Halo Infinite dev responds to graphics criticism: "Your voice matters and is heard"
Narrative experience director Dan Chosich weighs in
With many Halo fans still voicing concerns regarding the way Halo Infinite looked in its recent gameplay reveal, 343 Industries narrative experience director Dan Chosich recently addressed the criticisms on Twitter.
"I’ve been in your shoes," he said in a July 25 tweet (spotted by VGC). "I know what it's like to have expectations built [and] feel let down. I want you to know your voice matters [and] is heard. You're not falling on deaf ears. I always want to live up to the legacy that Bungie pioneered. I personally care a lot about honoring that."
Chosich obviously isn't the only developer at 343 that cares about meeting fan expectations and upholding Halo's legacy. At the start of the year, the studio released a developer diary explicitly discussing "forging new roads while respecting a legacy." And while Chosich's response is one of the few individual messages from the studio's staff, several others have agreed with it (in this case, meaning they liked it on Twitter), including associate creative director Paul Crocker.
More recently, as we said in our deep-dive on the studio's plans to make "the most ambitious Halo game" yet, studio head Chris Lee said:
"We really started this game with the concept of it being a spiritual reboot. That idea was really us thinking through what we've learned from building Halo 4 and Halo 5 – and looking across the whole history of the Halo franchise – to grab the most iconic parts of Halo and bring them forward for gamers today. That was an important thing that we wanted to capture."
Halo Infinite might not have lived up to expectations in its reveal, but it's clear that 343 Industries is committed to the game, and as Xbox's Aaron Greenberg said, it's still a work in progress with several months of development time ahead of it. Here's hoping its visuals match up to its promising combat when it launches this fall.
In lieu of graphics, 343 Industries has thus far doubled down on gameplay features Halo fans were hoping for, including split-screen and online multiplayer at launch.
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Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.