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

Surprised by the hype, it feels like they've aimed to replicate the Ubisoft open-world gameplay just when everyone is getting bored of that formula.

Visually it's now solid for a cross-gen title with some obvious lighting and material improvements. Animation still seems a bit off, lack of foliage movement especially stands out.

I really hope they have more terrain types to show like ice, snow, jungle but the cutscenes seemed to span quite a lot of the story and never diverged from the generic Halo: CE look and feel.

It's not the formula itself that people are tired of, it's the implementation. Far Cry's done it for six games now with vaguely similar settings, scenarios, and stories, and for Far Cry it's now so expected it's predictable.

For Halo this is the first time it's doing some of these gameplay ideas, and integrating them into established Halo game design, within a Halo world design. That alone will make it feel pretty new. It's like the Mario Odyssey games with their gameplay hook; it was nothing new to those games per se, but they integrated that into Mario game design and a Mario aesthetic/world/lore which enhanced it and made it feel fresh and new.

Additionally it's not like 343i are going to simply copy those Far Cry elements and drop them wholesale into their game; Infinite'll have its own takes on those ideas and utilize them in a way fitting for that specific game.

Yep same.

I'm 100% there for the arena multiplayer, it looked great in the latest video update.

I'm actually very surprised by the reaction to this trailer here, if this was a 3rd party game I don't think anyone would be praising the graphics or gameplay mechanics on show.

But people can like what they like, I'm not one to judge. If people with a strong affinity to the franchise are happy with what they see then so be it.

That's a weird take tho since the game mechanics in the new campaign footage is more or less the same game mechanics in the multiplayer. So, if you thought the multiplayer looked great, how does the single-player suddenly look "not great" when it has the same shooting mechanics, same game mechanics (more or less), even better visuals, same physics etc.?

Both things can't be true once you realize that; either the campaign looks great, or the multiplayer wasn't as great as you say you think it was. Because the only thing potentially up for debate with Infinite by your logic is the actual story, of which it's obvious 343i tried their best to not spoil too much of in the new footage.

Sony sold a reskinned map of NYC with snow, added 8 hours of content, and sold the Miles Morales expansion for $50. People on this forum didn't bat an eye. So why would a brand new open-world Halo game not be worth $60?

Yeah, if there are folks trying to say the game's not worth a $60 purchase due to missing content, but ignore that it'll probably still have more content in spite of that than certain other games or expansions released for $50/$60 beforehand on other platforms (some of those also being cross-gen to boot), then that's looking kind of sus.

I get it's complicated somewhat by Infinite's campaign being playable via GamePass, so some people might be asking why pay $60 at retail for the campaign when you can just pay $10 or $15 to play it through GamePass, and that's a question Microsoft themselves have created. But we don't know if there are other plans for those who buy game outright. For example it could include access to some upcoming DLC content without needing to subscribe to GamePass to access it.

If that's the case then they can still justify selling the game at full MSRP retail even tho the MP is free and the campaign can be played through GP. But we'll probably have to wait a little bit before speculating further on this.

I wonder when we will see a platform like Xbox or Sony take advantage of access to all the studios they own. Imagine a game developed just as you say, Forza team on the environment and 343 team on the action.

I'd go one further and imagine a game were 10 levels are built around 10 different engines/studios. One game world but a greatest hits from each studio, sort of a continuous game theme/characters/story through a Love, Death+ Robots deal. Contra did this really well back in the day, I struggle to think of a modern game crossing multiple genres per mission/chapter.

That could be neat, but it could also end up being a disaster. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" kind of thing. All those teams with all those creative visions likely clashing. Another issue would be optimizations for multiple platforms. For Microsoft in particular, since they support PC Day-1, trying to optimize that many unique engines in a single game for console, PC and cloud would likely be a nightmare regardless of what GDK does to alleviate that type of thing.

I get what you're saying and it would be very cool, but it'd have to be done with a single engine robust enough for that type of game. Dreams on PS4/PS5 (and hopefully soon PC...yeah I'm port-begging but this one makes sense!) comes to mind, you can make many different types of games in that engine. And from there, have creatives from each of the studios build something in that engine fitting an anthology like Love, Death & Robots (or older stuff like Memories or Robot Carnival).
 

clarky

Gold Member
The harbinger is definitely not a forerunner. Its either a prelate or a stoic Or an entirely new species.
Confirmed not a Prelate by 343i in todays blog.

"We don’t have a lot to say about this curious character at the moment, but I will give you this: They’re definitely not a Prelate."
 
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Sorry I feel bad now, I was just making Halo jokes.

aieXBqyeT.png
 

GHG

Gold Member
It's not the formula itself that people are tired of, it's the implementation. Far Cry's done it for six games now with vaguely similar settings, scenarios, and stories, and for Far Cry it's now so expected it's predictable.

For Halo this is the first time it's doing some of these gameplay ideas, and integrating them into established Halo game design, within a Halo world design. That alone will make it feel pretty new. It's like the Mario Odyssey games with their gameplay hook; it was nothing new to those games per se, but they integrated that into Mario game design and a Mario aesthetic/world/lore which enhanced it and made it feel fresh and new.

Additionally it's not like 343i are going to simply copy those Far Cry elements and drop them wholesale into their game; Infinite'll have its own takes on those ideas and utilize them in a way fitting for that specific game.



That's a weird take tho since the game mechanics in the new campaign footage is more or less the same game mechanics in the multiplayer. So, if you thought the multiplayer looked great, how does the single-player suddenly look "not great" when it has the same shooting mechanics, same game mechanics (more or less), even better visuals, same physics etc.?

Both things can't be true once you realize that; either the campaign looks great, or the multiplayer wasn't as great as you say you think it was. Because the only thing potentially up for debate with Infinite by your logic is the actual story, of which it's obvious 343i tried their best to not spoil too much of in the new footage.



Yeah, if there are folks trying to say the game's not worth a $60 purchase due to missing content, but ignore that it'll probably still have more content in spite of that than certain other games or expansions released for $50/$60 beforehand on other platforms (some of those also being cross-gen to boot), then that's looking kind of sus.

I get it's complicated somewhat by Infinite's campaign being playable via GamePass, so some people might be asking why pay $60 at retail for the campaign when you can just pay $10 or $15 to play it through GamePass, and that's a question Microsoft themselves have created. But we don't know if there are other plans for those who buy game outright. For example it could include access to some upcoming DLC content without needing to subscribe to GamePass to access it.

If that's the case then they can still justify selling the game at full MSRP retail even tho the MP is free and the campaign can be played through GP. But we'll probably have to wait a little bit before speculating further on this.



That could be neat, but it could also end up being a disaster. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" kind of thing. All those teams with all those creative visions likely clashing. Another issue would be optimizations for multiple platforms. For Microsoft in particular, since they support PC Day-1, trying to optimize that many unique engines in a single game for console, PC and cloud would likely be a nightmare regardless of what GDK does to alleviate that type of thing.

I get what you're saying and it would be very cool, but it'd have to be done with a single engine robust enough for that type of game. Dreams on PS4/PS5 (and hopefully soon PC...yeah I'm port-begging but this one makes sense!) comes to mind, you can make many different types of games in that engine. And from there, have creatives from each of the studios build something in that engine fitting an anthology like Love, Death & Robots (or older stuff like Memories or Robot Carnival).

The single player campaign is an open world game with what looks like far cry style outposts and looter-shooter mechanics. I'm tired of games like that, hence I didn't bother with Far Cry 6.

The multiplayer is looking like it will be a classic arena shooter at its core. The video in the OP is worlds away from the flow shown in the following:



I've been itching to play a decent arena shooter for a while now and this looks like it will fit the bill.

They are not the same thing no matter how many paragraphs you want to write.
 
I've been a long-time fan of Halo since the release of CE on the Xbox. Played through every release they've dropped (except Halo Wars 2... I'm getting there). Spent hours upon hours playing the campaigns for Halo 1 - 3, enjoying the sandbox. Enjoyed 4 and 5 for what they were, but can admit they were really lacking in the campaign department.

This reveal blew me away. Brought me back to the feeling of toying around in maps like The Silent Cartographer and Assault on the Control Room. Large, open spaces where you could approach with a tank, a banshee or a Ghost and just fuck about. Trying to keep a handful of marines alive, so you could bring them to the next encounter.

Graphically, Infinite looks fine, but Halo has never been all that big on sporting the latest and greatest graphics (I remember the same complaints when Halo 3 was revealed) so I'm not too fussed. I am a little wary of open worlds with fortresses. I'm so bloody sick of the likes of FarCry at this point, but we'll have to wait and see the route they go. Don't know nearly enough about these strongholds yet and how quickly they can become repetitive.

With the overwhelmingly positive reception for multiplayer, and this campaign overview bringing back some of those old feels, I think we're in for a real treat :).
 
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That could be neat, but it could also end up being a disaster. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" kind of thing. All those teams with all those creative visions likely clashing. Another issue would be optimizations for multiple platforms. For Microsoft in particular, since they support PC Day-1, trying to optimize that many unique engines in a single game for console, PC and cloud would likely be a nightmare regardless of what GDK does to alleviate that type of thing.

I get what you're saying and it would be very cool, but it'd have to be done with a single engine robust enough for that type of game. Dreams on PS4/PS5 (and hopefully soon PC...yeah I'm port-begging but this one makes sense!) comes to mind, you can make many different types of games in that engine. And from there, have creatives from each of the studios build something in that engine fitting an anthology like Love, Death & Robots (or older stuff like Memories or Robot Carnival).
That's sort of the thing though, why just one engine? Load a different engine every mission if you need to, one each studio is familiar with. Given the load times of next gen consoles and compression/streaming assets from the SSDs why not go for it. Hell I'd go an indie created title that gets "free access" to 5 engines and tech support from the first party studios to avoid issues you're raising. Get creative with it, the platform/publisher just needs to think outside the box. Honestly it could be done for some pretty low end investment.

Imagine a game like Halo Infinite with where some is FPS, some is RTS or a hybrid where a commander plays a real time RTS from the cloud/server FPS game in progress. Battlefield could do the same. In the case of 343 they already have the engines with Halo Wars 2 and Infinite. Shit would be a blast in BTB for example. Build out AI/bots that take the roles when quitting/disconnects happen or players aren't available for matchmaking.
 
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clarky

Gold Member
where is the blog?


Nothing much in it mind.
 
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Vaelka

Member
How so? Care to elaborate? Anything decent to add?

Open world with '' outposts '' and pseudo-RP elements there will probably be crafting too I'd imagine.
The writing was just a total wtf and cringe as hell in the trailer too.

Halo Multiplayer is always fun and I have no doubt this will be too, but holy hell the singleplayer just seems like they had no idea what to do.
And it's not too surprising either Halo should've ended after 3 as far as the story goes they're reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally dragging it out now.

Imo if they were going to take inspiration from anywhere they should take it from DOOM.
It has far more in common with Halo's identity on a gameplay level than Ubisoft games.
 
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Ezquimacore

Banned
Open world with '' outposts '' and pseudo-RP elements there will probably be crafting too I'd imagine.
The writing was just a total wtf and cringe as hell in the trailer too.

Halo Multiplayer is always fun and I have no doubt this will be too, but holy hell the singleplayer just seems like they had no idea what to do.
And it's not too surprising either Halo should've ended after 3 as far as the story goes they're reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally dragging it out now.

Imo if they were going to take inspiration from anywhere they should take it from DOOM.
It has far more in common with Halo's identity on a gameplay level than Ubisoft games.
what? DOOM??? you never played halo right? btw they already did something like this on Halo 3 ODST. doom and halo the only similar thing is the perspective. Halo actually has lore to make a game like this.
 

YukiOnna

Member
I don't think attacking outposts is going to be as standard nor the sole thing you can do the same way. It's not even going to be the size of a Ubisoft game, which is a good thing.
 

Phase

Member
what? DOOM??? you never played halo right? btw they already did something like this on Halo 3 ODST. doom and halo the only similar thing is the perspective. Halo actually has lore to make a game like this.
Relax. There are a lot of similarities between the two, especially in gameplay mechanics and gameplay design.
 
Area Collectibles, screens I grabbed from the video:

Seems like we have 7 icons for collectibles on the Tacmap. The up arrow one is called "Spartan Cores" for upgrades as seen when the grav-hammer is picked up late in the video. I'd like to know what the others are. My guesses so far from left to right are -
Supply drop as seen with the Wasp drop, data pad, spartan cores, campaign skulls, text info dump, fast travel point beyond pelican reach?, Stronghold/comms tower thingy?

k52H1r7.png


There is Grappleshot, Shield Core, Threat Sensor, Drop Wall and Thruster on those screens. Only thruster do we see each level upgrade capability -

Thruster level 1 - "Thruster"
JMl5WIk.png



Thruster level 2 - "Afterburner"
yKQHgBe.png



Thruster level 3 - "Thermal Control"
FoC3A04.png



Thruster level 4 - "Impulse"
5loxcc6.png


Thruster level 5 - "Escape Velocity" (when we see Chief going camo fighting the brute).
Ut8ZJlr.png
 
Open world with '' outposts '' and pseudo-RP elements there will probably be crafting too I'd imagine.
The writing was just a total wtf and cringe as hell in the trailer too.

Halo Multiplayer is always fun and I have no doubt this will be too, but holy hell the singleplayer just seems like they had no idea what to do.
And it's not too surprising either Halo should've ended after 3 as far as the story goes they're reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally dragging it out now.

Imo if they were going to take inspiration from anywhere they should take it from DOOM.
It has far more in common with Halo's identity on a gameplay level than Ubisoft games.
From February's Inside Infinite

ZxSwvyC.png
 
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Havoc2049

Member
We won't know exactly till it comes out, but I think the structure will maybe be along the lines of the Rage and Destiny series. A series of levels/dungeons/bases to go through in a certain order in the campaign, that you need to travel to in an open world, with a few enemy engagements along the way to those levels. Maybe a few random world events here and there with a chance to get some loot.
 
From February's Inside Infinite

ZxSwvyC.png

Good, fuck gathering and crafting etc. Waste of gaming time. Halo is an exploration and action game with a sci-fi backdrop. I'm really happy to hear it's a "classic campaign story" with a side dish of open world. 343 did really well implementing the REQ system from Halo 5. They've made great leaps to move away from DLC add-on sales and generally now are implementing equipment into Infinite really well. I think they're striking a wonderful balance of story, side missions and replayability with the campaign. It's not long now until release and we find out how well they've done with it.

IMO RPG-lite is far better than something like Cyberpunk/Witcher III endless tasks, gathering, mods, skill trees etc. Give me a happy slick version of that building on action. I'm not after minecraft or football manager stat screens in my Halo.
 

fatmarco

Member
I think the thing that still suprises me the most is just how bad the particle effects are. Of all the things the first gameplay reveal trailer did last year, the particle effects were arguably the worst.

Whether its fire or plasma, the effects look like paint cans exploding. The colours used for fire, plasma and energy look very garish and out of sync with the rest of the visuals too.

It's to me the thing that is really holding back the games presentation, and its bizarre because I can't remember any Halo having particle effects this "Wrong" looking.
 
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Yes, it was compared to MCC rather than Destiny or other games. So I imagine new "games" will be released on it and you can select which you want to play. They said Infinite has an ending so the next one added will be a new Master Chief story.

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.
 
I think the thing that still suprises me the most is just how bad the particle effects are. Of all the things the first gameplay reveal trailer did last year, the particle effects were arguably the worst.

Whether its fire or plasma, the effects look like paint cans exploding. The colours used for fire, plasma and energy look very garish and out of sync with the rest of the visuals too.

It's to me the thing that is really holding back the games presentation, and its bizarre because I can't remember any Halo having particle effects this "Wrong" looking.

It's pretty much in line with original CE. Blood would splat like paint on the walls and floor etc. Looks like Halo in these shots to me, at least I'm happy with Halo looking like this in terms of particle systems.

unknown.png


unknown.png


unknown.png
 

clarky

Gold Member
We won't know exactly till it comes out, but I think the structure will maybe be along the lines of the Rage and Destiny series. A series of levels/dungeons/bases to go through in a certain order in the campaign, that you need to travel to in an open world, with a few enemy engagements along the way to those levels. Maybe a few random world events here and there with a chance to get some loot.
That's exactly how i think it will be as well. Sections of the ring will be "levels" if you will with a main objective and side content and side objectives within those levels. Kina like the bigger, wider Halo levels of old (ie the best ones) only much much bigger. Add in the ability to travel in-between them instead of a mission select screen and i think we are about right.

If they are taking inspiration from anywhere its from the original Halo and Crysis IMO.

Edit: Yeah if you look at the map screen from the video there are clearly deactivated light bridges connecting each of the sections of the Halo. So my bet is once you've completed the main objective in an area you'll be free activate the bridge to move on or stick around to fully clear the area and find secrets.
 
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Artistic

Member
I for one am not thrilled about the open world transittion for Halo. Probably not the best comparison, but felt like it ruined Ground Zeroes/Phantom Pain for me.

Hope the same doesn't apply here.
 

fatmarco

Member
It's pretty much in line with original CE. Blood would splat like paint on the walls and floor etc. Looks like Halo in these shots to me, at least I'm happy with Halo looking like this in terms of particle systems.

2JDSOzT.jpg


1AXh6m5.jpg


Infinite currently has a flat, smudgey, splashey sort of look, with a lack of granular detail. But it's also a case of the particles effects not having a great contrast between the core of the explosions/the hot area versus the edges of the effects, and they have very little colour variation.

The best example of that would be if you look at the inner core of a lightsaber versus the outer edge, the difference in light/contrast and colour.

Keeping in mind this (↓) is essentially the aim, where you have the bright core of the explosion leaning more into the white and yellows and then the outer edges/ the flames and smoke shifting darker and to orange and red colours:

DNp1hKT.png


I know people like to argue stylistic choice, but then if that's the case, you clearly have a problem where the rest of the game is clearly aiming for full on realism (see the chiefs armour, human faces, environment etc.) and then you have particle effects that, if it's a stylistic choice, are at odds with the rest of the visuals/ art.

I'm not trying to be nitpicky it's just a striking contrast between the games texture level, which is very high in parts, and then these sorts of flaw and low resolution effects that don't even appear to emit light on the surrounding area.
 
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I know people like to argue stylistic choice, but then if that's the case, you clearly have a problem where the rest of the game is clearly aiming for full on realism (see the chiefs armour, human faces, environment etc.) and then you have particle effects that, if it's a stylistic choice, are at odds with the rest of the visuals/ art.

I see what you mean mate. I can agree that could be cleaned up as you say in terms of hot core and contrast etc. It is fairly blandish in your examples. Taking what you're pointing out I feel like they've done that across the board for optimisation of assets and performance. Same goes for vehicle designs e.g. banshee textures not that purple complex layered pearl effect. Halo has always been stylised over realistic but you've won me over with those examples.
 
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fatmarco

Member
I see what you mean mate. I can agree that could be cleaned up as you say in terms of hot core and contrast etc. It is fairly blandish in your examples. Taking what you're pointing out I feel like they've done that across the board for optimisation of assets and performance. Same goes for vehicle designs e.g. banshee textures not that purple complex layered pearl effect. Halo has always been stylised over realistic but you've won me over with those examples.
Yeah I sort of feel it might be a case where due to the nature of the game/ how dynamic it is, while also being built for the original Xbox One means they might have had to cut corners here, given that Alpha transparencies are brutal on the gpu, and you can see how many can go off at once in this game.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Open world with '' outposts '' and pseudo-RP elements there will probably be crafting too I'd imagine.
The writing was just a total wtf and cringe as hell in the trailer too.

Halo Multiplayer is always fun and I have no doubt this will be too, but holy hell the singleplayer just seems like they had no idea what to do.
And it's not too surprising either Halo should've ended after 3 as far as the story goes they're reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally dragging it out now.

Imo if they were going to take inspiration from anywhere they should take it from DOOM.
It has far more in common with Halo's identity on a gameplay level than Ubisoft games.

Horizon zero dawn, ghosts of tshima and days gone have more in common with ubijank then infinite.
 
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