Alright, let’s talk about Halo Infinite

I didn’t really intend on talking about the Xbox Games Showcase. There’s certainly a few cool games here of note. Fable of course being the big one. Of course Forza looks great as always, and I have high hopes for Avowed as well. Then there’s Halo Infinite. Oh boy. If you’re showing off the flagship title for your expensive next generation console, this is not the way to do it.

It’s pretty clear the Halo franchise has taken a dive in the quality department since Bungie moved on to bigger and better things. I can’t speak much for gameplay, which I’m sure will be decent, but those graphics man. A lot of people online are saying it looks like a late PS3 or Xbox 360 game. Which, yeah, it kind of does. There’s some really soft textures and fewer world objects than we’ve become accustomed to with recent current gen titles. Some weapons and NPC models also seem to lack a lot of details as well. It’s so bad that it’s now become a meme, with even Domino’s Pizza capitalizing on the fun with a rather cheeky ad.

I’m not as much a stickler for graphics as I used to be. When it comes to shooters, I definitely prefer a higher frame rate over visual fidelity if a compromise needs to be made between the two. However, this is still rather baffling. The main selling point of these consoles is their graphical prowess, with fancy ray tracing and true 4K resolutions. Now, I never played Halo 5, but based on screenshots, even it seems to look better despite running on middle of the road hardware from 2013. So it’s definitely a curious marketing choice to show off such a dated looking game. Especially when every other game that was showcased looks absolutely amazing. Perhaps Infinite needs a little more cooking time before it was ready to be plated.

This unfortunately seems to be a trend with Microsoft’s first party games studios. They come with some cool concept, but end up sabotaging themselves. They’re in a very tight race with the PS5 at the moment. Probably the closest we’ve ever seen. I do think they do have the better hardware this time around. However, they really need to be coming out with guns blazing, considering they’re sitting in third place in terms of market share. I doubt this will kill the Series X, but it shows that they’re not exactly bringing their A-game to the table.