While I would obviously prefer that the demo already reached the fidelity of the first trailers, graphics is the one aspect that 343 has consistently delivered before so I’m not really worried that’s going to look great (though with covid I wouldn’t be sure that it reaches where it needs to be by launch)
And I really liked what they showed, how they are able to make the basic formula work on an open world as well advance the gameplay in ways that feel Grounded in the franchise. Can’t wait to see more, but that demo caused a super positive first impression in that regard for me.
Did you see that making off trailer from the previous ones? They iterated a lot in assets, effects and lighting to get to them, that’s one of the reasons why I’m not worried, the engine seems to be done with the ability to rapidly iterate, and everything being dynamic also helps a lot.
Yeah I’m not really worried either, look if the game launched as it was during that demo I would actually be fine with it. Obviously improvements would be much appreciated not like I’ll knock it back haha. But after hearing MS is doing a call to arms type deal with getting internal help from other teams in XGS I’m positive they’ll get the job done.
The main issue infinite visuals have for me is more work and detail e.g more plants and vegitation, more just overall detail and strategicly placed lights.
I guess if there is one thing I REALLY hope to see also, is the abundance of animal life. I know the 1st teaser showed animals and woods, but the demo had some small things on the ground and flying animals. I want to be able to walk in areas that are heavy forests, then back to an open clearing. I read somewhere that Zeta Halo had the most life on it according to the lore.
If they fix the pop-in and tweak the lighting/shadows (before implementing ray-tracing) I won’t really have much to complain about, personally.
I love the classic art-style and the gameplay looks to be a nice blend of Bungie/343 so that’s really all I need to know that I will have a great time with the game.
We’ve only seen one tiny slice of the world so we don’t really know what the rest looks like, for all we know there could be a huge dense forrest somewhere on the ring. I’m excited to see more of the world, more of the animal life too haha.
I thought the demo looked immense. But I’m a halo fan. All halo fans thought it was great. It only isn’t good if you think it should be a visual showcase for a new console. And whilst obviously Xbox should have that showcase an open world 60FPS Halo was never going to be quite it was it?
Can’t wait to play the game. Honestly it’s the only thing shown so far that I’m really really excited for. As above I am a little concerned of its state for launch but I do think they will fix the lighting and pop in issues. Not so sure textures will change but we can hope…
I want the world to have a lot of variety, different interesting things to discover. Open plains, underground mysteries, enormous towers, all teeming with life and unique gameplay opportunities. And it would be great if it could look like the engine demo, it needs not look better.
I thought the demo looked great (though I’m notorious for not noticing pop-in). Good enough that it convinced me to finally go through all of the Halo campaigns for the first time (and man, Halo: CE’s campaign is bad; fight me).
I don’t think anyone but hardcore gamers would even noticed any of the “issues” with the demo; most of them see a pretty game that looks like it plays great and they’re sold.
Honestly I don’t even know how people noticed Craig given he was on the screen for like 5 frames.
The game looked fun to me and that is all it really boiled down to. The death animations on the enemies are fantastic. Looking forward to seeing more of the game.
For me, the most important part of the game play demo was that game play looked fun. I think of it like a movie, you make sure that you have shot everything, ie all the game play and engine mechanism are all present. This looked good for me. The last stage of film making is film grading, this would be selecting lighting, creating highlights & shadows, performing local tone mapping. This still needs some work, but COVID-19 has creating some obstacles. So lets see what it looks like much closer to release.
edit: minor adding some words
Great video from a very level headed member of the Halo community. He echoes a lot of the thoughts I have.
I’m a huge halo fan and while the gameplay had me excited, the graphics did not. They don’t look bad per se but it certainly was a bit underwhelming for a next gen showcase, especially after the last two trailers. This demo is exactly why many don’t care for “game engine demonstrations”. Halo CE, Halo Reach, and Halo 4 were all gorgeous looking games that held up against other shooters. Considering how the game is designed around the 2013 Xbox VCR, the series X should be able to run it with all the bells and whistles and beyond at 60fps. It absolutely needs to look much better at launch.
I think the gameplay is gonna shine real well here too. They have great movement mechanics, the grapple shot, and Halo’s classic vehicles to move around a large open world. Moving by itself will be a blast. If they can nail the exploration (meaning, what payoffs we get for finding stuff) it will cement it as an incredible gameplay experience I think. The shooting/combat mechanics are already top notch. Encounter design looks pretty good in the demo too.
But I’m very surprised that what we saw was unfinished. This is a 500mil foundational game launching a new console. They’ve had years to get it ready and release is only a couple of months away. Maybe it’s some kind of expectations game but whatever the reason is, It’s coming in hot. I’m hoping for the best.
That’s what happens when you reboot a game 1/3 of the way in development and add on two new SKUs a couple years before launch. Sounds like a hectic situation.
I’m kinda concerned now to hear that the demo was build from a few weeks ago, I was under the impression that it’s months old. Hopefully game will look good and feel finished without too many bugs at release. I still think that they should have graphical setting that lowers resolution and ups the IQ
