That was a good read. I will keep being optimistic about Halo Infinite, the extra time they got should produce some great visual improvements.
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Fall made too much sense and it’s great when you see decisions like this that make perfect sense. I’m happy for the team and I patiently await.
From a marketing perspective I guess this means consonant hype generated from E3 onwards? With an MP beta thrown in there?
I know the amongst my friends they’ll look at getting the XSX if a sizable beta is released.
Also I really appreciate the blog post. It gives you a good indication of what they’re trying to build and the challenges they’re facing. I especially appreciated the detail that goes into how they plan to roll this out as a Live title.
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Ok so there is a lot to unpack here. I have some thoughts about the way they’ve done this.
Firstly I think getting the launch window out there was important. Its a shame its so long. But they need to do what they need to do.
Secondly the window of launch now pits Halo potentially up against other big shooters. I think they should think very very very carefully about a late fall launch and try to get ahead of BF6 and MW2 and hit in September maybe - there is a precedent for that with IIRC Halo 3.
Staten doing the re-reveal seems smart. From what is said it does sound like the campaign and story were done and are done. To me it sounds more like the rendering pipeline was not ready and again this may point to issues with the new engine and potentially the Xbox API’s and devkit environment.
However, and for me this is a pretty big however, what on earth were Xbox and 343, but mainly Xbox, thinking over the summer - they must have known the situation with the game. They’ve not delayed it a few months - this is close to a year, possibly actually a year and therefore come May last year they must have known releasing the game in Nov 20 was going to be impossible or seriously compromised. Why didn’t they just get ahead of this and announce it - I guess because they didn’t want to say their big launch title wasn’t hitting and kill their new console launch hype. But I do feel they knew. Its impossible for them not to have known. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.
They probably knew it was going to get rough to deliver the game on time, and had meetings on what could be done like cutting stuff from the game (They already talked about graphics receiving a big update post launch when they announced it) to be added later, releasing in 2 parts, etc.
Phil said that the minute they realized they would have to cut too much from the launch to make the date and then it was decided to delay the game and launch in a more complete state the announcement was made. I can see it being true because it matches the tidbits of information we had implying the game would launch with the console but receive a significant overhaul in the first year.
Glad you understand the situation 
which basicly confirmes the graphics was not ready and in development stage. However the fact this game is content complet gives me high hope we get a very well pollished product next year and probably a real nice looking halo series x I wont buy
I guess 5 years were not enough, whatever. This was expected and I have stopped caring about the game, it is out of my radar. Makes me appreciate efficient studios like the coalition, insomniac e.t.c even more.
If Halo is great there is no reason to hide at all. IF Halo will be a epic game I asure you this will be a BIG seller for the xbox. Lets not forget gamepass and ftp. Regardless the launch will be massive 6 years without a Halo was a loooong time. Dont underestimate Halo.
Yeah but reading between the lines their campaign was done and playable (Staten played it). But to me it sounds like their engine rendering pipeline was far from done and ready to launch a game in November. That is pretty fundamental and they must have known well, well before they announced a delay that it would have to be delayed. Unless of course, 343 were not upfront about the situation.
To me it seems like it wasn’t content that would have been patched in, but graphical features like GI, SSAO etc and that would have been bad. So yeah my issue is not with the decision but the timing it was communicated.
It’s hard to filter actual fans wanting the best and Sony Trolls that just dump on anything Xbox related.
As far as the fall goes this is the best outcome. It will be the pillar release for the fall and have plenty of time for polish. The game looked fun as hell in the demo so the most important parts were in place now it just has time to refine the graphics.
Make no mistake though no matter how it turns out you are still going to have a large group of trolls shitting on it just cause it is Xbox related.
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Can’t wait to see campaign footage with these hugely improved graphics. May we get the 2018 trailer graphics after all? I’d love that!
That’s what I think that it was announced as soon as it was decided.
They were not going to ship with the same fidelity they wanted, that was already delayed to post launch when they showed the campaign. But they thought the reaction wouldn’t be that bad and they could get away with releasing just a slightly improved version of the demo. The reaction being as bad as it was made them realize that the graphical fidelity they were aiming for launch was not enough.
Then there was the multiplayer where they couldn’t do the fighting they wanted and would likely require even more optimizations due the 120fps target. And there were increasing reports that the multiplayer could launch after the campaign.
Add all together and there’s really not much time left for when then decided to delay the game to announce it. Phil said they announced as soon as the meeting where it was decided was done and I believe him. The evidence suggests it was the case.
The part about them knowing the game was below their targets visually and that they overestimated the fidelity they were delivering at launch was officially communicated and they are now basically saying that they still want to match the target trailers. So they needed to deliver at launch something that was initially planned to be completed in a year later.
I still think that they are on a good schedule though. If you compare with another big game that launched this year like The Last of Us 2. It had around the same development time prior to the delay (5 years), also had to make consessions on content (no multiplayer which apparently will also take 1 year to arrive).
So they had a long time, but not outlandish to other AAAs and are also delivering more content/features than other games that had similar development time.
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…welcome to the Halo thread, guy-who-doesn’t-care-about-Halo.
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One thing that hasn’t gotten quite the attention is the willingness, it seems, to avoid crunching the team to get the game out. This was pretty much stated when the delay was announced and Staten again implies it here.
If it turns out the team is able to get the game out without crunching then it simply deserves praise and not needles point scoring from certain corners of the Internet.
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The update all sounds (and looks) good to me, it looks like we’ll be in for a solid polished experience. Something Halo deserves.
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Just a concept art but could be interesting if it made to the game.
I agree 100 percent
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Fine by me.
Those shots prove that the delay was the right decision. Looks way better than the inital reveal.
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That’s a really good update from everyone involved. I enjoyed reading that.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for 343. I’ve been critical of their work many times, but I honestly do want them to succeed. The passion to make a great Halo game is not lacking. That much seems clear to me.
I actually liked what I saw in the gameplay reveal. Craig didn’t bother me one bit, Infinite looked fun. Another year of dev time sounds good. Can’t wait for the re-reveal.
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