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Halo Infinite - Campaign Overview (October 25th - 6am PT / 9am ET / 3pm CET)

Mr.ODST

Member
URGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH cant wait .... exploring Zeta Halo is going to be a beast PLUS I think maybe future DLC might open up more of the ring or more areas?

Really hope we get to explore Palace of Pain
 

Mr.ODST

Member
Hope we get more expanded lore.

I think one of the biggest things from Halo that shocked me was Operation Torpedo where I think 280 Spartan III's were killed within 7 hours against the covenant and they were only 12 - 14 years old.

The Spartan program has a huge dark background and while the books and some expanded game lore explains this would be great for them to add something else ontop of it.
 

fatmarco

Member
Looking much better here.

haloinfinite_tovarus-4k-ed1f3cdea4164a0ca3a6502b4cad39f6.png
 

FireFly

Member
Funny how after all the criticism Alex got for "defending" Halo in his tech breakdown, he is the most critical of all the DF guys of the new showing, and seems almost out of tune with the fan reaction.
 

elliot5

Member
I think he came off as a bit harsh, the game has certainly improved. Saying it ”at times look worse” is a bit much IMO, but I’m no expert.
eh I kinda agree with him. It's certain scenes though. I liked the lighting of the cockpit scene more in the previous version. Lighting looked a bit more dramatic on the pilot (other than the sparkplug shot, that was an improvement).

There's also a bit too much grit/contrast/sharpening or something imo. Like crushed blacks? But still an overall improvement.
 
I think he came off as a bit harsh, the game has certainly improved. Saying it ”at times look worse” is a bit much IMO, but I’m no expert.

He's way talking out his ass. Even Cinematics look worse? Anyone can see and compare the two cinematics shown and tell the new stuff looks decidedly more detailed and more polished. The environments, rocky mountain sides, lighting, texture detail, texture pop-in are all dramatically improved. The hex walls look way better than they did before. Well, he's entitled to his opinion, even a totally incorrect one.
 

ZehDon

Member
He's way talking out his ass. Even Cinematics look worse? Anyone can see and compare the two cinematics shown and tell the new stuff looks decidedly more detailed and more polished. The environments, rocky mountain sides, lighting, texture detail, texture pop-in are all dramatically improved. The hex walls look way better than they did before. Well, he's entitled to his opinion, even a totally incorrect one.
Yeah, the segmented hex walls and their improved texture details adds quite a bit to the scene, and I've been extremely critical of those flat hex walls. Anyone saying that that looks worse than original gameplay reveal has an axe to grind.
 

VAVA Mk2

Member
I thought the harbinger was just that Vex/ Makyr looking thing from the recent video. Not a unique faction
There is no Covenant in Halo Infinite. Covenant is dead now. It is now a ton of splinter factions like The Banished and The Keepers of the One True Freedom. My money on Harbinger is they are a Precursor.
 

elliot5

Member
He's way talking out his ass. Even Cinematics look worse? Anyone can see and compare the two cinematics shown and tell the new stuff looks decidedly more detailed and more polished. The environments, rocky mountain sides, lighting, texture detail, texture pop-in are all dramatically improved. The hex walls look way better than they did before. Well, he's entitled to his opinion, even a totally incorrect one.
I mean, overall it looks improved (especially gameplay segments), but there are artistic changes made during cutscenes that look worse IMO in some shots.

For example:

unknown.png

The old shot on the left looked better imo.

However, I prefer this new scene's composition
unknown.png


In general the Pilot's vest and clothes have more texture detail brought out, but some of the facial lighting looks worse in some shots. Seems like they wanted more focus on the face rather than having it in shadow, which is fine I guess. It's an artistic choice and I'm sure the cinematic artists went back and forth with a ton of iterations. That's what they do.
 

VAVA Mk2

Member
So happy more people are finally catching on to this. This campaign may be starting as one complete Master Chief story, but there will be more of them over the next 10 years. This campaign, when all is said and done, could actually turn out to be 2 pretty substantial campaigns in one, possibly three or more if they end up being smaller slices that aren't as big as this first one.
They are doing like Destiny 2. Halo Infinite is the shell for GaaS. Eventually the campaign we play this fall will get its own name. They will add new expansions for campaign over the years including new MC stories and other characters. Rumors are first campaign DLC is Arbiter. 2nd campaign DLC is Buck.
 

fatmarco

Member
I mean, overall it looks improved (especially gameplay segments), but there are artistic changes made during cutscenes that look worse IMO in some shots.

For example:

unknown.png

The old shot on the left looked better imo.

However, I prefer this new scene's composition
unknown.png


In general the Pilot's vest and clothes have more texture detail brought out, but some of the facial lighting looks worse in some shots. Seems like they wanted more focus on the face rather than having it in shadow, which is fine I guess. It's an artistic choice and I'm sure the cinematic artists went back and forth with a ton of iterations. That's what they do.
Yeah I'd agree with this, and I think this is what Alex was referring to as far that goes.

The graphics aren't technically worse (in fact they've even adjusted the pilots bone structure so that his eyes sit deeper in his skull which is nice because the initial reveal version didn't quite look right), but they have messed around with the lighting and as such is looks overly lit and less cinematic.

As far as the campaign footage goes I do think people overstating how much improvement there's been purely because they want desperately for there to be a massive upgrade, but it still absolutely looks better than last year overall.
 
They are doing like Destiny 2. Halo Infinite is the shell for GaaS. Eventually the campaign we play this fall will get its own name. They will add new expansions for campaign over the years including new MC stories and other characters. Rumors are first campaign DLC is Arbiter. 2nd campaign DLC is Buck.

The failure of Destiny for me, and many others, was it never doing a good enough job establishing a new universe in a serious way. Bungie seemed to want the easy side of the kinds of games they like to make without building out the big singleplayer epic to accompany it that people who were fans of their Halo games wanted.

I mean, overall it looks improved (especially gameplay segments), but there are artistic changes made during cutscenes that look worse IMO in some shots.

For example:

unknown.png

The old shot on the left looked better imo.

However, I prefer this new scene's composition
unknown.png


In general the Pilot's vest and clothes have more texture detail brought out, but some of the facial lighting looks worse in some shots. Seems like they wanted more focus on the face rather than having it in shadow, which is fine I guess. It's an artistic choice and I'm sure the cinematic artists went back and forth with a ton of iterations. That's what they do.

Definitely artistic, and the scene preceding it where the Pilot's holographic device finally died on him was the visually weakest moment of Discover Hope trailer by far. They fixed it in the newer, updated cinematics. Rest of what he says is just bizarre. He tried to use the initial reveal trailer to claim it demonstrated more variety in locations. Actually, it did not.

95% of that whole trailer is the exact same PNW biome. The scene with the deer is the same biome, just at night under different lighting conditions. There was a cave? Guess what Halo Infinite already has caves confirmed. There was some underground looking area or whatever that was? Halo Infinite has underground areas confirmed just in the latest Inside Infinite by Joe Staten, he cites what he calls a desert in the trailer. How do we even know that's actually a desert at all, and not the deadlands, which is one of the sub biomes of Halo Infinite, something we got a small tease of in campaign overview, the location with the birds. That scene accounted for a whole of 4 seconds in the initial Halo Infinite reveal. Next, the rhinos were again in the same biome. No evidence they weren't, just with more dirt ground. That's been seen already in campaign overview, plenty of just dirt ground areas. We haven't seen an ocean, but we've seen multiple bodies of water, one of which appeared like some lake. The area where the marines popped that smoke signal? That's the same PNW biome. The area with chief overlooking it all? Same Zeta Halo PNW biome. The area with Chief driving the warthog? Same PNW biome. The night time scene with what seems to be a fire burning? Same PNW biome.

This is the dominant biome of a Halo. Variety, diversity, that all comes with how 343i designs the areas, what they put in the areas. I suspect we will find something memorable about a location with a downed Guardian. There will be plenty of forerunner interiors, a big part of a Halo also. I'm just stunned that with all the samey looking shooters out there with their boring locations, a huge ass Halo with all this open space freedom is where Alex from DF draws the line. I cringed listening to the guy lol.

You don't have to find Halo Infinite amazing looking, but claiming at one point Death Stranding's gameplay was more interesting than the possibility of a more open, more freedom filled Halo had me immediately stop watching lol.
 
Reposting from another thread:


Guess I’ll post this here since the Xbox OT sadly has so little activity (why is that?). I wish it was more active. Oh well.

Remember the announcement/game engine demonstration trailer? I’m curious how much, if any, of the enviroments and animals featured in it is still present in the game?




If what shown in that trailer is still in, man, we’re getting a special kind of Halo this year.

I’m confident the number of animals in the stampede won’t be possible with the scale of what 343 is going for infinite, but it’s still interesting to look back at.
 
Reposting from another thread:


Guess I’ll post this here since the Xbox OT sadly has so little activity (why is that?). I wish it was more active. Oh well.

Remember the announcement/game engine demonstration trailer? I’m curious how much, if any, of the enviroments and animals featured in it is still present in the game?




If what shown in that trailer is still in, man, we’re getting a special kind of Halo this year.

I’m confident the number of animals in the stampede won’t be possible with the scale of what 343 is going for infinite, but it’s still interesting to look back at.


Of course that number of animals is possible, they put well over 20 enemies on screen with more complex AI with vehicles and all the action going on.

I know we've seen quite a few newer animals since this reveal. We haven't seen the deer, but we've seen those gophers, we've seen birds, we've seen those larger birds from the campaign overview. We've yet to see the larger animals such as deer and rhinos, but I imagine they must be present.
 
Of course that number of animals is possible, they put well over 20 enemies on screen with more complex AI with vehicles and all the action going on.

I know we've seen quite a few newer animals since this reveal. We haven't seen the deer, but we've seen those gophers, we've seen birds, we've seen those larger birds from the campaign overview. We've yet to see the larger animals such as deer and rhinos, but I imagine they must be present.
Just did a count and there was about 40 animals in that stampade. That combined with physics, vehicles and whatnot seems a bit optimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see it! Yeah however, I hope the rhinos, sandy areas and wet caves are still in.
 
Would love it if Doomguy just showed up out of a hell portal fighting some hell knights or something in the deep caverns of zeta and chief have to team up a bit to take down a boss.
 
Just did a count and there was about 40 animals in that stampade. That combined with physics, vehicles and whatnot seems a bit optimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see it! Yeah however, I hope the rhinos, sandy areas and wet caves are still in.

Caves are confirmed. As for sandy areas, I guess? But we've seen plenty of dirt road kind of areas. For the rhinos they would simply make sure they aren't in a location where you will encounter too much heavy enemy resistance is my guess. That's how you balance that. But if people notice, these environments in Halo Infinite are pretty fucking packed with lots of geometry and things just all about for you to see. It's easy for them to seem small and unimpressive until you're on foot and up close, then they look massive, and it's only really then that the scale of this game starts to come into full fruition.

The part of the trailer where the wasp is flown overhead a banished outpost, when Chief drops down with the rocket launcher, look in the upper left hand corner you'll see some big round sharp like looking objects. They're wheels for brute choppers. I love that we can make out the kind of activities going on in an area due to how detailed things are. You can literally see individual latch mechanisms used to chain together or close up the containers inside that facility. And you can even make out small details in the upper right on the door, and whatever the objects directly to the right of the door are, but it's all very detailed. Halo doesn't go for real, so the enemies won't be have nor move like they do in Call of Duty.

It's how we get cool enemies like Brute Captains using the same cool ground and pound introduced in Halo 5. It's a pretty badass sandbox that's a lot more than meets the eye on a technical level.
 

Salz01

Member
Reposting from another thread:


Guess I’ll post this here since the Xbox OT sadly has so little activity (why is that?). I wish it was more active. Oh well.

Remember the announcement/game engine demonstration trailer? I’m curious how much, if any, of the enviroments and animals featured in it is still present in the game?




If what shown in that trailer is still in, man, we’re getting a special kind of Halo this year.

I’m confident the number of animals in the stampede won’t be possible with the scale of what 343 is going for infinite, but it’s still interesting to look back at.

This slipstream demo is infinitely better than anything they showed recently. I’m sour this isn’t the game we are getting.
 
This slipstream demo is infinitely better than anything they showed recently. I’m sour this isn’t the game we are getting.

I played the multi-player, and the multiplayer matches the slipspace trailer to a magnificent degree. The multiplayer even exceeded it in lots of places. But people needed to have their hands on to see it for themselves. I have every confidence the campaign, based on what I've seen, will be just the same.

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All from youtube, so we aren't even catching all the detail.
 

GymWolf

Member
And to be fair, I didn't see anything in that trailer that doesn't exist in some shape or form in Far Cry 6 (or 5, for that matter).
Kinda intelligent enemies are gonna be a huge difference.

Even in his worse form, the ia on halo was several orders of magnitude better than dumb cry 6.

Also having an actual challenge and not being a cakewalk is gonna help, fc6 is stupidly easy after a while.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war


Looks like Alex shares the same "concerns" that I have. Give this a LOL emoji.


I dont thinks theres anything wrong with what alex said. Afterall its just one mans opinion.
Im a bit unsure what he means though. I think he was talking about previous halo levels would be carefully crafted to provide excellent fps gameplay and with it being open world the encounters will be more generic.
Alex may be right, but he also may not be, its interesting that he chooses to think a negative outcome will happen.
While previous halo games were tightly controlled in terms of weapon and enemy placement I do think Alex is somewhat exaggerating how much difference an open world will result in the gameplay.
A spartan with better weapons and equipment might not necessarily have an easier time, the game may calculate the challenge based how well equipped the player is.
Frankly infinite looks more fun then prior halos, exploring large levels is more interesting then small levels, having bosses is fun. Prior halos did not do anything that revolutionary, the hallmarks of the franchise is the movement, controls and enemy A.i
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I'm really hoping ammo lasts a bit longer. I don't mind swapping weapons per enemy type but having to constantly recycle weapons in 5 was not fun. Was even worse on legendary with its terrible low ammo stock.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
It will be interesting to see alex's deeper dive into the new gameplay.
From what I saw, materials, textures and lighting looked better, that could be to some degree presentation (time of day). But all games have better and worse looking lighting depending on the time of day and area.
 
Yeah I'd agree with this, and I think this is what Alex was referring to as far that goes.

The graphics aren't technically worse (in fact they've even adjusted the pilots bone structure so that his eyes sit deeper in his skull which is nice because the initial reveal version didn't quite look right), but they have messed around with the lighting and as such is looks overly lit and less cinematic.

As far as the campaign footage goes I do think people overstating how much improvement there's been purely because they want desperately for there to be a massive upgrade, but it still absolutely looks better than last year overall.
Right so Alex was actually comparing to the opening cinematic from 2019 and the engine trailer from 2018. The engine trailer is obviously the bar they were aiming for but haven't attained unfortunately (but then again has any game attained that level?).

The 2019 opening cinematic was what i expected graphically from the game. What we got in 2020 in the cinematic before the infamous gameplay was considerably worse. The new cinematic 2021 is just as good as the 2019 cinematic and slightly improved, but is lit differently to give an overall different composition.

Alex mentioned nothing about the massively improved LOD and pop in. The new volumetric lighting, character models being more detailed and the changes to the art direction. In fact it took Leadbetter to actually mention these improvements.
 

VAVA Mk2

Member
The failure of Destiny for me, and many others, was it never doing a good enough job establishing a new universe in a serious way. Bungie seemed to want the easy side of the kinds of games they like to make without building out the big singleplayer epic to accompany it that people who were fans of their Halo games wanted.



Definitely artistic, and the scene preceding it where the Pilot's holographic device finally died on him was the visually weakest moment of Discover Hope trailer by far. They fixed it in the newer, updated cinematics. Rest of what he says is just bizarre. He tried to use the initial reveal trailer to claim it demonstrated more variety in locations. Actually, it did not.

95% of that whole trailer is the exact same PNW biome. The scene with the deer is the same biome, just at night under different lighting conditions. There was a cave? Guess what Halo Infinite already has caves confirmed. There was some underground looking area or whatever that was? Halo Infinite has underground areas confirmed just in the latest Inside Infinite by Joe Staten, he cites what he calls a desert in the trailer. How do we even know that's actually a desert at all, and not the deadlands, which is one of the sub biomes of Halo Infinite, something we got a small tease of in campaign overview, the location with the birds. That scene accounted for a whole of 4 seconds in the initial Halo Infinite reveal. Next, the rhinos were again in the same biome. No evidence they weren't, just with more dirt ground. That's been seen already in campaign overview, plenty of just dirt ground areas. We haven't seen an ocean, but we've seen multiple bodies of water, one of which appeared like some lake. The area where the marines popped that smoke signal? That's the same PNW biome. The area with chief overlooking it all? Same Zeta Halo PNW biome. The area with Chief driving the warthog? Same PNW biome. The night time scene with what seems to be a fire burning? Same PNW biome.

This is the dominant biome of a Halo. Variety, diversity, that all comes with how 343i designs the areas, what they put in the areas. I suspect we will find something memorable about a location with a downed Guardian. There will be plenty of forerunner interiors, a big part of a Halo also. I'm just stunned that with all the samey looking shooters out there with their boring locations, a huge ass Halo with all this open space freedom is where Alex from DF draws the line. I cringed listening to the guy lol.

You don't have to find Halo Infinite amazing looking, but claiming at one point Death Stranding's gameplay was more interesting than the possibility of a more open, more freedom filled Halo had me immediately stop watching lol.
Destiny failed as they scrapped a lot of Joe Staten's world building for it. I believe he left Bungie shortly after the first game launched.
 

Raekwon26

Member
nothing controversial imo, game is far from being a looker so if sombody thought it will be could be disappointed, tough game still can be good
Agreed.

Game graphics don't look particularly impressive at all. A bit meh tbh.

But, fuck DF. These dudes are awful.
 
I think it looks good for the scale. I’m more and more impressed with the LOD everytime I watch the trailer. The mountains when flying with the wasp especially.
 

oldergamer

Member
Game looks great, I call BS on those that that say "far from being a looker".

I can disagree with Alex from DF without trying to discredit him. To say it looks worse then the previous showing, I think is clearly incorrect. His gameplay concerns don't really make sense to me. Infinite is "limited" open world, just like the original halo with slightly more freedom in a wider sandbox. This is a reboot/reimagining of halo, so yeah I would expect them to add to the gameplay and try to take it to the next level. Nobody wants the exact same corridor shooter that we have had the past 20 years. Anyone that wants more of the same, can go back and play the older games.

I don't really get his reasoning on the gameplay comments from him, imo when he talks of gameplay, I don't think he knows what he is talking about. just my opinion.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


As one of the biggest and most recognizable gaming franchises around, expectations from a new Halo game are always going to be sky high. It's fair to say that the series has routinely fallen short of those expectations ever since Bungie handed over the reins to 343 Industries, and that's exactly why there's so much riding on Halo Infinite.

Promising the definitive and biggest experience in Halo franchise and being touted as a spiritual reboot, Halo Infinite needs to be a much-needed win for the series. Its release is soon approaching, and by this point, we know plenty about both how its campaign and its multiplayer are going to work (and we're likely going to learn even more in the coming weeks). Here, we'll be taking a look at some key details you should know about the game.
 
Game looks great, I call BS on those that that say "far from being a looker".

I can disagree with Alex from DF without trying to discredit him. To say it looks worse then the previous showing, I think is clearly incorrect. His gameplay concerns don't really make sense to me. Infinite is "limited" open world, just like the original halo with slightly more freedom in a wider sandbox. This is a reboot/reimagining of halo, so yeah I would expect them to add to the gameplay and try to take it to the next level. Nobody wants the exact same corridor shooter that we have had the past 20 years. Anyone that wants more of the same, can go back and play the older games.

I don't really get his reasoning on the gameplay comments from him, imo when he talks of gameplay, I don't think he knows what he is talking about. just my opinion.
It's not the best-looking game, but it's also not the worst. It's not a next-gen showcase, but it is going to be a fun romp. When you consider Hellblade 2, Flight Simulator, and Forza Horizon are in the mix and do look better, I personally am disappointed in Halo's newest graphics tech. It does a lot to maintain performance which is fantastic, but its drawbacks are apparent. Everything up close looks great but everything further from the player has some aliasing, and the LOD looks very low. The scope and scale is fantastic though.

Either way, I pre-ordered yesterday and am excited to play what I think will be the best Halo Campaign in nearly 10 years. At this moment I'm playing through the old Campaigns on Legendary, starting with REACH.

EDIT: On another note, I think the game will look better than the YouTube compression is allowing, the Tech Preview proved this.
 
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Right so Alex was actually comparing to the opening cinematic from 2019 and the engine trailer from 2018. The engine trailer is obviously the bar they were aiming for but haven't attained unfortunately (but then again has any game attained that level?).

The 2019 opening cinematic was what i expected graphically from the game. What we got in 2020 in the cinematic before the infamous gameplay was considerably worse. The new cinematic 2021 is just as good as the 2019 cinematic and slightly improved, but is lit differently to give an overall different composition.

Alex mentioned nothing about the massively improved LOD and pop in. The new volumetric lighting, character models being more detailed and the changes to the art direction. In fact it took Leadbetter to actually mention these improvements.
Leadbetter is the only one of those guys that never triggers me. Alex has to always demonstrate the superiority of PC over console. Always indirectly but nevertheless it's f'ing annoying. John is great for his passion of all things gaming but he plays softball with developers too often when they have botched something major. Richard does that too. I would like to see these guys lay into a developer the next time they market their game as having HDR but then give us a broken or non-existent implementation, for instance. Rdr2, the Surge 2, Hitman 3, Darksiders 3 all come to mind. I'd like to see these guys use their platform to let some of these companies know how disappointing it is for his subscribers to buy a $60 game and have to suffer through months hoping a patch will fix what shoulda been working at launch. (Cough.. Hitman 3 "hdr", ahem Halo MCC Halo 1 and 2 campaigns on Xbox One X cough..)
 
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