To decipher what 343 Industries is operating on in particular for Halo Infinite, the Xbox Game Studios team releases periodic ‘Inside Infinite’ updates for players to grasp an understanding on the aim and the ambitions for the next mainline entry. At the start of March, elements surrounding quality of life components for Halo Infinite were discussed including the edge of the ring, duel wielding weapons, and playable elites.

But, March 2021 is to feature two Inside Infinite presentations from 343 Industries. Earlier in the week, the developer pressed that the next feature is to arrive in the coming days with an emphasis on the sound design. At least referencing the score and use of audio in prior Halo entries (Halo 4, Halo 5), fans criticize the direction as it deviates from the original approach of the Bungie trilogy and ultimately overwhelms the player.

In elaborating on the new pursuit for audio with Halo Infinite, 343 Industries explains that is rethinking how audio is handled and creates a new system that better projects sounds that do not throw all of it at once or layer altogether.

For Infinite we first identified our core pillars, one of which was mentioned above as “Hope.” Another falls into the “ancient mystery/sci-fi” category and a third is “military/honor/sense of duty.” Connecting each of those together are common themes like a sense of wonder as well as heroism. We set out to bring back that brightness in tone from early Halo scores while continuing to evolve the palette with new voices in the industry (at least new to Halo) to honor what has come before while introducing new themes and styles.

Of course, this centers around the fact that you are the Master Chief. You are that ultimate super soldier with an unfaltering sense of duty while maintaining compassion, blasting alien baddies with this beautiful and even uplifting music as a soundtrack. An important aspect we identified for the composers (and factored into how we selected them) was having a level of comfort writing in major keys, not being shy to end with a major chord or inserting one where it might not be expected.

And that last bit plays into another aspect we were after by not always moving to the next expected chord in a given chord progression but instead “surprise me!” One quote that Paul Crocker, our Associate Creative Director, shared early on with the entire Infinite team was to “take the familiar and flip it to create something surprising” but not wholly unfamiliar. Musically, that made a lot of sense and became one of our guideposts along the way.

Joel Yager, Halo Infinite Music Supervisor

“Our ultimate goal with the music has been to say to those who have never played Halo, ‘Welcome.’ And to those who have played and love Halo like we do, ‘Welcome Home,’” Yager adds on to the matter. While the team strives to create a new experience audibly, 343 Industries still wants to hone in on the familiarity that this is still Halo without coming off foreign to returning players.

As to what 343 Industries will do different this time around, the team reflected on the criticisms dealt by its players and to better utilize it for the coming project. “With this feedback in mind, we decided to focus on strengthening the excitement and impact of Halo’s combat through improved audio,” Sotaro Tojima, Halo Infinite Audio Director explains. “We established the concept just months after shipping Halo 5, and since then our team has worked together to deliver on this goal.

“Our overall approach to land this concept was delivering the key combat sounds in a clear and impactful way. To achieve that, we had to reduce sound density dramatically in a natural way. Of course, this isn’t really as simple as it sounds. As I mentioned above, our audio contents and systems were designed for detailed and rich audio for Halo 4 and 5, so this new direction was pretty much the opposite approach compared to our last two games.”

One approach to rectify the problem is creating shorter sound queues for assets in-game. For the sake of the post, 343 Industries illustrated an example by featuring a sound comparison of the Battle Rifle from both Halo 5 and Halo Infinite. Tojima further explains the project in the following:

There are many gun sounds in our game – multiple enemies, teammates, and players are constantly firing weapons. In our past Halo titles, we handled each gun-fire’s listening-volume purely by distance. So, all gun sound volumes were exactly the same if they’re originating from the same distance. As a result, we had too many loud gun sounds constantly overwhelming a player which made it very difficult to detect true threat position.

The new Halo Infinite audio system detects all gun sounds frame by frame, and prioritizes them in a threat order to decide output sound volume for each gun. With this mechanic, if a gunshot is aimed at player, the sound will be louder and if it’s not aimed at player or if it’s a teammate’s gunfire, the sound is still audible but quieter. then you could hear only threat sounds clear.

With the cleaner audio feedback, player can ascertain the appropriate threat to make the right action quicker and more accurately, which results in a more immersive and exciting combat experience in Halo Infinite.

And with the new pursuit to lesser overwhelm the player as sounds stack over one another, 343 Industries in addition also covers its tracks for a new sound “portal” system in which sound comes to the listener in a more organic approach than directly from the source through walls and objects. “In a room-and-portal system, sounds travel from room to room through doorways, windows, and other ‘portals’”, Halo Infinite Lead Audio Technical Designer Chad Thompson explains.

“These paths are used to determine the shortest distance the sound could travel to get from the room the sound is playing from to the room where the listener is located. We then calculate the angles and distances of the path segments, and use that to determine how much to filter (i.e. muffle) the sound.

“Lastly, we project the sound out along the path between the listener and the closest portal to create a ‘virtual position’ to simulate sound propagation. This “virtual source” is where the sound then plays from, so that it sounds like it is coming from the direction of the doorway, rather than directly from the source itself.”

Unexpected from the feature is the introduction for a new Bandished weapon, the Skewer. 343 Industries includes audio files of the firearm to listen to and an image of the weapon which you can view below:

Elsewhere in reports for Halo Infinite as of late circulates around the alleged release window for the game. In that, voice actor Varlon Roberts disclosed the game being pushed to release in November. Fans presume a November 15 timeframe to reflect the 20th anniversary for Halo: Combat Evolved. You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you intrigued by the feature on the sound design for Halo Infinite?

Halo Infinite is scheduled to arrive sometime in fall 2021 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Source: 343 Industries