I copy pasted a lot of stuff (mostly about bots but also some Infinite development questions), but in total it is probably just half, maybe a little more of the article - Joseph Staten at the bottom with his explanation of the delay and lack of campaign footage:
<p>Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Infinite – the blog series where we sit down with the teams hard at work building Halo Infinite, to give you more insight into our process and goals than ever before. This month you’re joining us fresh off the heels of Gamescom, where we had the...
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Player feedback is a critical element of our process – and, during the Tech Preview we had a solid amount of it. What are some of the bigger items the Multiplayer Team is working on now as a result of that?
Andrew Witts: One area of focus for me lately has been on analyzing player sentiment around what we’ve been calling the “Combat Sensor” or as everyone has been calling it, “Radar”. We knew that the implementation we had for the Tech Preview was going to feel different, maybe even a little contentious, which is why we wanted to get feedback on it as soon as possible. We’ve heard all the feedback and we have a new iteration that will be in the next preview which will be more in-line with players’ expectations.
Alex Bean: There was a healthy mixture of known bugs going into the flight and new surprises – the Match Intro camera operator had many 1,000 lbs. Spartans tumble in their direction. We’re actively trying to polish up those Match Flow issues. And while our Medal animations weren’t playing correctly in the Tech Preview, sentiment on Medal visuals has been heard and our UI team is investigating addressing some of that feedback. Lastly, it was helpful to see what resonated most with our players to inform areas of growth as we look beyond launch.
What are some of your favorite parts of Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer? Anything that’s caught you off guard, personally?
Tom French: I love how the game feels classic and modern at the same time. In a way it’s the fantasy of what you remember playing back in the day. You pick up the controller and the gameplay feels like getting to know an old friend again; they’ve changed and grown but the core of who they are is still there. The gameplay is very much indexing on classic Halo tropes of fair starts and map control, but with new twists and enhancements to make it feel more modern. You can Scan to find weapon locations, you can Mark enemies, weapons, etc., for teammates, and the world of the Player Spartan feels more cohesive in the larger Halo universe.
Andrew Witts: I have a lot of favorite things in Halo MP! I think what I’m most happy with is how everything feels authentically Halo. We spent a lot of time trying to really hone our features to meet player expectations not just in terms of their output gameplay-wise but also fantasy-wise. Everything must own up to the razor of “Is this Halo enough?” Using this razor helped us not only differentiate what makes Halo MP different from other free to play games but also own up to what our existing player-base expects from us.
David Ellis: I would regret it if I didn’t take this opportunity to give a shout out to the team responsible for bringing our vehicles to life in
Halo Infinite. Nothing is more quintessentially Halo to me, than battling across of map when a buddy skids to a stop alongside and honks their horn for you to jump into their Warthog. There’s no way to predict the outcome in most Halo skirmishes, but if you’re in a Warthog there’s a very good chance cheers and/or laughter will ensue.
Patrick Wren: I love how we built our systems so we can really fine-tune and expand each experience. We can have a very tightly tuned competitive experience and have a much more dynamic experience in BTB. It makes me excited for the future and what the community does with these systems in Custom Games.
Bots currently come in four flavors based on their inherent skill. Can you talk us through each and what the general differences and expectations are for each?
Sara Stern: We’ll have four Bot difficulties at launch: Recruit, Marine, ODST, and Spartan. Each of the difficulties is loosely modeled after the different skill levels a player reaches as they get better at playing Halo. You can’t really focus on how to strafe well if you’re still learning how to throw a grenade, and we put similar limitations on what each difficulty can do.
Recruit level Bots are the least challenging experience – they know how to perform each combat action, but they don’t react quickly in a firefight. Marine Bots are like players who are comfortable playing Halo, but they haven’t quite figured out the best way to strafe yet. ODST Bots are competent players that react well to player movement and know how to use equipment more aggressively. While this wasn’t enabled in the Technical Preview build, we’re experimenting with allowing Spartan Bots to communicate with one another about certain gameplay events (such as the location of enemy players).
The intent is that if you work up through each of the difficulties and feel comfortable against Spartan Bots, you’ll be able to hold your own against players in regular matchmaking. We’ll continue to iterate on the challenge and tuning of each difficulty as we get more player feedback. We may also introduce new levels of difficulty over time based on what players are interested in seeing from the Bots.
While they certainly still had their quirks, how did the team get them to feel like actual players?
Ilana Franklin: A big part of getting them to feel like actual players was the combat dance. Their combat movement is modelled after some very high skill players in the studio. Lower difficulty Bots focus on strafing, medium difficulties can jump but won’t crouch as often, higher skilled Bots can do both. Sara has done a lot of tuning to get that balance feeling right, resulting in the Bot combat dance which we affectionately refer to as the "Razzle Dazzle." Ultimately though, a lot of that human feel comes down to little behaviors that are more subtle. When you try to disengage from a Bot, they'll remember where they last saw you and try to hunt you down. When they have the Grappleshot, they'll look for openings to zip in for a melee attack, especially if they're holding a good close-range weapon. Higher level Bots will look for opportunities to backsmack if you're facing away from them. All those small details, along with many others, come together to make Bots play dynamically and make decisions like humans do.
Hollis Lehv: Bots will make different decisions depending on the situation they are in. This gives the impression that they are weighing the pros and cons of, for instance, continuing to fight or backing down, just like a human would. This also makes them more difficult to predict. Bots will also use equipment in similar ways to a player. For example, they’ll hold onto the Overshield until they see a player to fight against. The Bot names also make them feel like real people with distinct personalities.
Joseph Staten:
I’m currently streaking through the lower stratosphere, on a late-night flight back to Seattle from Los Angeles, having just finished representing the great work of the whole
Halo Infinite team on the
Gamescom: Opening Night Live broadcast. It feels terrific to finally reveal our launch date, and we hope you enjoyed
meeting Commander Agryna, who you’ll be getting to know much better as we start unspooling the Season-to-Season story of
Halo Infinite Multiplayer.
Before boarding my flight, I had a chance to read some of the commentary online, and I definitely hear the disappointment about not seeing Campaign gameplay on the broadcast. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to: (1) shed light on why we chose not to show Campaign right now and (2) assuage your concerns about where Campaign is at this point in the production process.
As I mentioned in
last week’s Development Update, the whole
Halo Infinite team is in shutdown mode. This means we’re done with feature work and focused on crushing high-priority bugs. We’re spending lots of time playing the game, verifying fixes, and generally doing all we can to ensure Campaign (and Multiplayer!) plays great on all platforms—from an original, 8-year-old Xbox One to a brand new, ultra-spec PC. This is a very challenging task, even for a large and experienced team.
In many ways, shutting down a game is like being on final approach to landing an airplane. And if you’ll forgive a bit of aviation-geekery, the entirety of the team is essentially in a “sterile cockpit,” which is to say: we’re at a critical phase in the flight that is
Halo Infinite, so it’s extremely important to avoid distractions and stay focused on mission-critical tasks only. For Campaign, that means putting maximum effort into ensuring the wide-open, adventure-filled experience you’ll all get to play on December 8th is a great as it can possibly be. And gameplay demos and trailers not only take a huge amount of effort to do well, they also take cycles away from bugs and other shutdown tasks.
I would like to share, however, that right before I left for Los Angeles, I had to pause a full playthrough of Campaign that I started late last week. I’m going for a 100% run, which means completing all primary and secondary missions, finding all collectibles etc. I’ve played
Infinite’s Campaign multiple times. But every time I do, I always find something new, tucked away on Zeta Halo. Sometimes these are quiet little bits of environmental storytelling, such as an abandoned but desperately defended Marine recon post, high on a lonely mountainside (fortunately, the Banished missed the fully loaded S7 sniper rifle that the Marines left behind). Sometimes these are combat encounters with deviously polished scripting, for example: a UNSC forward operating base that seemed abandoned… until I heard the laughter and taunts of multiple, energy sword-wielding and cloaked Elites, as I stumbled into their trap.
I hope all of you take comfort from the fact that, honestly, I can’t wait to get back home, fire up the build, and hit “Continue” on the Campaign. No matter how many times I play,
Halo Infinite remains, fundamentally, super fun to play—and we’re very eager to share all the fun with you through captured gameplay, trailers, and other content once we get this plane safely on the ground. But for now, it’s focus-time in the cockpit as we stick the landing. Please, keep those seatbelts fastened, and thank you for your patience and support.
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Joseph Staten, Head of Creative for
Halo Infinite
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