Halo Infinite is promising to be the reinvention that the Halo franchise has ben in need of for some time now, and though there’s much we don’t yet know about the game, we do know that one of the ways the game is looking to reinvent the series is by opening itself up, in terms of design and structure, and going “bigger” in every sense of the word.
Recently, while speaking in an interview on the Game Informer Show (which you can view in its entirety below), head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty spoke about 343 Industries’ upcoming first person shooter, and just how it’s planning to go bigger- and though he was reluctant to call it sandbox, he did give some very interesting details nonetheless.
“I think the first thing that is just very cool about where that game is headed is how they’re thinking about expanding the world,” said Booty. “I won’t go so far as to say sandbox because you bring up sandbox and people sort of overload that term with a lot of other things. But what the team is doing to build a bigger universe and a bigger set of gameplay scenarios, and just more things to explore, is awesome. And it’s just like the things are working on are really cool.”
According to Booty, another thing that makes Halo Infinite an exciting prospect is the fact that it’s being built on the completely new SlipSpace engine, which, as per him, opens up some interesting design possibilities for the developers.
“The second thing is just as they bring the SlipSpace engine up to date with where we’re at, in terms of, you know, graphics these days, there’s just some cool stuff design wise, it’s been really cool to see them get back to some of the shape language and design language of some of the earlier Halos,” he said. “You know, there could be said that Halo when you get into Halo 5, maybe it was getting a little busy, design wise and it’s cool to just see that. At once, Halo Infinite feels more modern and cleaner. But also I think there are stronger echoes back to the roots of Halo. And it’s really cool to see that stuff.”
We haven’t seen much of Halo Infinite yet besides its reveal trailer and a (pretty impressive) new cutscene this past June, but 343 Industries promises next year’s E3 is going to be “a big moment” for the game. The shooter is out in Holiday 2020 for the Xbox One, Xbox Scarlett, and PC, and though it’ll be taking advantage of the greater power afforded to devs by the Scarlett’s next gen hardware, the Xbox One version is not being treated as a “second-class citizen.” Meanwhile, Xbox One will also be receiving betas for the game before its release.
