Halo Infinite is Content Complete
Infinitely playable.
343 Industries released a massive update for January 2021’s Inside Infinite update for Halo Infinite, most interestingly is about how Halo Infinite is content-complete. Quinn DeHoyo, the Lead Sandbox Designer at 343 Industries, had this to say:
We have everyone fixing bugs on our launch content and some exciting efforts kicking off for future updates – like new vehicles, equipment, etc. But we’re pretty much playtesting a ton and looking for ways to polish and improve everything. All of our launch content is in-game and being played daily but it takes a strong effort to get something from 90% to a full 100% ship quality. So, we are pushing hard to squash bugs and tune our toys so they are in a good spot as we get closer and closer to launch (and public flighting before that). Additionally, we are taking time to evaluate the visuals of certain sandbox items with the goal of ensuring everything is landing the way the art directors envisioned. As a result, some sandbox items we’ve previously shown might be getting a facelift here and there by the time you see them again.
What is the Sandbox?
Basically, the sandbox refers to everything that a player interacts with in the game, which includes vehicles, weapons, equipment, and objects. It also includes all of the player systems and jumping, running, health values, shield recharge times, and so on. As you can tell, there’s a lot that the 343 Industries’ Sandbox Team has to deal with, especially with the delay.
While news of Halo Infinite being content-complete is expected considering the game was supposed to release last fall, the game getting a visual facelift is more than welcome news. While I personally didn’t have much of a problem with how the game was last E3, enough did that Microsoft made the wise decision to delay the game a full year and polish it up. Ideally, this delay should push the game to the next level and make it worthy of its lineage, but we’ll have to wait another ten months or so to see for ourselves.
Public Flights are also planned for Halo Infinite, with 343 Industries working on getting their builds to a level that they are happy with before they unleash it on the world. This includes the aforementioned graphical facelift that they will share more of soon, along with how they rebuilt the engine to “ensure high execution efficiency across all platforms and PCs, instead of running optimally just on Xbox One.” This is excellent news, because if this is to be a showcase for the next-generation of consoles and Halo, it needs to run, act, and look like a next-generation title.