Inside Infinite: February Predictions!

With the next instalment of Inside Infinite just 2 days away I’m curious to hear what everyone’s expectations or wishes are. This month’s blog is centred around Zeta Halo - the location for our single player campaign. I’d love to hear your thoughts & ideas for Zeta Halo and see what 343i tell us in due time.

Quote:

next month we’ll talk with some of the folks working to bring Zeta Halo to life

I’m hoping to hear about some of the design inspirations for Zeta Halo’s “open world” design. In previous Halo games we’ve never had the chance to explore Halo rings outside of dedicated missions.
With Zeta Halo’s huge history I expect there’ll be a lot to see. Large nature biomes, forests, hidden forerunner architecture & Banished bases.

Id love to see some screenshots of some of the world. I think seeing a glimpse of the updated engine working in the single player would definitely fill me with confidence for the game especially after the mixed reaction last summer. Maybe a image or two showing some of the different areas within Zeta Halo.

In the initial reveal trailer we saw wildlife, it possible the game could have wildlife too? Maybe this is part of “bringing zeta halo to life”. Putting actual AI roaming the ring to make it feel more alive and like it’s being lived on. Maybe even encampments of marines and enemies spotted around here and there.

What are your thoughts on the above? And what do you think we’ll see. I’m super excited for Inside Infinite, 343’s commitment to giving us a monthly blog update on the game is something I appreciate so very much. I’ll be sure to update the thread when the news drops!

I’m guessing this blog will be about everything in the halo ring. Wild life, structures, environment etc. Maybe they will let us know if the flood are returning since they are involved with zeta halo, but I doubt it. I’m looking forward to the update for sure. I’m glad they committed to monthly blogs as well, and I can’t wait until E3 to see what they’re gonna show us!

I hope we see some new area over the one in the July reveal. A snow covered mountain range, a large forest area with interweiving paths and structures, or just something that isnt the pillars and mountains.
Im terrified that Infinite will lack diversity in its environments and will focus on just that one area. Which from the concept and gameplay weve seen, looks to be the case. It will get boring after a while, you'll be less entranced by the environment and far more focused on going from A-B-C-D. At least, in my experience for games like skyrim.

I'm not expecting too much, I don't mean that in a negative way either, if I keep expectations low there's less chance I'm disappointed. As for wishes, an updated gameplay clip would be excellent, or even a genuine screenshot or two would be great.

Sovereign4513 wrote:

No doubt we’ll hear a bit about the environments we’ll be fighting in as well as the Forerunner/Banished structures if I were to guess.

No doubt they’re trying to bring back the alien feeling of Alpha Halo from CE since that would make sense for 2 reasons: 1. It works and 2. Its the easiest nostalgia bait ever.

I’m definitely imagining they’re trying to capitalise on the nostalgia of CE. Forerunner structures holding some mystery and areas where the banished have taken over

Henry Gerold wrote:

I’m guessing this blog will be about everything in the halo ring. Wild life, structures, environment etc. Maybe they will let us know if the flood are returning since they are involved with zeta halo, but I doubt it. I’m looking forward to the update for sure. I’m glad they committed to monthly blogs as well, and I can’t wait until E3 to see what they’re gonna show us!

The wait for E3 or whatever form that takes is painstaking. I’m ready to see it all with my own eyes.
I think hiding the flood reveal to in game would definitely be the smarter choice in the long run. But more dramatic if it’s in game rather than a blog.
Im definitely wondering as to how they’re populating this open space with buildings and enemies.

MorseyBaby wrote:

The history bits is what I'm really interested in - maybe even touching on what we'll be seeing terminal or audio-log wise too?

Yes! I’m hoping the tease that terminals will be back in the games in key locations to give us that extra bit of lore and expand on some of the areas. I guess a great example would be the Palace of Pain, finding a terminal in there that explains what went on there and the history of the building.

lbco13 wrote:

I hope we see some new area over the one in the July reveal. A snow covered mountain range, a large forest area with interweiving paths and structures, or just something that isnt the pillars and mountains.
Im terrified that Infinite will lack diversity in its environments and will focus on just that one area. Which from the concept and gameplay weve seen, looks to be the case. It will get boring after a while, you'll be less entranced by the environment and far more focused on going from A-B-C-D. At least, in my experience for games like skyrim.

This is definitely something I want to see too. I’m a strong advocate for diversity in the areas we play in. Open plains, forests, war torn areas from the banished. I guess we’ll see, without knowing how big the game area will be for certain it does leave room for imagination. Maybe weather in different areas would be different too?

eviltedi wrote:

I'm not expecting too much, I don't mean that in a negative way either, if I keep expectations low there's less chance I'm disappointed. As for wishes, an updated gameplay clip would be excellent, or even a genuine screenshot or two would be great.

I definitely agree with this. Tempering expectations is always something I try to do with any info release. I think a gameplay clip would be awesome but I feel like we won’t get gameplay till the summer. I’d be pretty happy with a updated screenshot of the area from the demo. Fixing texture pop in and lighting. Really show us how the world is meant to look as the demo wasn’t a great representation.

Superman Kenobi wrote:

My biggest hope is that they really bring forward a better sense of how "open" the Campaign playspaces really are. I think there's still a lot of confusion and debate occurring amidst casual and even more devoted Halo fans as to whether Infinite is simply hearkening back to the *more* open ended level design of stuff like The Silent Cartographer and the ODST New Mombasa stuff or if it's trying to embrace a more holistically open-world design.

343i would be doing themselves and the fans a big favor in helping to make sure expectations are in check for whatever they've got cooking instead of some players expecting it to feel like a real open world game (if that's not what it ends up being, and I personally hope this is the case).

Yes, I agree 100%.
There’s still a fair bit of confusion or speculation on how the world is designed. Personally I’m in the camp of this being a more traditional open world to explore rather than a New Mombasa type of deal. Though I could be very wrong in that.
Clarification on that to set the right expectations correctly is definitely something I hope they address.

lbco13 wrote:

Henry Gerold wrote:

lbco13 wrote:

I hope we see some new area over the one in the July reveal. A snow covered mountain range, a large forest area with interweiving paths and structures, or just something that isnt the pillars and mountains.
Im terrified that Infinite will lack diversity in its environments and will focus on just that one area. Which from the concept and gameplay weve seen, looks to be the case. It will get boring after a while, you'll be less entranced by the environment and far more focused on going from A-B-C-D. At least, in my experience for games like skyrim.

What we saw was a very tiny portion of the world. If you go to the gameplay video, when he opens the map you can truly see how big and diverse the world is, and that wasnt even the entire map. There are so many more places to visit and massive amounts of the world to explore, you can’t judge it off of a 4 minute clip of gameplay.

The problem is if that whole bit we saw in the tacmap thing (not to mention in the distance) is just one singular environment type. As in just the pine trees and cliff faces with pillars intermixed throught.
I'm also looking at the concept art which is all of the same environment type that we saw (just fewer pillars in some).
I'll have to wait till thursday for, hopefully, more information of this. If not i'll do the ask343 and hope my question is picked.

The #Ask343 tag isn’t a bad shout. Hopefully they can clarify on this type of stuff if it isn’t mentioned in the blog.
I feel as if having the entirety of Zeta Halo looking the same would be a wasted opportunity!

I feel like I've fallen asleep in class, I missed something important, and now I'll forever be behind.
What is Zeta Halo? I get that it is where Infinite will take place, but so many comments sound like we are returning to a location many hold in fondness. Did I miss out on an entire halo game? Or is Zeta in a book that I've not read?

BlueDevistator wrote:

I feel like I've fallen asleep in class, I missed something important, and now I'll forever be behind.
What is Zeta Halo? I get that it is where Infinite will take place, but so many comments sound like we are returning to a location many hold in fondness. Did I miss out on an entire halo game? Or is Zeta in a book that I've not read?

I don’t believe Zeta Halo has been in any games. I’m not a super deep lore guy but I believe Zeta Halo is essentially one of the main Halo Rings & has a lot of history with Forerunners, the first humans & the flood. At least that’s my understanding of it. There were experiments for a flood cure on Zeta Halo too. Definitely a location which has a lot of deeper story ties to explore.

NativeSheep wrote:

I love the sound of Halo.

Any new sound clips would satisfy me immensely; be it weapon sounds, environment ambience, explosions and more official sountracks. That "Walk in the Woods" remake is currently my favorite.

I do believe that the March instalment of Inside Infinite is going to be focused around the audio team for the game. I’m definitely curious to hear how they’ve melded those sound clips into game assets.
The soundtrack so far has been amazing and I can’t wait for more.

It'll most likely be news generally surrounding the art and sound design associated with the campaign world and not much more in my opinion. Most info will most likely be surface level with a few miniscule teases that wont go anywhere for a while. We won't get any proper updates that really dig in deep to what we're going to get until May or June I'm guessing.

Henry Gerold wrote:

lbco13 wrote:

Henry Gerold wrote:

lbco13 wrote:

I hope we see some new area over the one in the July reveal. A snow covered mountain range, a large forest area with interweiving paths and structures, or just something that isnt the pillars and mountains.
Im terrified that Infinite will lack diversity in its environments and will focus on just that one area. Which from the concept and gameplay weve seen, looks to be the case. It will get boring after a while, you'll be less entranced by the environment and far more focused on going from A-B-C-D. At least, in my experience for games like skyrim.

What we saw was a very tiny portion of the world. If you go to the gameplay video, when he opens the map you can truly see how big and diverse the world is, and that wasnt even the entire map. There are so many more places to visit and massive amounts of the world to explore, you can’t judge it off of a 4 minute clip of gameplay.

The problem is if that whole bit we saw in the tacmap thing (not to mention in the distance) is just one singular environment type. As in just the pine trees and cliff faces with pillars intermixed throught.
I'm also looking at the concept art which is all of the same environment type that we saw (just fewer pillars in some).
I'll have to wait till thursday for, hopefully, more information of this. If not i'll do the ask343 and hope my question is picked.

I see what you mean. I truly hope this isn’t this case. In the 2018 E3 trailer, we saw all this beautiful environment and I’m not seeing any of that now?

The E3 2018 trailer was all CG rendered in the Slipspace engine, none of it was actually from the game. It was more of a proof-of-concept and engine demo than a real trailer.