The game looks... the same?

Games Halo Infinite
1

I thought I was going crazy at first, but if you check the first campaign gameplay trailer, and compare it to this one, the only difference is more gameplay is being showcased. Now this isn’t at all a bad thing, but the whole delay of Halo infinite (I thought) was primarily influenced by the fact that nobody really liked the graphics or lighting. Its really easy to tell when you look at the dirt and grass in most scenes. Everything sort of lacks depth. Looking at the AR and BR in comparison, the only thing that’s changed is the gun’s texture. They still look like they aren’t really made of metal. There is still weird artifacting in distant objects and shadows in general are really rough. The explosions are also STILL very sad to look at, they lack any grit, smoke, or weight to them and just look like a collage of PNG images.

We got the campaign gameplay we needed, but we still need to check in to see if this is OLD campaign gameplay, because not much looks different.

2

This game looks dramatically different IMO. The lighting and textures are significantly better. The game absolutely has a view distance rendering limit however what you see in front of you looks incredible.

3

Did you watch the trailer in 720p or something?

I get some things still look kind of flat, Halo definitely doesn’t have the particles down like other games do but the graphics are significantly better than last year and a noticeable improvement in many areas.

4

> 2535463263896395;1:
> I thought I was going crazy at first, but if you check the first campaign gameplay trailer, and compare it to this one, the only difference is more gameplay is being showcased. Now this isn’t at all a bad thing, but the whole delay of Halo infinite (I thought) was primarily influenced by the fact that nobody really liked the graphics or lighting. Its really easy to tell when you look at the dirt and grass in most scenes. Everything sort of lacks depth. Looking at the AR and BR in comparison, the only thing that’s changed is the gun’s texture. They still look like they aren’t really made of metal. There is still weird artifacting in distant objects and shadows in general are really rough. The explosions are also STILL very sad to look at, they lack any grit, smoke, or weight to them and just look like a collage of PNG images.
>
> We got the campaign gameplay we needed, but we still need to check in to see if this is OLD campaign gameplay, because not much looks different.

I’m in the same boat as you. Still feels a bit cartoonish and shallow to me, but the explosions are particularly flat and sort of look like paint.

IMO the worst part of the trailer was the voice over/writing. Hopefully that wasn’t the same people who wrote the game… most of the lines that I heard felt awfully cheesy.

I’m curious about the open world arrangement, but concerned about what that will mean for the writing of the game…

5

> 2535463263896395;1:
> I thought I was going crazy at first, but if you check the first campaign gameplay trailer, and compare it to this one, the only difference is more gameplay is being showcased. Now this isn’t at all a bad thing, but the whole delay of Halo infinite (I thought) was primarily influenced by the fact that nobody really liked the graphics or lighting. Its really easy to tell when you look at the dirt and grass in most scenes. Everything sort of lacks depth. Looking at the AR and BR in comparison, the only thing that’s changed is the gun’s texture. They still look like they aren’t really made of metal. There is still weird artifacting in distant objects and shadows in general are really rough. The explosions are also STILL very sad to look at, they lack any grit, smoke, or weight to them and just look like a collage of PNG images.
>
> We got the campaign gameplay we needed, but we still need to check in to see if this is OLD campaign gameplay, because not much looks different.

Did we watch the same trailer? I agree explosions could use a bit more grit but everything else looks almost night and day difference.

6

> 2535463263896395;1:
> I thought I was going crazy at first, but if you check the first campaign gameplay trailer, and compare it to this one, the only difference is more gameplay is being showcased. Now this isn’t at all a bad thing, but the whole delay of Halo infinite (I thought) was primarily influenced by the fact that nobody really liked the graphics or lighting. Its really easy to tell when you look at the dirt and grass in most scenes. Everything sort of lacks depth. Looking at the AR and BR in comparison, the only thing that’s changed is the gun’s texture. They still look like they aren’t really made of metal. There is still weird artifacting in distant objects and shadows in general are really rough. The explosions are also STILL very sad to look at, they lack any grit, smoke, or weight to them and just look like a collage of PNG images.
>
> We got the campaign gameplay we needed, but we still need to check in to see if this is OLD campaign gameplay, because not much looks different.

I Agree with everything. They showed more gameplay options like the vehicles ordinance and the upgrades, but I hope 343 has more surprises they are intentionally leaving vague for the player to discover. That includes more weapons, vehicles, enemies, characters and environments.

7

> 2535463263896395;1:
> I thought I was going crazy at first, but if you check the first campaign gameplay trailer, and compare it to this one, the only difference is more gameplay is being showcased. Now this isn’t at all a bad thing, but the whole delay of Halo infinite (I thought) was primarily influenced by the fact that nobody really liked the graphics or lighting. Its really easy to tell when you look at the dirt and grass in most scenes. Everything sort of lacks depth. Looking at the AR and BR in comparison, the only thing that’s changed is the gun’s texture. They still look like they aren’t really made of metal. There is still weird artifacting in distant objects and shadows in general are really rough. The explosions are also STILL very sad to look at, they lack any grit, smoke, or weight to them and just look like a collage of PNG images.
>
> We got the campaign gameplay we needed, but we still need to check in to see if this is OLD campaign gameplay, because not much looks different.

This makes sense if you saw the livestream at low resolution on something like a phone. But if you saw the video at 1080p-4k on a full size screen the graphical difference is night and day.

The explosions though, even though I think the fidelity has improved over the last year - I personally really dislike the style of them. IMO halo 3 has yet to be topped in this department (by any game I’ve played) so I guess it has to live up to a very high standard.

8

No it doesn’t.

9

Plasma effects look abysmal. Sad how Halo 3 pulls it off better given its age.

10

Thought the visuals looked significantly better, and I’m someone who was crucifying the fidelity and art direction last year.

No more weird pylons, far more detail on weapons and foliage. Character models look much better, lighting looks far better and doesn’t make darker environments look really flat or lacking in detail, like in the reveal.

Biggest improvement I feel is the level of granular detail on foliage and character models. Grass is noticeably more detailed.

The worst thing is the particle effects, they still look low res and blurry, explosions don’t look “powerful” but instead kind of cartoonish.

Other than that, I liked the graphics and visual presentation. Not perfect but much better than what we saw last year.

11

> 2533274801036271;3:
> Did you watch the trailer in 720p or something?
>
> I get some things still look kind of flat, Halo definitely doesn’t have the particles down like other games do but the graphics are significantly better than last year and a noticeable improvement in many areas.

Sounds like they watched it on a nokia brick.
But nah man this community is turning ungrateful, not every game is gonna look like crysis or red dead. Like even the latest battlefield looked like trash imo. As long as this game is fun and has some snowy/desert areas I’ll be gassed.

12

Been saying since Halo 4, 343 CANNOT make explosions look good.

Reaches explosions look 30x better than anything released since. I don’t know why they don’t seem to care about that. The explosions are a huge part of immersion, not to mention with a proper explosion animation it makes it easier to gauge where the damage radius is.

13

Just look at the comparisons on youtube.
No, It does not look the same, it looks better.

14

> 2533274866840661;12:
> Been saying since Halo 4, 343 CANNOT make explosions look good.
>
> Reaches explosions look 30x better than anything released since. I don’t know why they don’t seem to care about that. The explosions are a huge part of immersion, not to mention with a proper explosion animation it makes it easier to gauge where the damage radius is.

Are you just going around making posts and replying to random threads saying reach explosions are better?
chill, let it go…

15

> 2533274866840661;12:
> Been saying since Halo 4, 343 CANNOT make explosions look good.
>
> Reaches explosions look 30x better than anything released since. I don’t know why they don’t seem to care about that. The explosions are a huge part of immersion, not to mention with a proper explosion animation it makes it easier to gauge where the damage radius is.

I don’t even… You wouldn’t happen to be Michael Bay would you?

There’s more important things than explosions.

16

I mean, to me, I saw a difference in graphics. The game looks beautiful and they also have to let it run stable on the Xbox One, Series S, and Series X. Sure, they might be able to edit it per console but overall it has to be fully playable by everyone. That’s their top priority. I could be wrong and the base-game is different on each console, graphics wise. Regardless, they’ve already made a night and day difference since last trailer. Now that the hype is coming, they just have to polish the game and optimize it. They still have 42 days, I’m sure they’ll be able to fix whatever graphic issues there are with that amount of time.

I personally think the game looks amazing. It’ll run great on all systems. I mean, look at Halo 5 for example. Game looks great, it also came out October 27, 2015. I’m sure after all the years they’ve figured out how to make it look even better.

17

> 2533274845983347;15:
> > 2533274866840661;12:
> > Been saying since Halo 4, 343 CANNOT make explosions look good.
> >
> > Reaches explosions look 30x better than anything released since. I don’t know why they don’t seem to care about that. The explosions are a huge part of immersion, not to mention with a proper explosion animation it makes it easier to gauge where the damage radius is.
>
> I don’t even… You wouldn’t happen to be Michael Bay would you?
>
> There’s more important things than explosions.

> 2533274792964434;14:
> > 2533274866840661;12:
> > Been saying since Halo 4, 343 CANNOT make explosions look good.
> >
> > Reaches explosions look 30x better than anything released since. I don’t know why they don’t seem to care about that. The explosions are a huge part of immersion, not to mention with a proper explosion animation it makes it easier to gauge where the damage radius is.
>
> Are you just going around making posts and replying to random threads saying reach explosions are better?
> chill, let it go…

Nah but there’s been about three posts on that topic or similar and I’ve commented on them, I’d like to get the point across since otherwise it gets lost in the wilderness.

I also commented on how -Yoink- a lot of others things look if that makes you happy?

Like the brutes, they look comical. Not intimidating anymore.

Or the fact that the vehicles are magnetised to the floor and nearly impossible to flip now (I assume to make it easier for noobs to drive)

If you watch the trailer the hog goes off the cliff at an odd angle then magically levels out while flying.

Didn’t realise it was a plane

The game looks incredibly childish. The colours, the effects. No blood, they’ve really given it The marvel studios treatment.

Dialogue is cringy across the board, chief talks more in this one trailer than he does in about the first three titles.

Halos dialogue had cringy moments but was never as bad as this.
They’re shamelessly targeting 12-15 year old fortnite demographic but removed the grime from the game so it’s lost what little gritty edge it had.

I was that age (probably younger) when I first played halo…but the games were always more adult than this looks.

The narration of the campaign overview especially, was clearly made for stupid people loads of hand holding, which is probably why chief talks so much. This also transfers into multiplayer where instead of saying “slayer or capture the flag” the narrator says “capturetheenemyflagtoscoreorelsewelllosethegamedoyouundersrand!?”

343 has this weird obsession with “yOu nEeD to FeeL LiKE A sOoPerSolDiEr”

The brutes have been designed to sell megablocks toys and look stupid to me.

Theyalso don’t seem to have the animalistic monke chimp outs they used to have, they just sort of stand around which seems to be a staple of 343’s covenant. To make their new faction look more intimidating they make the covenant -Yoink-.

Enemies seem to fight like destiny enemies, which is “stand around fire the odd shot and act like a bullet sponge on higher difficulty to give the illusion of difficulty”

Hope I’m wrong though

There, not just explosions

18

The cooler color tone and higher contrast do make the picture “pop” more. Textures have been improved. Some things look a tiny bit too beat up and worn down, but overall it’s not bad.

However, I’m still just as disappointed in the majority of particle effects as I was last year. A few look mostly “right”, like the the Heatwave projectiles, but most of them look like they were originally made for a game with a different artstyle. From the looks of things, including the Banished Phantom, I think Infinite was, at one point, going to have a much more cartoony artstyle, and these particle effects are leftover assets from that design language. Part of this is because the particle effects are very opaque, which doesn’t blend so well into the rest of the slightly more realistic art direction Halo has pretty much always had. Then there are the plasma effects which don’t look like electrified gas, but goopy paint. Realism of plasma aside, Halo has had established visuals for different things since the beginning, and it’s a jarring departure once you notice the changes in Infinite. Even Halo 4 and 5 mostly stayed true to the general visual design of particle effects.

I’d also like to see a color temperature slider in the graphics options across all platforms. I’d prefer ever so slightly warmer colors in Halo Infinite without needing to adjust my display settings for one game. Hey, if 343 is truly going full PC “first class experience” settings, might as well throw this in too, right?

19

I think the predominant issue isn’t in graphics, which look fine, but the art style given to some groups. UNSC look fine, but the Phantom, Jiralhanae, and general special effects look far less realistic than prior Halo games.

20

I thought it looked awesome.

But my only nit-pick originally was the lighting/textures and the pop in.

The game looks like a lot of fun.