Trivia / Halo Infinite

• Acting for Two: Jen Taylor voices The Weapon as young and excitable, the elderly Dr. Halsey and of course Cortana. Coupled with the fact Cortana is also shown in different stages of her life, it's quite a testament how she was able to make them all distinct despite all being related.
• Author's Saving Throw: The game released in a very unstable condition, it had numerous bugs and glitches across the campaign and multiplayer that were impacting game modes and there was a distinct lack of consistent content that was being promised along with promised features and fixes were being continually delayed or eventually canceled with a claim of UI limitations. About 9 months after launch there was a management change at 343 Industries that was clearly in response to the imploding player base. Post change 343 has been diplomatic about the situation but made some redemption through the release of Forge. The last update of 2022 gave a surprise release of the Forge Custom Game Browser, de-locking some basic armor colors across all armor core and trying to patch some persistent glitches, long-standing requests that were scheduled for several months later and 343 said they wanted to reward players patience. The end-of-2022 patch also included the ability to replay completed missions and even side objectives in the single-player campaign, a long requested feature and a staple of previous Halo games, but rather uncommon for a Wide-Open Sandbox game (which is apparently why it took so long to implement).
• Content Leak: The first Technical Preview for Infinite accidentally contained some files which pertained to the campaign, allowing dataminers to give away a few spoilers for it.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: Several tie-in promotions that unlock in-game skins, as well as the novel Halo: Shadows of Reach, were released in late-2020 around when the game was originally set to release.
• Deleted Scene: A mid-credits sequence involving Master Chief and Echo-216 encountering UNSC friendlies was Dummied Out.
• Descended Creator: Joseph Staten, who served as the game's Head of Creative, also lends his voice to the Grunts, along with the Superintendent Personal AI in multiplayer.
• Development Gag: Early plans for the original Halo: Combat Evolved have been adopted into this game, specifically a more fully developed setting with parts of the Halo ring destroyed and animals being part of the environment.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Chris Preston, the Marine who has lost his ability to speak in the Unspoken trailer and so uses British Sign Language, is played by deaf actor Jamal Ajala.
• Dueling Works: Against Battlefield 2042, which Infinite one-upped by surprise releasing its multiplayer component a month early, right in the middle of Battlefield's early access phase.
• Dummied Out: Partially because the game engine was an expansion of the previous game data and physics, nearly every prior weapon going back to Halo Reach could be found in the game files. Some were a bit more refined with updated textures and animation, indicating they were being considered for inclusion in this game.
• Early Draft Tie-In: The Skiff was cut from the game as a drivable vehicle, but that didn't stop a Mega Construx set from being made focusing on it.
• In Memoriam: There is an in-game Forerunner memorial with the letters 'JH' written in Forerunner Glyphs on it. This is a tribute to Jens Haunch, world technical art lead for the Campaign who passed away in 2020. The credits also contains an additional dedication to Brazilian voice actor Caio César Nunes Oliveira.
• Meme Acknowledgment: 343 Community Director Brian Jarrard has embraced the "Craig" memes that spawned from a Brute in the demo.
• Milestone Celebration: The game’s release date is close to the 20th anniversary of Halo: Combat Evolved, and by extension the 20th anniversary of Xbox as a whole. Multiplayer was given a surprise early release directly on the 20th anniversary itself, November 15.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The Discover Hope trailer plays a bit differently from the final version of the scene, whether due to the scene changing a bit in the two years before release, or because the trailer was intentionally truncated for time and dramatic effect.
  • In Discover Hope, the Chief skips right through the Pilot's diagnostics in order to get a mission update. In the final game, he actually does allow the Pilot to configure his suit before disconnecting himself from the wires.
  • In the trailer, the Chief grabs an Assault Rifle before departing the Pelican, whereas in the final version he takes the Pilot's Sidekick, grabbing an Assault Rifle instead while he's navigating the wreckage of a UNSC ship.
• Moved to the Next Console: A mixed case. Due to its planned release falling at the same time as the release of Microsoft's successor to the Xbox One, the Xbox Series X|S, Microsoft has elected to make Infinite a launch title for the Series X|S; however, it was announced to still be coming to the Xbox One as well. The game was then delayed past launch, but was still released on Xbox One.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The BTB map "Highpower" features a CAS-class Assault Carrier as a skybox decoration. This specific model is the same one created for and used in the Sins of the Prophets game mod.
• Orphaned Reference:
  • A Brute in the bridge cutscene of the "Warship Gbraakon" mission can be spotted carrying a Covenant Carbine, a weapon otherwise absent from the game. The fact that this like most of the game’s cutscenes is in-engine just adds to the puzzle.
  • The Skiff as a drivable vehicle was cut from the game, but several wreckages can be found dotted around the map, and the Skiff is also mentioned by name in an audio log.
• The Other Marty: Spartan Griffin was portrayed in motion capture by Verlon Roberts, who announced in an interview that he was due to voice the character as well, but in the final game he is voiced by Andrew Kishino. Given that Roberts revealed his role in a random interview before it was even known Griffin would be in the game, it is possible that the change was due to an NDA breach.
• Recycled Set: The large storage rooms inside the House of Reckoning containing the battlefield recreations are obviously slightly-modified versions of the Gbraakon's hangar bay.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • According to former Bungie and 343 Industries developer Vic DeLeon, a grappling hook had been conceptualised during the development of several previous Halo games, but none of the attempts ever got past the experimental stage.
  • The Aversion of Critical Existence Failure for vehicles was planned all the way back for Halo 2; the E3 2004 demo for that game showed off the ability for vehicles to reach a critical state and hinted that Subsystem Damage would be implemented, but ultimately both of those things would be cut and not reappear until this game.
  • The original Halo: Combat Evolved intended to be more immersive in the environment of the Halo, with exotic animal life and parts of the ring in disrepair. Due to the production timetable of the game and the Sequel Escalation that ensued they were never able to really go into depth in these places. This game shows the Halo partially destroyed and animals scurrying around.
• Schedule Slip: The game was intended to be a launch title, but was delayed to Fall 2021 by Microsoft. Its beta multiplayer was released on November 15, 2021 and its campaign on December 8.
• Sequel Gap: Previous mainline Halo games consistently came out three years apart (with the exception of Halo 4 which released after only two years). After Halo 5's release (and subsequent mixed reception), there was a distinct lack of information on when this game would come out. It took three years for a teaser, and nearly another year for a more official first trailer announcing Holiday 2020, making it five years. Then it was delayed again to 2021, which makes the release gap twice as long as prior games in the series.
• The Other Darrin: Atriox is voiced by Ike Amadi, replacing John DiMaggio, who voiced him in Halo Wars 2. This is not Ike Amadi's first time replacing another actor in the Halo franchise, having previously replaced Mike Colter as Jameson Locke in Halo 5: Guardians.
• Throw It In!: The multiplayer map "High Power" was initially developed as a flexible test bed for Big Team Battle modes in Infinite, but its design was so well-received among playtesters that it was made an official map.
• Troubled Production: The lengthy development period for the game came from both gamer and internal reactions to how Halo 5 turned out, with 343 rethinking their entire approach to the franchise. Limitations with the Game Engine were only becoming more apparent with each new game (some of the code went all the way back to Halo 2, if not Combat Evolved) and they felt they needed to rework it from the ground up in order to accomplish the open world, live service, next gen game they wanted to do. While Microsoft has endless resources and brought in several other developers to help, building that engine in conjunction with constant changes to the game development was not an easy task. The July 2020 gameplay reveal was a real mixed bag, while audiences were impressed with the visual redesign and the unique presence the Banished gave, the graphical fidelity and character animation was seen as lacking, and a release date of only six months away. The announcement of Joseph Staten, the original cinematic director at Bungie, returning to Halo was seen as a positive, but the year long delay was also applauded to give them some breathing room to make it right (and also coincide with the 20th anniversary of the first game). The game as released still had numerous bugs and graphical issues but was comparatively stable next to similar AAA games of this scale, and was generally seen as the best Halo game 343 has made.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game's open world was originally envisioned as being larger and less linear, naturally compared to Breath of the Wild in terms of scope. Troubled Production and an acknowledgement of deadlines led to the downsizing of the game's scale in 2019.
  • The Banished's Grunt communications officer, Glibnub, was a very late addition to the game, only added after Joseph Staten felt that the Banished Propaganda Towers you find around the game world as a destructible collectable needed a bit more personality.
  • Early concept art indicated that the Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios would have played some role, with one image showing him interacting with Kelly-087 and several other humans in long-robed outfits on Sanghelios. Another piece of concept art showed that Doisac was at one point meant to be destroyed by a burst from a Halo rather than by a group of Guardians.
  • There's a fair bit of Dummied Out cut content for data miners to explore:
    • There's a wide range of leftover weapons from Halo 5: Guardians in functional states, leading to the possibility that weapons such as the classic Shotgun and Fuel Rod Gun were intended for this game.
    • New but unfinished additions include the Brute Spiker (a weapon last seen in Reach, and which would be a sensible addition to this game with its renewed focus on the Brutes), a kind of stasis gun (internally named the "Proto Skeet Shooter", and named the "Trap Shooter" on its placeholder in-game model), and perhaps most tantalising, an untextured but driveable Cougar (a cut vehicle from Halo Wars). The Gauss and Needler Warthog can also be found in the files, with both having crudely modelled but unique placeholder turrets.
    • There are unused "boss" versions of the Shade turret and the Ghost, likely intended to be used as high-value targets. In addition, there's a Wraith variant interestingly called "Escharum's Wraith", suggesting a setpiece in which he would use a custom Wraith was cut.
    • There is an unused mid-credits scene, featuring The Pilot detecting a friendly ID tag in space with the Chief by his side, serving as a Book End for the opening cutscene.
    • Another cut vehicle is the Skiff, a Banished troop-transport hovercraft that exists untextured in the files. This one is noteworthy for the many Orphaned References to it: There's a Mega Construx set for the Skiff, you can find the odd wreckage of the vehicle in-game, and it's mentioned in an audio log. This seems to suggest the Skiff's absence at the game's release was a very late compromise.
  • Concept art reveals that the Ravager was originally designed as a Forerunner weapon rather than a Banished one, tentatively named the "Slagmaker".

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