Interview: 343 explains how it’s ‘rebooting’ Halo with Infinite

VGC writes:

That’s no mistake: In an interview, the game’s development team told us – along with a group of other media outlets – that Infinite was built from the ground up as a “spiritual reboot,” designed to evoke the feelings of the original Halo games while introducing new twists such as the grapple hook and open world.

[RaidenBlack]

Don't forget the new 'friendly'-looking brutes.

[darthv72]

... Don't forget the Bob Ross trees

https://news.xbox.com/en-us...

[Hakuoro]

That's a slander to Bob Ross...

Honestly World of Warcraft looked better than that 20 years ago.

[I_am_Batman]

Happy little trees.

[SyntheticForm]

That is abysmal.

[Atticus_finch]

Wow that looks super bland.

[Elit3Nick]

They confirmed that the demo was an old build, one that doesn't have raytracing or the series X improvements.

[badz149]

@darthv72

Apologize to Bob Ross NOW!

[TheEnigma313]

Atrocious

[SpaceRanger]

The number of memes I’ve seen is getting out of hand lol someone put Shrek ears on one.

[Jin_Sakai]

It’s obvious this game has had serious development issues. It’s also cross gen which doesn’t help matters.

343i continues to disappoint.

[SyntheticForm]

I've never liked their take on Halo.

[morganfell]

"I've never liked their take on Halo."

They have never been interested in continuing the legacy that was founded by Bungie. They have refused to be caretakers and realize their good fortune and instead have sought to put their own stamp on HALO.

"We'll out Bungie...Bungie. We'll throw the Spartan canon out the window and create our own Spartans where anyone can be one. Nothing special about them. Our Spartan will beat the Chief and you will love us."

Go to the HALO Channel and look at all the Bungie vid docs...oh wait. How does a company with the server infrastructure of Microsoft find it impossible to host the original Bungie HALO Vid docs, trailers, etc? Because it is about erasing the past. Shameful really because HALO was a wonderful universe.

[jerethdagryphon]

Well innovate by copying features from other games that just came out..... And an open world game... For halo a story based fps...... Not good

[Noskypeno]

@jereth, I dont think its going to be an open world like GTA, think of it as what Silent Cartographer was, with multiple ways to complete the level and every level will be like that. There will still be Cutscenes between levels.

[psychosmurf101]

I think whats more surprising to me is that people are shocked the game doesnt immediately look hands down amazing. Previous developers have spoken in the past about just how hard it is to take a vertical slice of gamplay, make a stable demo, and then show it off, let alone at 4k 60fps. I would much rather have a letdown now and be suprised when I can actually play the game. We can all agree it doesnt look super duper amazing, but at the same time, its work in progress gameplay, which is what everybody wanted. Dont be shocked that its not complete yet....hahaha. I'm still expecting to be let down considering the last two halos, but if im not, that would be great too.

[Noskypeno]

I remember bungie had a couple vidocs that showed halo 3 with unfinishes textures, but that wasnt suppose to be a showcase tho, just a look at how they make the game. This is suppose to be a showcase, if they can clarify that the game will match the cutscenes, which the halo games usually do then i could see where those years building the new engine went to. But what matters most is if its a fun game, plenty of pretty games that just arent a lot of fun.

[sinspirit]

The demo was not only representative of the SX and final game. But, 343i said that they did some extra work prior to this demo to pretty it up for the showcase. The game is 3 months from release. This is not an old build like everyone keeps snowballing through social interaction. Someone fabricated a tweet to say it was a January build and it was all deleted and contrary. They would of happily told everyone if the build was old to keep higher expectations.

Ani Shatry, 343i:
"My team and I worked closely with the content creators to get the degree of detail and polish to the highest quality"
"...it took a herculean effort to make sure this little corner of our Ringworld was polished and pretty enough for its premier"

What sucks is it's not actually open world. It's large environments built in sections. Not the same as open world. Similar to Crysis as some have said. There's very little polish and bug fixes they can do till then, but everything that needs fixing to even look like an SX title needs much more time.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

I sense that Halo Infinite is using a lot of nostalgia. Which I worries me somewhat. I don’t want the game to be ‘requel’ like the J.J Abrams Star Wars films. Hopefully the Created and Promethean story-arc from Halo 4 and 5 isn’t simply “swept under the rug” to make room for the Banished ( who weren’t present of even mentioned in Halo 4 &5).

I don’t like that 343i are using Halo 3 influenced designs for the banished infantry. The banished in Halo Wars 2 and associated media had less colourful atheistic that focused on grey,red and black. The Halo 3 designs don’t translate well too high poly graphics. Brutes in bright armour look weird, especially since they are semi-human looking. Halo: Reach and Halo Wars 2 should have more influence on the Banished infantry in my opinion.

[Rimeskeem]

I feel like when they said reboot they thought it meant taking old textures and making them 4K. I hope they didnt just spend years making the engine to have this as a result...

[Noskypeno]

Apparently this was an old build. They showed a few clips from the newer build in the 2 min trailer and it looks much better. Its just a bit inconsistent, theres some rocks that are super detailed that look on par with the 2018 trailer and then they have those trees that are on par with something from halo 3.

[IRetrouk]

Why would they show off an old build for a game out in 4 months time? Does not make sense.

[RpgSama]

Yeah, there's no sense in showing your first ever gameplay presentation owith an old crappy build running on a PC only 4 months away from release, I think this game needed a lot more time in the oven but unfortunately MS needed something to release along the new console so they are hurrying it up, I mean, they already confirmed that Ray tracing it's coming later in a patch, they will use the GaaS excuse again.

[Kavorklestein]

Maybe the new build is more prone to pop-in or crashing so they didn't want that to happen? Idk as long as there is more coming and we can have transparency about some of the choices made to show what they did, maybe, MAYBE.... I'll give it a second chance on Gamepass.
Still kinda sad about it from yesterday.

[RpgSama]

"Maybe the new build is more prone to pop-in or crashing so they didn't want that to happen?"

Wow, so your defense is that the NEWER build they DIDN'T show is shittier than the one they did show, wow.

[Noskypeno]

M fine if they explained that the new build was older than the trailer, but why show off the screens from the old build and not from the trailer, its embarrassing to showcase a pic of a grunt that didnt even load in properly and has textures from a ps1 game.

[ZeroBlue2]

It is concerning though when you don't have anything good to show for your flagship IP that's releasing with your new console in a few months.

[Tacoboto]

Thinking about this from my initial reactions - it really is inexcusable to demonstrate their biggest first-party title in years with something that's not polished compared to the trailer its released alongside.

Does the trailer have this post-launch ray tracing or whatever extra polish in builds since the demo?
Or is the gameplay demo more representative of a releasable-build because the higher-end trailer graphics won't allow for a stable 4k60fps?

[rainslacker]

How old? A week? A month? Five months?

I mean, they had to know this was coming, why would they use an old build? It was pre-recorded, not live. There was no reason to use an exceptionally old build. Usually games dont get new major builds within 6 months of release, because by then, it's mostly just optimization and bug fixing....two things which can be focused in on with a demo. A month or two for an old build isnt going to fix some of the problems with the demo...much less all of them

Old build or not, this is what they showed. And with them saying RT is coming after launch, it makes me think that they are just wat behind schedule with the game, and probably doing what they can to have a stable build for release. Same thing happened with The order on ps4, and while what was there was solid, things felt unfinished or left out. But at least their demos looked good.

If things are better with newer builds, then they can say that, instead making excuses, or just show a new build when it's available. If they have the problems fixed, then itll shut most people up.

[chiefJohn117]

I'm hoping it give me halo CE vibes again. When you crash on Halo and step out...that made me fall in love with the series.

[Ron_Danger]

I got those vibes too. They totally nailed to graphics from the original!! Can’t wait to finally see it running on the XSX at some point... which should be soon considering it launches in a few months

[anast]

Halo 2 enhanced version

[PyroMessiah86]

Doesn't look like Halo 2. I feel like some people just say random stuff on n4g and hope something sticks

[Ron_Danger]

It’s not like this was a “behind closed doors” presentation. We all saw what it looked like. We’re what, 4 months from the launch window and the best showing they can do for their system selling flagship franchise was that?! How was there pop in? Isn’t the XSX designed with a fast SSD and all that extra power?

[anast]

The game looks old and jank. What they showed is the PC version, imagine how old it will look on their console.

[chiefJohn117]

🎯 spot on

[PyroMessiah86]

@Wesker89 oh sorry Wesker didn't know I had to conform to also become a PS fanboy and wasn't allowed to like what I like and have to follow the crowd. Silly me. 🤔

[343_Guilty_Spark]

So much lore from the books ... I hope they don't go with the Chief vs all the covenant again. We've done this before.

[chiefJohn117]

Why not? When they went a different direction people got mad and begged them to make Chief the focus again, can't please everyone. They brought in Locke and other Spartans, and all y'all did was cry about it

[Father__Merrin]

The big boss brute at the end reminded me of gaulnfrom destiny 2

[lonewolf10]

Ta, I was racking my brain to remember where I had seen that face.

[Ron_Danger]

Reminded me of Grum from Tim & Eric...

https://m.youtube.com/watch...

[Nodoze]

Yeah after that shit show last night, might want to reboot again.

and to think this is running on PC....and it still looked like hot garbage. Shudder. Imagine what this will look like on console.

[talocaca]

By bringing back assets from the original games? 😅

[gamer7804]

Split screen coop? That would be cool

[Migitdigit]

needs to reboot back to 0. Make a great halo from ground up. What we all saw was garbage

[RgR]

The gameplay looked right. Although not 100% polished.

The grappling hook didn't even look that impressive. It was a fairly slow wind-up.

I wish MS would just turn in to a regular developer and release on all consoles.

It would be cool if you had more gameplay options that use his strength or mobility in interesting ways. And what about destructible environments.

[Xb1ps4]

Its hard for me to take in that ms dropped the ball again.. I really wanted ms to shine😩

[RgR]

They drop it so consistently that it would make anyone sad

[BrainSyphoned]

From the look of it they were working on Minecraft dlc and turned it into a Halo game.

[PertySlick]

I am not terribly excited about the idea of a "spiritual reboot". What does that really even mean?

[chiefJohn117]

Halo started in a middle of a war after a big event.....this is the exact same scenario with elements from the first game. That's what they mean. Halo lore is deep. So you can play the game fresh to the series and learn things that happened in the past games within the game much like events before halo CE

[thebobbywhite2629]

Halo Infinite is going to be amazing. Bottom line.

[F0XH0UND922]

My prediction is a 70-75 metacritic rating.

[Specter229]

I lost all interest when that grapple was used it's not being innovative to rip off other games.

[chiefJohn117]

The grapple hook mechanic was leaked years ago. They tried to claim it was an early halo 5 build that got scrapped

[Specter229]

Should of left it scrapped

[chiefJohn117]

I wish someone asked them if we can use the grapple back to back to swing without touching ground. Grabble to a flying grunt then grapple hook to a bridge in mid air, etc and if it would be in multiplayer. (I doubt it will be for balancing purposes)

[rlow1]

I'm waiting to get my hands on it before I decide anything. Yes it was very rough and somewhat disappointing. But considering it's an early build and their is a bunch of places to explore. It has the potential to be a good game.

[DrDeath]

Yes it certainly appears to be starting back to xbox 360 days.... lol

[Dragonscale]

So xbox biggest ip actually needs a reboot lol. Says it all really. After halo infinite its gonna need a funeral.