Halo fans got their first significant introduction to Halo Infinite over the previous weekend through developer 343 Industries’ beta program.
The technical preview, as devs call it, showcased the game’s multiplayer over three maps populated with various types of enemy bots.
Naturally, the interwebs are flooded with first impressions, and Digital Foundry is leading the pack. The prominent YouTube gaming channel dropped its breakdown of the beta’s performance a couple of days ago and made many valuable observations.
To nobody’s surprise (most probably), the game ran wonderfully on the Xbox Series X and S. Both current-gen consoles managed to maintain the frame rate targets of 60fps while also being comfortable with 120fps outputs.
Notably, performance was not flawless as the beta saw some juddering at high frame rates on the Series X. However, the Series S faced no such issues.
Halo Infinite on older-gen consoles is another story. The Xbox One X did a decent job maintaining a 30fps while also aiming for higher resolutions. But the Xbox One S struggled to get to 30fps even after deploying dynamic resolution scaling.
Here, Digital Foundry expressed their worries about how these consoles will run Infinite’s more visually demanding single-player campaign and added that this might force Halo diehards to consider an upgrade.
In terms of resolution, Halo Infinite scales in tandem with fps targets, so you can expect 4K when playing at 60fps and around 1440p when at 120fps on the Series X.
However, this resolution is not locked, and the Series X managed to push 1800p at 60fps and between 1080p and 1440p at 120fps. The Series S hit 1080p in both its frame rate modes and only really dipped when targeting 120fps.
At 120fps, it hovered at around 720p, but it also went all the way down to 540p at times.
The Xbox One X also attempted 4K, but, of course, this was restricted to 30fps. The Xbox One S operated in the same fps field but had to dip to 540p to maintain it.
Even this was a struggle for what is currently the oldest Xbox console on the market, so it does not spell well for those still playing on it.
It’s important to note that these results are limited to the Halo Infinite beta, and 343 Industries still has plenty of time to make the necessary fixes.
It will be essential for devs to make sure that these fixes apply across platforms and to single-player and multiplayer features.
Compared to Halo Infinite’s first gameplay trailer from June 2020, the game has already improved significantly, so there’s no doubt that 343 will incorporate the necessary changes before the game finally launches this holiday season on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
About Halo Infinite
Halo Infinite is an upcoming first-person shooter game developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios.
It is the sixth entry in the series and serves as a re-imagining of the franchise, with new features, mechanics and gameplay elements. As for the story, it is going to be a direct continuation of Master Chief’s story from Halo 5: Guardians, in his “greatest adventure yet to save humanity!”
The game was originally cited to be released alongside the upcoming Xbox Series consoles but has since been delayed to 2021.
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