Halo Infinite Dev Addresses Criticism Of The Game's Graphics

Digital Foundry have a great video explaining why most of the details have been crushed and it all ties into the lighting and how most of the trailer was in shadow.

That being said, Microsoft need to get away from this native 4K obsession as its just holding back visual fidelity to push more pixels for the sake of it

@carlos82 they don't need to lower resolution to solve this. Thing is that raytracing wasn't available on the trailer. SX has a dedicated Raytracing chip to handle all the lightning, they don't need to drop resolution to achieve maximum fidelity. I think 343i will surprise us with a new high fidelity gameplay in 4K + Raytracing.

@duhsoares21 I agree, but the fact that the raytracing is coming, apparently, in a post-launch update makes me wonder if the game just had the time to be polished for the Series X.
Personnally, I'll wait for this update to play the title. Hopefully, I'll just have to wait a week or two. Hopefully.

And as far as I liked the demo, I must concede that the one thing particulary missing is the weather, and its effects. There's no wind at all. So the trees, and the grass, stay absolutely still. Giving this "toy" aspect that Internet is all about right now. And maybe that's a part of the problem.

But the one minute trailer they also release seems to show a more solid build. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know...

The art style chosen for the game is bad. 4K won’t fix that.

@Bobobiwan Yeah, I agree with you on that, raytracing should be there at launch. From what I know you are right about the build, the 1 minute trailer has a more recent build and gameplay is from january. If that is something to consider, gears 4 beta also had some low textures and other things on graphics that make it look not so great, but once the game was released it looked absolutely gorgeous. Let's wait and hope 343i pull the same magic trick as coallition until the release date.

@duhsoares21 no it wouldn't change the lighting but it will effect lod distance and visual fidelity overall, native resolutions just aren't needed anymore and Series X even has features built in to utilise image reconstruction. Its not just a case of turning ray tracing on, that will inevitably take away performance from other areas

@duhsoares21 4k rayracing won't happen in consoles maybe in 1080p the Nvidia gpu which has a dedicated RTX core to make the raytracing instead of relying on pure hardware of chip can only do 1080p 60fps the only games that may achive this are the not demading one like minecraft

@Benjamin the artstyle isn't bad for the most part the game lacks texture they all look like they're made of clay or plastic aswell the lighting is so weird and the lack of shadows

@experTiger The SX graphics card is comparable to the RTX 2070 Super, but instead of use the graphics card for raytracing, they have a powerful dedicated chip to do only that. That means raytracing can be used to it fullest without compromise any resources from the graphic card. So yeah, it will support 4K 60fps with Raytracing.

Bright memories, the new Forza motorsport and the Gears 5 optimization are all confirmed to be running in 4K 60 fps on SX, all of them with raytracing. So it's already happening, no need to doubt that.

This has all been ridiculous. I thought Halo looked great & with fun gameplay. I can hardly wait to play it! 👍🏻

@duhsoares21 I mean the rtx was made from ground up for raytracing and they are using special hardwares called tensor to do the raytracing they are basicly the one introducing raytraycing for gaming and even that most of raytraced games can only run 1080p 60fps so consoles raytracing will probably have a mode where the settings get down for the raytracing I don't really buy their word I will belive it when i see it

@KelticDevil I second this, I can't wait to play Halo Infinite.

Lets be honest. Feel free to tag me and call me dumb if you like as long as long as you are polite about it 🤣

Do any of the Halo fans really care about graphics over gameplay? I dont.

I did think it wasnt the graphical leap forward I would have expected from the Series X flagship launch title. But an open world Halo from a gameplay standpoint will be awesome.

Those who like Halo for gameplay will likely not care and I would bet its a high number.

I really hope this is better by launch.

Was the demo graphically impressive? No. Did it look "next gen"? No. Does it look like it'll be fun to play? YES!

That's my take on it anyway.

Microsoft have spent the best part of a year with "world's most powerful console, 4k this, 4k that, 12 TERAFLOPS!!!!" as their key selling point. And they headline their 1st party next gen showcase, with their flagship IP, looking significantly worse than some of Sony's last gen games on a console around 1/9th of the power, or the PC remasters of earlier games in the series (Halo MCC).

If I showed someone a close up of someone from TLOU2 or Ghosts Of Tsushima or some other recent Sony 1st party game and showed someone the close up of the brute from the end of the Halo Infinite trailer, which do you think they'd say is next gen.

Edit: Fire Aaron Greenberg.

I mentioned this in other places but truth is Infinite is as much a Series X game as Cyperpunk (it isnt, it’s just getting optimizations.)

That aside, I don’t know the technical word for this, but they need to put some work on their... facial skin pore work. Halo is a game that, in action, will not show faces often, when it does, in cut scenes, those faces need to show a lot more skin detail. I don’t even think this would be hard to implement by launch, and it should be there even for the XBox One version of the game.

Oh also: I went to see the pre-show video, that also contains the entire show in it, and that stream was locked (even after the fact) at 1080p. Got to say: everything looked terrible on that stream. Anyone that only saw that version indeed NEEDS to watch the 4k stream, on a 4k tv. Difference is huge.

@Jaxx420 I don't think the problem necessarily lies with the existing fans, but potential new ones. Even as a casual Halo fan, I don't really have a problem with the way Infinite looked. But, even at 4K/60, it was hardly the graphical showcase the Series X needed, and given the (admittedly disproportionate) furore surrounding it I fear it has somewhat undermined both the game's and console's prospects in the eyes of potential new customers. In the run-up to next-gen, spangly graphics will win over the masses.

@Tharsman The resolution bump is noticeable, but there are still glaring quality issues that are arguably made worse by it.

"Lee went on to say that the team is "bringing the highest fidelity experience that we've ever created," being able to do more than 10 times the processing power per-pixel that it was able to do with Halo 5."

Dear, me! Why does this sound like, "sixteen times the detail"? 😧

Digital Foundry explains why and the good news is that the problem will be fixed with the ray tracing patch (Series X).

https://youtu.be/KnQd6W9BxLg

Basically, unlike cinematic games like The Last of Us II that uses static lighting (with a lot of inconsistencies), Halo Infinite uses dynamic lighting and what was shown was basically within a shadowy area, away from the sun and with no artificial lighting. This makes textures look flatter than they really are.

@Benjamin
Disagree wholeheartedly. The style is the classic Halo CE style. Five seconds in and it hits you point blank; this feels like Halo. For me at least, it was one of the most encouraging aspects from this gameplay.

@Jaxx420

To be honest, Halo has never been some graphical showcase of a game to begin with. It’s about the gameplay.

I remember playing Halo 3 on the 360 when it came out & was thinking that it wasn’t the huge visual upgrade over Halo 2 I thought it was going to be. And Halo 3 came out a couple years into the 360 generation & was made by Bungie.

So I am not worried about Infinite not blowing me away with it’s visuals in some demo. Halo 4 & 5 looked great, so I think people should give 343 a chance. Like you said, it’s more open world now. Plus they have multiplayer to think about too.

Basically this is an Xbox one game and they haven’t had the time to “optimise” it for series x. I have a feeling this will be improved post-launch...