“Halo Infinite” Release Pushed to Fall 2021

Halo is one of the highest grossing video game franchises of all time. The series quickly became the flagship title for Microsoft’s Xbox. Fans are eagerly awaiting the next offering and it was just announced that the new game, Infinite, is being pushed a full year.

The game, originally created by Bungie, was both a critical sensation and an audience smash. The unique mix of interstellar warfare and an interesting, well-thought out story made with for a combination that drew fans in en masse.

Since Bungie departed the series, the quality of the games has been a little mixed. Halo 4 is considered by many to be the weakest entry and was the first to be released by 343 Industries. The follow-up, Halo: Guardians, was received more warmly than its predecessor, as was Halo Wars 2, but there was still a sense that it wasn’t up to snuff with the Bungie-era games.

This image worsened when a game campaign demo for the upcoming Halo Infinite was released back in July to terrible results. The gameplay was fine, and appeared on par with previous games, but graphics were widely criticized as awful. On this unfortunate showing, Ani Shastry, the Development Manager for the Graphics team, stated in an interview that:

July was indeed a very much work-in-progress slice of the technology, and a reasonable set of key features from global illumination and dynamic time of day, to GPU-driven rendering and variable rate shading were all in active development. Much of the graphics team’s capacity, along with that of some key technical artists, was focused on achieving high resolution and performance leading up to the demo, which meant several of these features didn’t quite get the level of polish and bug fixing that was warranted. Visual fidelity is a very important goal for Halo Infinite, and the graphics and art teams have been continually aspiring, and working closely with each other, to create the best-looking Halo game ever. I definitely want to acknowledge the input that we got from the Halo community and our fanbase; staying open to critical feedback and looking at areas where we can learn and do better is an inherent part of our culture at 343.

These comments are reminiscent of earlier explanations provided by 343 Industries and don’t do much to assuage the idea that the newest entry will disappoint. It is heartening, though, to hear that the creatives behind the franchise are receptive to community outcry and want to deliver a quality product. Fans will find out whether Halo Infinite can deliver the goods when it releases in the Fall of 2021.