Halo Infinite’s campaign mode looks a lot better now than it did when 343 Industries premiered the heavily anticipated sequel’s first official campaign gameplay footage back in the summer of 2020 and disappointed long-time fans with its shoddy, Minecraft-like graphics. The visual improvement is quite evident by a series of new screenshots that the developer shared in its latest Halo Waypoint update, which shows an appreciable increase in both environmental and weapons detail. A gallery that shows off Halo Infinite’s time-of-day lighting system also appears to confirm some stunning vistas.
“Infinite’s world is incredibly large, and its vast combat zones connect seamlessly to each other,” 343 Industries explained in a section elaborating on what kind of game Halo Infinite is meant to be. “Its vistas are filled with adventures that entice you to stray from the golden path story missions. From a distance, it might appear that we’re building an open world game, but that’s not really the case. We’re making a Halo game; a sandbox shooter where our goal is to make you feel like the most powerful actor in a rich, emergent, sci-fi combat simulation.”
“What’s different this time is that you have more freedom than ever before to choose your path through the world. Follow a hidden cave system into a well-guarded fortress, wind your Warthog through a fog-filled mountain pass, capture a Banshee and fly to a floating ring fragment across a gap of stars. A strong narrative remains at the heart of the Master Chief’s adventure, and your journey between story missions is entirely up to you.”
343 Industries goes on to promise that Halo Infinite will be the most open and adventure-filled Halo game ever. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but as the screenshots above suggest, the developer is taking fan feedback quite seriously and making a sincere effort at creating a blockbuster that can live up to Bungie’s classic titles. Halo Infinite will reportedly be released for the Xbox Series X|S this fall.