Halo Infinite fixes some problems in the inter-season update, but there is still a long way to go

Halo Infinite fixes some problems in the inter-season update

The launch of the Halo Infinite campaign last December marked the arrival of a highly anticipated title, convincing in many of its aspects, without however being able to solve many of the technical problems we encountered in the preview / flighting phase. But at the end of February, the Halo Infinite Season 1 update arrived, which promised to fix one of the biggest problems we reported, which was the fact that the first person animations were updated at a slower speed than the refresh rate of the game.

So what's the situation in Halo Infinite currently like? The truth is that even if some serious problems have been fixed with the recent patch, others have not been touched in the least, with the consequent degradation of the presentation, a situation particularly evident in the single player campaign.

But we must be clear. There are no game breakers in our critical analysis: the foundations of the game are solid but it lacks the finish one would expect from such a very high budget production. For example, HDR is good in some cases, and although it has improved since launch, HDR mode does not perform as well as titles like Forza Horizon 5, Ori and the Will of the Wisp and Gears of War 5. Neither does Dolby Vison. fully convinces.

John Linneman and Alex Battaglia discuss the changes made by the recent Halo Infinite patch during a multiplayer battle.

Watch on YouTube. The problem with reduced frame-rate first-person animations was particularly evident in actions such as throwing a grenade, crouching, or reloading very bulky weapons such as a rocket launcher. The interpolation between key frames seemed to be missing at the launch of the final game but the good news is that now the problem is perfectly fixed. The fact is that this problem extends to other areas such as campaign cut-scenes, which exhibit noticeable judder when a new frame is rendered, while camera movements and character animations do not update.

Others key elements still don't work as they should: the pre-rendered opening footage runs at 30fps but without regularized frame-pacing. Although it is clear that that video is the result of a great deal of work, one cannot fail to see that the FMV playback does not work well. Furthermore, the intensity of the black color was not adequate for the launch, and so it still is.

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On the other hand, there are still problems rendering new frames on both PC and Xbox. On PC you need to turn on game v-sync to enable dynamic resolution scaling. But even so there are sporadic frame drops. This situation can be bypassed by forcing v-sync from the GPU control panel. This is an issue we reported at launch and it has not yet been fixed. On Xbox, on the other hand, there is a 120Hz stuttering problem with VRR active: the game drops frames while this configuration generally produces smooth and stable frame-rates in other games.

Ultimately, if we look into the along with this infra-seasonal update there is certainly some progress. Among these we certainly mention the fluidity of the first-person animations, which have a huge impact on the aesthetic aspect of the game, because they are the first thing you notice. But there is still a lot of work to be done and at this point it is natural to wonder if these problems stem from the fact that Halo Infinite is actually two games in one, with the multiplayer component actually functioning as a 'game as a service'. .

This would partly explain why the campaign is not getting the same attention in development. This situation may change once co-op mode is released but we would like the game to be refined and fixed before that major update arrives.