too that’s going to be a hell of alot of stress on this gen’s tech plain and simple… If only they would’ve looked to the future and made the game exclusively for next gen hardware this game would be vastly superior than whatever were getting this holiday.
> >
> > But that wouldn’t mesh well with -Yoink!- release and their plans to sell us on their game pass/cross system idea which in my opinion will fail but I really don’t wanna rant about all the reasons they are gifting Sony the win this gen despite having the better hardware on paper that’d be a little off topic
>
> I still think a middle ground that appears much closer to their appearance in HW2 is possible on the Xbox One without causing issues.
I agree it’d be easily possible but they are likely trying to do things for optimization reasons ie designs that revolve around practicality vs artistic continuity when designing the only race that gets a new design in every iteration its in.
I actually like the look of both the infinite and hw2 look of the banished. And when I say the infinite banished I mean the ones in the red armor, I have a suspicion that the more covenant looking units may be a different faction perhaps the harbinger that was mentioned but I could definitely be wrong. I do hope the hw2 armored banished make their way into infinite if it’s not already. Perhaps if could happen if/when atriox shows up.
I agree with you completely. The art-style for this game looks overall poor. And this has nothing to do with the graphics, specially the armors for brutes and elites and that infamous toyish Phantom lack information and details, the surfaces are flat and too simple lacking that sense of believality that they were actually forged and designed and it enhances the sensation they look like Army-men toys.
Again, nothing to do with texture and graphical fidelity. It looks like 343 simply took the designs from combat Evolved, with the limitations of that time and then scaled them up without making any changes to the designs. It does not look classic nor modern, just lacking an extra layer of detail.
