Daily Briefing: Monday 26th July

Halo Infinite's first playable preview could happen real soon

Developers 343 Industries recently confirmed that "hundreds of thousands" of players who register for the currently-live Halo Insiders programme will net an invite to the game's upcoming technical test - which could happen as soon as next weekend. According to their official development update, this first technical test will focus on the game's new Bot Arena mode that pits four players against four AI-controlled opponents.

• In the update, 343 outline that they want to begin technical testing with "a reasonable number of participants" before expanding that number for future tests. The goal is to get every register Halo Insider a chance to go hands on with the game, with the developer planning to hold further "flights" in the run-up to release that will include additional gameplay modes like Big Team Battle and PVP Arena.

Steam Deck's 30FPS is apparently the "floor" of Valve's testing

While the recently-announced Steam Deck has won over a lot of players, there are those who remain unconvinced by handheld's 30FPS target. To allay some fears, Valve into a bit of detail around how the Steam Deck's 30FPS target "refers to the floor of what [Valve] consider playable in [their] performance testing." Games played during testing have "consistently met and exceeded that bar so far."

• That clarification comes courtesy of Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais who, replying to fans on Twitter, said that players can choose to prioritise framerate or performance as a means to preserve the Steam Deck's battery. He also added that the Steam Deck has been able to handle all new-release games in testing "without issues", so the Steam Deck looks like a pretty robust little machine at this stage.

Sega admit they may have jumped the gun with their recent Sonic announcement

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and, while that is obviously very exciting, Sega got a little too excited with their recently announcement of a new Sonic title releasing next year. They confirmed back in May that they're working on a new game set to release in 2022 and...that was it as far as details went. It was incredibly vague even for a teaser, and left fans more bemused than excited.

• Sega have since acknowledged the issue, with Sonic Team lead Takashi Iizuka saying admitting in a new interview that the reveal was "a bit premature." Iizuka highlighted that Sonic Team hadn't announced a new mainline Sonic game since Sonic Forces and so didn't want fans to worry that nothing was in the works, plus Iizuka says he wanted to mark the anniversary with a reveal. More actual details on the 2022 release is coming "eventually."