After going silent for a couple of months, the team behind the delayed Halo Infinite is opening up about new details. Including the fact that the game will not be released until the fall of 2021.

The big news that is going to shock no one is that the graphics we saw back in July were a serious work-in-progress and they are being overhauled. Everything from dynamic contrast updates to texture enhancements is happening as we speak and 343 is not being shy about it either.

In the post, which is worth a read if you want all the details, is that the company talks about the ‘Craig’ meme and how that NPC (non-playable character) facial features were not fully implemented and represented an incomplete version of the modeling. Because of this, ‘Craig’ appears dead inside. For the demo in July, the company prioritized performance rather than graphic fidelity which is why the game lacked significantly in many of the heavier GPU elements (ray tracing, lighting, ect).

In short, the company is promising that before the game ships late next year, the graphics will be updated significantly to include better quality of global illumination, ambient occlusion, shadows, volumetric lighting, sky, and atmosphere. Further, the company has already updated textures and many other visual elements to make the game appear more ‘next gen’.

In the post, we also get our first look at multiplayer (pictured above) as well as a few weapons that will be used in the game. The screenshots show a significant improvement over what we saw earlier this year, as long as these are actual screenshots and not pre-rendered images.

While the delay of the game certainly was a setback for Halo fans and the launch of the Xbox Series X/S, it’s clear that the delay is necessary. At least when the game launches next year, you should be able to easily buy a console.

Tagged with Gaming, Halo Infinite, Microsoft, Xbox