343 acknowledges Halo Infinite’s visual concerns, while Phil Spencer has fun with it

‘We’re returning to a more classic art style’

In case you missed it, the recent Xbox Games Showcase set the internet ablaze with questions about Halo Infinite. Microsoft finally showed it off, but all anyone could talk about was the visual style and Craig the Brute: the newly minted meme of the week.

Taking to Halo Waypoint, 343 Industries created a blog on the subject, gathering up all of the big-picture concerns about Infinite and putting them into one place. The most notable subsection is easily the visuals portion though, which 343 addresses plainly. The move, they say, is deliberate, as the company “decided to shift back towards the legacy aesthetics that defined the original trilogy.”

Calling it a “classic” art style, they propose that the final game will have a more “vibrant palette,” that will still be detailed. In regards to the actual quality of that style, 343 says “we do have work to do to address some of these areas and raise the level of fidelity and overall presentation for the final game.” 343 also states that the build we saw was already outdated.

Individual snafus and memes aside, it’s something I actually dug about the reveal: that Halo was going back to a more stylized look and not the ultra-realistic visuals of recent games. The environments seem expansive, and will probably be a lot of fun to explore.

In other news, Phil Spencer, Xbox boss, openly acknowledged the Craig meme with a playful tweet, noting: “Our new official Xbox mascot 🙂 love the community and their ability to just take something fun and run with it.” It’s an obvious attempt to be diplomatic, but Spencer (who is more open than any other executive in recent memory) is a nice change of pace from the usual stuffiness from major publishers.

Infinite Inquiries [Halo Waypoint]