From Xbox to PS5: Halo's Incredible 25-Year Transformation Plotted in Graphics Comparison

I'd also like to give a shoutout to John at Digital Foundry for doing a great comparison between the OG, the remaster and the remake and how he highlights just how good the remake looks. He also talked about how the dev team remedied some of the issues that were present in Halo Infinite with the remake. Great stuff all around.

It was more impressive when it came out. The remaster is merely on par with a modern AAA title but when Halo first came out it set benchmarks with its draw distance, sense of scale, dynamic lighting, character models ect.

I think it's not progressed at all in the sense that how it looks now is nothing we haven't seen before in other PS5 games and isn't even best in class in any aspect. It's just modernised version of Halo without pushing any boundaries, unlike the first game's visual presentation. The visual 'progress' is only down to better hardware, which is an expectation, and not creative development.

What is the performance of the base ps5?

@TheDarts The scale of the original absolutely blew me away and I still think it holds up today. Being in an open field and watching the enemy ships descend was incredible.

I haven't played it yet but this remake does look very good.

@TheDarts
bro why are you so negative, game looks gorgeous, not everything needs to be boundary breaking, some things can simply be beautiful.
Honestly if anything Halo Aniversary is by far the worst looking version of the bunch.

As someone who has no real history with halo i'm very excited to play this, the game looks awesome.

I gonna be honest paid for early access through GPU series x, played for a few hours.
Got refund £20 today.
I really am not a nostalgia gamer and it did in a way feel old and not that graphically advanced.
Oh well back to Splatoon raiders, which seems to be great fun at the moment.

Since HFW and LOU2 and GOWR nothing this generation has taken my eyes to heaven.
I don’t think they have the time and shear level of detail in games development today and of course the cost to do that pure high quality.
Pro brings the best out of games since PSSR2.0 though.

For better or worse, the visual style is definitely on par with what we've been getting from the more recent Halo games. Definitely a shame to see some of the architecture from the original game losing its older-relic/ruins looking visual identity in favor of the kinda slimmed-out, shiny, clean stylized Forerunner tech (the structure at 0:30-0:35 shows that pretty well), but not the worst thing ever considering they're seemingly trying to give a level of consistency to their Halo rings with what 343 has been putting out since they got the IP. Without question, the graphical fidelity is leaps and bounds ahead of the MCC, but I think we need to see what this translation looks like for Halo 2, 3, and maybe even Reach to really be sold on it fully. The warthog run at the end of Halo 3 would be amazing in this graphic style.

@LordOfTurnips why are you taking it as negative? I said the remake looks as good as any AAA game on PS5. It's clearly a looker. The point is was making is that I don't see it as progress. Of course the game is going to look better on today's machines. The original version did things graphically that set new standards for gaming. The new version doesn't do anything visually that we haven't already seen, or even tries to. Not that it has to, but if we're talking about how the visuals have evolved, well they haven't, they've simply been improved and updated to take advantage of better hardware and graphics engines. No progress has been made.

You should see my 25 year transformation it's not as impressive as this haha 😂

@Mr-Cage You said it. My 25 year remaster didn't do very well either!

I'm actually really impressed with how it looks. If only I liked Halo... It wasn't enough to keep me interested in Xbox and isn't interesting enough now to revisit. Still, beautiful looking game! If they keep it up, I may eventually revisit one of the more recent ones provided there is multiplayer.

@TheDarts I don't know, the water on the silent cartographer beach looks absolutely best in class.

But yes, in general it's not exactly a leap forward for graphics, but at the same time games rarely are now. The engines and the tech running the games is basically the same for so many games, and it's all so cutting edge at this point that it's almost impossible for a single team to come along and move the tech forward for a single game. Plus, there's only so realistic things can get. There's less and less margin at this point for games to push forward into, whereas 3D in games was still pretty new when Halo came out. There are probably more polygons on a single Grunt in Campaign evolved there entire levels in OG halo.

@D6rkLordS6t6n I'm hopeful eventually they could add a multiplayer to this!
Maybe it's half there but got pushed out as just a campaign due to GTA coming out.
They should add a multiplayer in my opinion it would help sales a whole lot if they got it right!

Oh, look. It's gaming content on PushSquare.

The water effects in the OG version are better looking than the re-master and almost on par with the UE5 version.

I'm having a laugh here, but why does PS5 version lose 24 bullets in the assault rifle? 🤣

@TheDarts exactly. I remember my father getting my brother and I an Xbox. We played it on our little CRT TV. Game was unbelievable for us at the time for a console especially. Like you said putting more polygons with better hardware is to be expected for graphics. I don’t see what there is to feel good about considering the game is old. Easy work to do to remake others work which was from generations ago. Halo on the OG Xbox was special. Just as Killzone 2 really showed what the PS3 could do.