Bungie: In A League Of Their Own News

Whilst the gameplay certainly seems to suggest a continuation of Halo's decent multiplayer heritage, the visuals of the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta have so far been an incredibly lack-lustre affair. With no depth of field effects or anti-aliasing techniques, the trial run of the Xbox 360's number one brand has been more like a visual starvation than a feast.

However, the response from Bungie in reports across the pond doesn't seem to justify hope that the studio will be flicking a switch and turning on the next-gen graphical glory come the game's September release. Speaking to online US industry website Next-Gen.biz, Bungie's Frank O'Conner retorted that, "Multiplayer is by necessity a more sterile iteration of our graphical style and will always be tuned for performance and elegance rather than jamming the screen full of pixels. We think that the final aesthetic look of our game will be judged at launch in September and in part based on the more intense single player spaces."

O'Conner's later remark that "we're competing with ourselves, and not simply trying to match the aesthetic of other games," at the very least suggests they aren't worried about Halo 3 being compared to the current next-gen visual benchmark - Epic Games' Gears of War. As one the leading franchises in videogaming however, his comments aren't likely to reassure fans that Master Chief's next-gen debut will be up to the visual challenge laid down by Marcus Fenix in 2006.

Despite rarely rising to the opportunity to set the record straight, O'Conner at least finished off his chat with a hint that there'd be continued polishing between now and the September release: "I think it's safe to say there will be lots of visual surprises in Campaign and a few nifty graphical improvements in multiplayer."