This week's Xbox Games Event was a big splash in the gaming industry, but not everything Microsoft revealed was satisfactory to fans. Fans didn't receive the Halo Infinite graphics well at all, and many people took to Twitter to trash the character models and textures. However, there is good news coming from Microsoft, who plans to make the graphics "better and better."
Aaron Greenberg, the Xbox marketing general manager, spoke on the Halo Infinite issue in an interview with Inside Gaming. The interviewer, ex-IGN journalist Alanah Pearce, has previously revealed that a source told her that the event gameplay video is an "early build" and that Halo Infinite is still very much a work-in-progress. Now viewers can see Greenberg go on the record with Pearce to get more info directly from Xbox.
Greenberg pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic has made development challenging and that it's been slow-going for those working on Halo Infinite, which is why the gameplay reveal video's graphics disappointed some. COVID has already delayed many big games this year, including bestsellers like Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us 2 that have been praised for their quality. According to Greenberg, Halo Infinite's graphics can only get better and fans should have patience when everyone in the industry has been so affected by the pandemic.
It's also important to keep in mind that the 4K version on PC that Xbox uploaded after the stream is better quality, Greenberg says. He adds that it's difficult to display the graphics fidelity properly over stream. It's been speculated that the gameplay shown during the stream on PC was from an older version, although Greenberg didn't confirm or deny that. He did say that 343 is making weekly builds to show the Xbox executives, so there are already people hard at work improving the game graphics.
Halo Infinite will release around the same time the Xbox Series X does, during Holiday 2020. Greenberg is confident that's plenty of time for the devs to improve the graphic quality and make this a game worthy of the Halo franchise. He says "I thought it looked great, I thought it sounded great," which would make sense if the theory that the version at the Xbox Games Event was older because Greenberg has most likely seen the most up-to-date gameplay there is.
The graphics are going to improve, and Halo Infinite has been confirmed to have the biggest campaign yet in the franchise. While the graphics quality at the event was disappointing, Xbox and 343 are well aware of the issue and are already hard at work improving things for the players.
Halo Infinite launches later this year for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.