‘When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty ?’
I just finished Halo Infinite (100%) and what stood out the most to me is really the art style shake up and how it felt like a love letter and the true sequel to the Bungie era after Halo 4 and Halo 5’s missteps.
The art direction, the soundtrack, the drums, the sense of enormous grandeur and scale, the dialogues, the combination of everything make the whole thing just so good. Was worried that the departures and the pandemic in the last years of dev would result in a lack of direction but best case scenario happened ultimately. So much passion in all departments.
Especially the Forerunner art style, day and night, huge departure from 4/5 to fully embrace the first games (which always felt more majestic and timeless imo). And there were so many (subtle) throwbracks here and here to CE, Halo 2 and Halo 3.
Honestly my only complain would be to have a bit more stylized/aesthetic Banished environment art style (even though they don’t care about aesthetic compared to the Covenant as it’s useless).
Such a great thread! Amazing screenshots from both @FarSightXR-20 and @Khalid117x! Halo Infinite is such an easy to the eyes looking game (from the color palette to the Forerunner structures style) and shows how a lot of the times less is more…you can read your surroundings with just a glimpse so even the game’s visuals and art direction are there to serve the gameplay. Halo Infinite is such a classy, clean and beautiful looking game.
Of course the music is also great with some amazing themes. There is so much good stuff to talk about with this game…343 really nailed it this time.
100% this. Halo 3 wasn’t the stunner back in the day, but due to amazing artstyle it still looks very timeless and beautiful today, especially compared to other games from that era.
Some environmental storytelling screenshots. I feel that Infinite is the best in the series with Halo CE regarding this (although I understand why some people may say the open world is empty if they don’t care about these things).
Really hoping for a book explaining what happened during these 6 months (from Cortana to Escharum, the Infinity, the USNC, the Reverie, etc.). There is so much still untold.
I loved Halo: The Flood (the Halo CE novel) because it added so much depth to some things thay may look completely random otherwise. Like that Marine dead body in the Library, Alpha base or that random Elite in the Shade turret in the Pillar of Autumn at the end trying to kill you.
Yep, happened to me as well. I saw a video about fully lowering down the bright exposure in the settings. I did it and it really makes the game looks incredible at night. It also looks better during the day imo, despite some saturated black in some parts, which I honestly prefer.
Yeah his art direction is perhaps one of the bigger contributions to the game looking the way it does. But it’s just disheartening just how many high profile artists in the industry are into the nft bullshit right now. Sparth, and even some others at 343, Raphael Lacoste (previously at ubi on Assassin’s Creed), Raf Grassetti (at SSM on God of War), so on and nobody talks about it because these people hold very high positions at their studios or generally in the industry.
