Halo Infinite interview: the animation behind the Xbox Series X shooter

techradar.com:

You'll know that Microsoft Game Studios and 343 Industries are the key players who brought Halo Infinite to life. However, there's a multitude of support studios who worked on Infinite in the background, all doing their bit to help make Halo Infinite as good as it could possibly be.

One such supporter is CounterPunch – a Virtuos Studio, an animation studio that helped give life to many of Halo Infinite's characters. From Cortana to the loveable Pilot, CounterPunch was at the forefront of bringing its motion capture expertise to the popular Xbox Series X/S first-person shooter.

In an exclusive interview with TechRadar Gaming, we spoke to three staff members. That included Kay Arutyunyan, general manager of CounterPunch, alongside Mason Gardner and Kyle Renteria, lead animator and animation supervisor at CounterPunch respectively. 

At what stage of the development process was CounterPunch approached by 343 Industries to help work on Halo Infinite?

Kyle: CounterPunch was approached by 343 Industries (343i) to support the cinematics once motion capture and cinematic development were ready for animation processing just before the pandemic-led lockdowns in 2020.

Mason: This was a title our entire team was very excited about. And it was an incredible project to continue to work on through the early days of lockdown.

Halo Infinite was famously delayed at the final hour. How did the extra development time help the team realize its goals?

Kyle: Our involvement in the cinematic development was completed before the delay was announced. We did, however, go back and improve a small portion of the original work due to the delay. 

Mason: Our goal for working in cinematics animation is to make the characters relatable and believable to the