Halo Infinite was going to be the crown jewel of the launch for Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S. As you no doubt know, that didn’t happen and the game suffered a delay until the Fall of this year. Updates have now started pouring in, and today the team behind the shooter talks about Infinite and its role in the franchise.
Ever since it was unveiled, there definitely has been a feeling around the game that the hope is it will bring the franchise back to a certain point on the mountain. In an extensive interview at Halo Waypoint, Campaign Art Lead Justin Dinges and Sandbox Lead Troy Mashburn talked about the game as a “spiritual reboot” for the series. They aim for Infinite to bring the series back to its roots, and hope to bring things back to a classic feel with many odes to older titles.
“From an artistic standpoint it means that we want to both introduce new players and welcome back old players with the iconic Halo imagery the original games were built on. We want players to have that sense of awe and wonder as they step into the world we are building – this goes back to our goals of “Legacy” and “Simplicity” that we constantly use as our lenses to make artistic decisions. As a prime example, we have specifically chosen to begin Chief’s journey in Halo Infinite within the Pacific Northwest forest biome on a new Halo ring, a deliberate ode to the past. Another good example is how we have taken the visual design of the Jackals and Grunts back closer to their appearance in Halo 3 and previous titles. We want players to feel a nostalgic familiarity with these designs, like meeting up with an old friend, as they experience all that Halo Infinite has to offer,” said Dinges.
“”Spiritual Reboot” is a term we use to describe our approach to introducing new ideas while staying true to what it felt like to play the classic games. “Feeling” is the key word here because we want to evolve, by creating new experiences and new opportunities, but still maintain the original essence,” Mashburn followed up.
Halo Infinite is set to release sometime this Fall for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC. They also recently released some new screens for the game’s campaign, which you can check out through here.
