Did you dig Halo Infinite’s art style after seeing our first glimpse at gameplay last week? If so, you might want to snag this official Halo Infinite artbook which is being made by Dark Horse Comics (Sin City, Hellboy).

It’s now available for pre-order on Amazon and is priced at $39.99. Its release date is tagged for December 29, 2020, though that might be a placeholder date for now. Check out the official Halo Infinite artbook cover and description below.

The legendary super soldier returns in Halo Infinite. 343 Industries and Microsoft are building the biggest and most visually spectacular Halo yet. Halo Infinite debuts on the Xbox family of consoles, including Xbox Series X, Microsoft’s latest and most powerful game console. To take full advantage of its prodigious graphical prowess, 343 Industries built an all-new, next-generation game engine, giving their world-class artists the tools and technology to realize the worlds, war, and wonder of the Halo universe in unprecedented style and fidelity. 343 Industries have given Dark Horse access to the art and artists who’ve brought Halo Infinite to vibrant, vivid life. It’s all here in unparalleled detail, the heroes you’ve grown to love–the Master Chief, the brave soldiers of the UNSC, as well as the weapons, vehicles, villains and vistas–and of course, the eponymous and magnificent environments of Halo itself.

The Art of Halo Infinite also features a brand-new cover from legendary concept artist and Halo Infinite’s Art Director, Sparth! Join us as we take you from concept to launch inside the artwork of the most ambitious Halo game to date.

In other Halo Infinite news, the shooter has been confirmed to include two-player local co-op, and four-player online co-op for the campaign! 343 Industries has also commented on the graphics criticism the shooter has gotten since its gameplay reveal.

While most of the chatter surrounding Halo Infinite has been about the game’s graphics when our first look at gameplay was revealed, there’s a lot more the shooter can offer aside from graphics, and one of them is the confirmation of Halo Infinite split screen support!

343 Industries has confirmed that Halo Infinite split screen will be available for two players, while four-player campaign co-op will be available online! This little nugget of info was confirmed by Jeremy Hook, Head of Design at 343 Industries over on Twitter, where he corrected reports about four-player split screen being available.

Hey everyone I saw some reports of campaign supporting 4 player Split screen for campaign and just want to correct. Halo Infinite will be supporting 2 player split screen and 4 player online co-op for campaign. Sorry about the confusion. #haloinfinte

— jerry hook (@hookscourt) July 25, 2020

Hey everyone I saw some reports of campaign supporting 4 player Split screen for campaign and just want to correct. Halo Infinite will be supporting 2 player split screen and 4 player online co-op for campaign. Sorry about the confusion. #haloinfinte

In more Halo Infinite multiplayer (yes, co-op counts as multiplayer), 343 has confirmed that the grappling hook will be available for use in the multiplayer, though it’ll funciton differently than in the campaign.

These new additions to the sandbox will also carry over to multiplayer, however they’ll function a bit differently as equipment items that can be picked up on the map. We look forward to talking more about multiplayer details soon.

As for when we’ll get actual PvP multiplayer. 343 says that the studio will be “back soon” with more details, though no specific date was mentioned, nor was it made known what we’ll see when the multiplayer is revealed.

Source: Halo Waypoint

While Halo Infinite’s gameplay reveal for was supposed to be a a crowning achievement for the next-gen console the Xbox Series X, it sadly, didn’t work out that way, with gamers from social media calling out the shooter’s graphics as being lackluster.

In an interview in Inside Gaming, Xbox marketing chief Aaron Greenberg states that Halo Infinite gameplay reveal was a “work in progress” and that the launch version will be a “visual showcase.”

We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. It’s July, we’re far from holiday [season]. You’re seeing a work in progress game. You probably watched the stream in 1080p, maybe, so we have put up a 4K60 on-demand stream. So people, I’d say, go back to look at the game in 4K60. We did that deliberately. It’s very hard to show the full power and graphic fidelity of what Xbox Series X will be able to deliver for you over a stream.

It is a work in progress. What you’re seeing today—and I can tell you, because we see build check-ins every week, and they make progress week after week—so between now and holiday, it’s just going to get better and better.

Greenvberg adds that for him he thought “it looked great,” and it “sounded great” as well. The Microsoft exec adds that it will be a “visual showcase” once it launches this holiday.

Trust us, when you play this holiday, it’s going to be a visual showcase for Xbox Series X.

You can watch Greenberg talk about the Halo Infinite graphics complaints at around the 16:25 mark in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZWaDv5YlFk&feature=youtu.be&t=982

Here’s to hoping Greenberg’s statements ring true come Halo Infinite’s launch. On the dev side of the spectrum, 343 Industries themselves commented on the Halo Infinite graphics crticism, which you can read about here.

Are you optmistic that Halo Infinite’s graphics will look considerably better at launch? Or did it look fine for you? Let us know your thoughts down below.

Source: Inside Gaming via PCGamer

Just a few days ago, Microsoft showed the latest Xbox Games Showcase event where Halo Infinite gameplay was shown off to millions of gamers around the world. Unfortunately, instead of impressing the heck out of gamers everywhere, the gameplay drew flack, as the Halo Infinite graphics criticism was heard all around the social media sphere.

This sentiment wasn’t lost on developer 343 Industries. In a press Q&A event, 343 studio head Chris Lee touched upon the Halo Infinite graphics criticism, here’s what he had to say:

Chris Lee: I think for the response on the graphics, the thing I hope is that folks get a chance to check out our 4K streaming assets, I think that really lets our game show itself in full fidelity. We are definitely still very much in development, we have some polishing and tuning that the team is working on to really bring the full potential of our experience to our fans later this year in Halo Infinite. We definitely are excited about the ambition of the title, of this open expansive campaign and we’ll make sure that it’s polished and ready to go when fans get their hands on it this Holiday.

The gameplay demo is a great example of how we’re running on Xbox Series X, you’ll be able to run at a solid 60 frames per second at up to 4K resolution. We’re bringing the highest fidelity experience that we’ve ever created. We’re able to do more than 10 times the processing power per pixel that we were able to do in Halo 5, which just allows us to create this experience that’s unlike anything that we’ve had in Halo before. In Halo Infinite we’ve really harnessed a lot of advanced rendering techniques, but also the immense power of the Xbox Series X. 

As someone who’s looking forward to getting an Xbox Series X at launch, I have to admit, the next-gen console’s killer app hasn’t exactly make me excited enough that I feel like I need to get the console for the title. Hopefully 343 Industries can polish it up a bit and make it stand out more when it’s shown again later this year.

Source: WCCFTech