'Halo: Infinite' gameplay unveiled, fans unimpressed by 'Combat Evolved' type 'plastic' graphics and lighting
Microsoft gave fans the first look at what the ‘Halo: Infinite’ gameplay looks like on Thursday, July 23. This eight-minute video comes after Microsoft teased fans with the same for the past few weeks. But fans have been waiting for a lot longer. The sixth mainline entry in the ‘Halo’ series was announced two years ago at E3 2018. The ‘Halo: Infinite’ gameplay takes us to 167 days after a big setback and shows the protagonist Master Chief involved in combat.
The ‘Halo: Infinite’ open-world environment, as per reviews, looks a lot like the original ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’, and has been hailed by many as a spiritual reboot of the original ‘Halo’ -- it has the classic Warthog vehicle and the Banished enemies.
There are many new features in ‘Halo: Infinite’, as visible in the gameplay, like the grappling hook, and a variety of weapons -- an assault rifle, a battle rifle, a pistol, a plasma pistol, a bulldog shotgun, a pulse carbine, a mangler pistol, and more.
According to 343 Industries, the American video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios that developed ‘Halo: Infinite’, “This new equipment, along with various new weapons, open up more freedom and flexibility for players to showcase their own playstyles. And yes, these new additions to the sandbox will also carry over to multiplayer, however, they’ll function a bit differently as equipment items that can be picked up on the map.”
While many fans were happy to finally feast their eyes upon the game, quite a lot of them seemed unconvinced about the game’s promised greatness. On YouTube, a fan wrote, “I thought the graphics looked okay. I would like some more blood permanence and grit, but the sounds for me still felt plastic-like Halo 5. I want my guns to sound like guns not peashooters. I want my warthog to sound like a V8 with straight pipes. Lastly, tune the lighting and add ray tracing and I think it will look great.”
Another wrote, “I think we can all say that the graphics are VERY questionable. It is just a demo as fact, but was this demo even recorded on the Series X? I know it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out: The game looks exactly like the state of a game before RAY TRACING is added. That's what those dull visuals look like.”
Ray tracing is a rendering technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light as pixels in an image plane and simulating the effects of its encounters with virtual objects.
One fan wrote on Twitter, “Halo: Infinite's graphics are the biggest confusion. Some parts look amazing, and others look super… super not good.”
The graphics, arguably one of the most important aspects of video games, were seen as shoddy by many. But one fan pointed out, “Yeah the graphics are a little cartoony for a next-gen game but DON'T say ‘this doesn't look like Halo’ because this is what y'all asked for. You asked for classic Grunts and Elites. You asked for Brutes. Just because it looks unpolished doesn't mean it doesn't look like Halo.”
On a similar note, another fan wrote on Twitter, “Hearing all these complaints about Halos graphics yet. 1) The art style is meant to resemble the classic Halos. 2) People said Modern Warfare 2019 looked terrible but see how that turned out? 3) PlayStation hardly showed any gameplay at all and no exciting games besides Spider-Man.”
As one fan said, however, “I can understand bringing a classic approach to this Halo and I can understand all of that. But fans were expecting Halo 6 not a Halo 1 remastered with a new story.”
Another pointed out, “Considering this is demo footage, I’m more than confident the in-game physics will change for the better before release, but I’m getting CE vibes (Combat Evolved) and I’m happy.”
But the question of the graphics and the visuals continued to bother many. On YouTube, a fan wrote, “The armor and weapons need to have grit, dirt, and scratches all over them. They all look like plastic toys fresh out of a box.”
Similarly, on Twitter, a fan said, “Poorly designed. Static environment. Bad lighting usage. Plastic textures. Boring fights. Low-quality animation. No hairs/beard and fabric animation at all. Is this rendered on the first-gen Xbox One? C'mon guys. Yet another s***ty-made Halo game.”