Xbox Game Studios |OT3| Once more....with feeling (Part 1)

[Opatschi]

@Staffy

And hopefully those trees, grass etc isn’t static like in the demo last year. We’ve had so many beautiful games now where the foliage sways nicely in the wind, really adds a lot to the atmosphere.

The engine trailer showed it, so hopefully it’s the case. But since they want raytracing in there too, 4K and 60fps…i hope it all can be done.

Has there ever been a first person shooter with movable vegetation? Even MW has static objects and that’s a linear game.

[Biggzy (Hassan)]

@Staffy

And hopefully those trees, grass etc isn’t static like in the demo last year. We’ve had so many beautiful games now where the foliage sways nicely in the wind, really adds a lot to the atmosphere.

The engine trailer showed it, so hopefully it’s the case. But since they want raytracing in there too, 4K and 60fps…i hope it all can be done.

We know the trees are not static, because you can see them moving at the start screen for the the July demo.

[Ruthwik_Rao]

@Opatschi

Has there ever been a first person shooter with movable vegetation? Even MW has static objects and that’s a linear game.

Crysis games

[Staffy]

@Opatschi

Has there ever been a first person shooter with movable vegetation? Even MW has static objects and that’s a linear game.

Oh yes, plenty. I believe all the Battlefield games if I’m not mistaken. Killzone SF, Bulletstorm, and many others. Titanfall and CoD have static foliage, that’s true. I never liked that.

@Biggzy

We know the trees are not static, because you can see them moving at the start screen for the the July demo.

That is true, but during gameplay (it’s been since July that I watched it last) I don’t think anything moved, or did they?

[Voodoopeople]

I know it’s a controversial one, but Halo has never been a graphical showcase for me. But I think that’s, on reflection, as art style preference more than anything. I always think first of animation when I think of good graphics and 1st person games just can’t cut the mustard when acting as animation showcases. For example, I’m such a sucker for an animated cloak on a protagonist. That’s what makes me think something is good, graphics wise. Or really good character animation. So, for me, Little Nightmares 2 has the best graphics I’ve seen in any game in the last 12 months. Better than Cyberpunk on PC etc.

I’m glad most are impressed with these shots. I’ve personally struggled to tell the difference between July and these new ones though. I actually thought the nighttime shot was from the older build as it looks really flat.

I actually thought the “how it started/how it’s going” photo was a July 2020/February 2021 comparison…turns out it’s actually a comparison between Infinite and 2001s CE! That is pretty much the only comparison where I can genuinely see major difference. https://i.redd.it/bq7wsl84ypj61.png …and before I get burned, it’s because the pics were small on my screen!

BUT. Halo isn’t about graphics. It’s about gameplay loops. Few games match it in that respect. I loved Halo 5 MP in particular.

[Biggzy (Hassan)]

@Staffy

That is true, but during gameplay (it’s been since July that I watched it last) I don’t think anything moved, or did they?

That was the game running, it just had a title screen. For whatever reason the devs didn’t choose to have the tress sway in the actual demo, because these things are completely controlled by the developers.

[GraffitiHeart (Jay Johnson)]

Halo is looking much improved, it’s probably the first game that I want a Series X for. I hope I can get one in the next 6 months.

[Staffy]

@Voodoopeople

…me, Little Nightmares 2 has the best graphics I’ve seen in any game in the last 12 months. Better than Cyberpunk on PC etc. I’m glad most are impressed with these shots. I’ve personally struggled to tell the difference between July and these new ones though. I actually thought the nighttime shot was from the older build as it looks really flat. I actually thought the “how it started/how it’s going” photo was a July 2020/February 2021 comparison…turns out it’s actually a comparison between Infinite and 2001s CE! That is pretty much the only comparison where I can genuinely see major difference. …and before I get burned, it’s because the pics were small on my screen! BUT. Halo isn’t about graphics. It’s about gameplay loops. Few games match it in that respect. I loved Halo 5 MP in particular.

Halo CE on Xbox back then was quite a good looking game. But especially with Halo 4 the franchise started to impress visually. Pop in Halo 4 with One X (or even Series enhanced) and it’s still a damn fine looking game. For me it’s visuals, animations, audio that really add to the overall experience and that definitely goes for Halo too. The visuals last year disappointed me big time and I love the improvements being made now. The delay is definitely good.

@Biggzy

That was the game running, it just had a title screen. For whatever reason the devs didn’t choose to have the tress sway in the actual demo, because these things are completely controlled by the developers.

Yeah, they must have had their reasons to not enable it during gameplay. I believe so far all the Halo games had moving foliage, right? No reason to quit with that all of a sudden.

I hope that once they showcase the game again that it will be from a XSX. Let us see what we can expect come holiday. This is one thing I really appreciated during State of Play yesterday, with every game it made a mention of it being shown on PS5 and that it was a mix of gameplay and cutsxenes.

[Opatschi]

@Staffy

Pop in Halo 4 with One X (or even Series enhanced) and it’s still a damn fine looking game. For me it’s visuals, animations, audio that really add to the overall experience and that definitely goes for Halo too.

Halo 4 is a great game but the trade ins for the graphics where not great. For instance look at explosions in Halo 3. Looks much better there and the lvls where extremely linear another tradeoff. Also Ai was a lot worse.

[PCPrincipal]

Do people actually love playing games or discussing something meaningful about games or criticizing every small damn thing has become more fun and become a part and parcel of everyday life.

LOL minecraft trees SMH . Seriously people criticize for the sake of criticizing it more than the actual artists’ themselves.

Everyone is god damn developer and a top level artist. It reminds me of that episode of South Park about YELP reviewers.

[solis74 (solis)]

@PCPrincipal

Do people actually love playing games or discussing something meaningful about games or criticizing every small damn thing has become more fun and become a part and parcel of everyday life.

LOL minecraft trees SMH . Seriously people criticize for the sake ok criticizing it more than the actual artist themselves.

Everyone is god damn developer and a top level artist. It reminds me of that episode of South Park about YELP reviewers.

some folks do like to moan

[thiagosilva (thiagoツ)]

@solis74

some folks do like to moan

lol

[Opatschi]

So on Halo Infinite:

• Artstyle
• Soundtrack
• gameplay
• sandbox focus
• enhanced vehicles
• sound design

Only thing I’m still not sure about is the story🤐

[LucasTaves]

@PhantomFox

Look, the reason why we got so many CGI trailers in the July event is because Xbox wanted to show just how much stuff they have coming out in the future, to get more people interested in Xbox. However, since all these games are so far out, they didn’t have gameplay ready. So what’s the best way to show games when gameplay isn’t ready? CGI trailers. Almost every single publisher does this. Look at Bethesda with Starfield and the Elder Scrolls VI. Just because you may not like them doesn’t mean they shouldn’t show CGI trailers. We’ll get gameplay eventually anyway. There’s really no harm in announcing things early.

I think they originally intended to have more gameplay shown, but according to reports once Covid hits they decided to use CG trailers instead of adding pressure to the team working from home in doing game demos.

[Opatschi]

@LucasTaves

I think they originally intended to have more gameplay shown, but according to reports once Covid hits they decided to use CG trailers instead of adding pressure to the team working from home in doing game demos.

Class move if true don’t expect many gameplay this year I repeat (unless close to launch)

[pg2g]

@LucasTaves

I think they originally intended to have more gameplay shown, but according to reports once Covid hits they decided to use CG trailers instead of adding pressure to the team working from home in doing game demos.

I think CG was always the plan for the 2022 and beyond titles. There would not have been enough time to change plans.

[LucasTaves]

@Opatschi

Class move if true don’t expect many gameplay this year I repeat (unless close to launch)

For this year I guess it would be more doable because:

• The games themselves might be more advanced so instead of a vertical slice we can get a cut from a playable demo like they did with Halo Infinite last year (hopefully only for the cases where the graphical systems are already there so it won’t have as much backslash)
• Ms reacted fast into minimizing the effects from WFH like cloud based development and build, so there’s no hurdle of the team needing to download and deploy a 100+GB build into their devkits for example (assuming everyone on the team even has a devkit on their home), to something that is instantly built and available in xcloud.

[Opatschi]

It does seem like CGI trailer can be easily outsourced unlike gameplay demos

[Daniel]

I think CG is used a lot for Xbox games because they’ve had hardly any studios to be pumping out games so the ones they do have they need to show early on and they’re most likely not ready so CG is the next best thing. I think once we really get in the grove of all these new studios pumping out games it will give MS time to not have to push devs for something to show at their events. I feel like MS don’t feel like they can not have a yearly event too. They should have enough confidence to just allow their teams to show when they’re ready.

MS needs to only have an event when their teams are ready, just look at Nintendo they didn’t have a direct for what was it like 600 days and I didn’t really see any backlash to that. Obviously if you do that then you need a bloody good event because people have been waiting a long time.

I still think the new and improved Xbox isn’t fully in effect right now, like someone else has said in here with COVID most likely setting this back a year.

[PsyDec]

Yo I’m so buzzed by how good those Halo screens looked. Love the render distance. Playing that in 4k60 is going to be stupendous.

And it’s still for another 9 months of polish!