Halo Infinite is one of the major talking points after the Xbox Games Showcase event. We’ve covered a lot of stuff about the game here, but we thought it would be nice to put it in one package.
About Halo Infinite: A sequel or Reboot?
Halo Infinite is the sixth major entry in the long-running, console selling, first-person shooter. The game is a direct sequel of Halo 5 with a similar touch to Halo. For the first time, the game is aiming for an open-world approach where the levels are larger and you can roam freely around the map. The game’s demo starts with Master Chief setting out to take out AAA Cannons which blasted their ship down. The game looks fun to play with a solid framerate. The addition of the grapple-hook is a nice touch to the gameplay.
For more, Halo Infinite will serve as an entry point for new players
Where It All Went Wrong
The game’s major points of criticism were it’s visuals. I value the fun-factor of a game more than it’s visuals. But if your console’s biggest selling point is 2 TFLOPs more than the competition, then the system-seller should prove what it’s capable of.
The trailer shows off bland graphics and pop-in textures, even though it’s running on a PC with almost similar specs. Microsoft’s latest console, the Xbox One X launched with 6 TFLOPs of graphical power. The console could run Forza Motorsport 7 on native 4K with 60 fps that even a PC with a GTX 1070 struggled. So, why does a game made for a significantly powerful system struggle to pump out lesser quality assets? Looks like we’re losing out on something, let’s see.
The gameplay segment shown in the trailer seems to be the major issue here. The part of the level that was shown off was covered on all sides by the large mountains. This doesn’t allow the game to take place in direct sunlight. In Digital Foundry’s inspection of the game footage, the assets do look to be of high quality. So that’s a relief there.
The game seems to utilize a form of dynamic lighting as compared to the static lighting most games use which does most of the heavy lifting beforehand to give a more realistic approach to a scene. Also, a technique called image probing is used in the lighting. I won’t nerd-out about the details right here, but you can watch DF’s video if you wish to know more. For the basics, this is also one of the prime reasons why the looks so bland and flat. Most games try to put shadow and other minute details on the textures themselves to get rid of this problem.
Also, the choice of textures and colors the developers have chosen for this game seems to contribute a little bit to this problem as well.
Related, Halo Infinite: Setting Your Expectations Right Is The Key
Is There A Fix?
The most obvious fix to the lighting problems is the inclusion of ray tracing. This is the newest hot thing in the world of PC graphics that is coming to the next-gen consoles. What ray tracing does is try to simulate better lighting throughout the game world. This sure takes a toll on performance. Battlefield V, one of the early adopters of this tech would get its performance halved when the option was turned on. This tech has improved greatly over time and doesn’t have that heavy of an impact on performance anymore.
Since the newer consoles do support this feature, I would like that the devs add this to the Series X version while keeping the resolution and performance to an acceptable level. Now there is an official report, confirming Ray Tracing update for Xbox Series X after the launch of Halo Infinite.
Halo Infinite shows off some great potential and some rework to the visuals along with a new gameplay trailer could be a game-changer in my opinion.
Do you value visuals? Or the fun-factor? Tell us in the comments!
