Wake Me… When You Need Me

Well, if you were one of the people who were upset at the graphical fidelity of the reveal, maybe you won’t mind this news as much. 343i (the team behind Halo 4, 5 and the upcoming Infinite) have made an official announcement that Halo Infinite will be delayed. The popular and much anticipated SciFi FPS, will be releasing sometime in 2021, according to the developer.

Reasons behind the delay seem to be primarily due to the increased crunch time that COVID brought along with it. Teams and developers were stretching thin while working from home, making it a difficult game to develop from the beginning. Studio Head, Chris Lee, eleaborated on the issue in a statement made earlier today.

“We have made the difficult decision to shift our release to 2021 to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision. multiple factors that have contributed to development challenges, including on-going COVID-related impacts affecting us all this year. it is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday.”

And there you have it, thanks COVID.

Halo Infinite Landed With a Thud

This wasn’t the only issue facing the game however. Earlier in the month, Microsoft and 343i showed off the first official gameplay of Halo Infinite at the Xbox Games Showcase. And while many fans loved the return to the classic art style, the music and the gameplay changes, they had a lot of criticisms at the same time.

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Citing that numerous issues with the textures, graphics, render distances and more seemed unfitting for a game on the Xbox Series X. After the tech reveal for the console showed off an insane amount of power and hardware capabilities.

We personally loved the demo regardless and didn’t mind how it looked, but we definitely understand why some people took issue with it.

Maybe They Needed This

343 did mention that they would be making some graphical changes after the critical pushback from fans. So maybe this is the inevitable consequence of those complaints. You wanted them to take more time and deliver a product that looked better, and it looks like that’s exactly what they’re doing.

We’re more than happy to wait for Halo Infinite. After the initial batch of trailers and the gameplay reveal, it feels and looks like everything that we wanted from a sequel and another entry into Halo. Promising oodles of nostalgia, massive gameplay improvements, a giant Halo Ring to explore and an interesting story to unravel.

Sure, it’s not exactly difficult to follow up on Halo 5: Guardians, but it is difficult to follow up on Halo 4 and the tantalizing story that they set up. Cortana going rampant and Master Chief becoming a sociopath were some of the best story moments this series have ever seen. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for Halo Infinite.

For more news, updates and articles on Halo Infinite, stay tuned here at Geekhash!