Halo Infinite Is Officially The 'Biggest Launch' In Franchise History

No surprise this is Halo’s biggest launch. There’s been so much anticipation about it, a year delay, tons of Craig mems, an early free to play multiplayer release, gamepass gets the campaign day one… I would be more shocked if this wasn’t Halo’s biggest launch. Not to take away from what 343 accomplished here. They did a very fine job and deserve all the credit for all their hard work. Halo has always been Xbox’s flagship title, and all that hype (good or bad) was only helping give the game more hype. Congratulations 343 and Xbox!

Wouldn't of happened without game pass though.
Saying there's 25 million game pass users I'd wager at least half of that played halo infinite.

Actually scrap that, is this 20 million for the free to play multiplayer or for the campaign part. If its for the free multiplayer part then I'm sure that would of got 20 million without game pass

Which makes forza horizon 5's figures even way more impressive

Congrats 343! They made such a fun game I’ll be remembering for a very long time. Sounds silly but Master Chief has been a positive influence in my life when I was down and out or felt meaningless. The man doesn’t give up and runs to the fight. (Even though he’s not real😂)

Meanwhile over 80% drop in the population. As expected of a typical free to play game.

The real question is if they're able to keep the attention of the people that are currently still playing.

Judging by the countless baseline gameplay issues such a desync, games still not loading, and challenges not counting, I don't expect so.

Great to see the series back on top, especially when COD and Battlefield let everyone down this year.
I just hope they can keep the content flowing at a steady pace, such as new maps and game modes, as I have zero interest in Battle Pass progression for cosmetics.

When games are free* these days you'll get many more people downloading them.

*Gamepass™

@UltimateOtaku91 I wouldn't have played it without Gamepass, same goes for Forza don't really play racing games, but I had a blast playing Halo Infinite it's not revolutionary but the gameplay loop was fun.

@InterceptorAlpha People were shouting "Halo is back" while sharing pictures of hundreds of thousands playing on steam and watching on Twitch. And I warned them they were celebrating really early.

These numbers have completely disappeared and I've seen some polls of different Halo communities like mint blitz asking how often people are playing, and more than half have given up playing the game. And these are dedicated Halo fanbases.

The one list the game seems to still be doing well in is the US most played xbox games. It's third, behind COD and Fortnite. But Halo 5 did well there for quite a while too.

Congrats to 343! Well deserved as Infinite was my personal GOTY last year. I'm still playing every week and having a blast every time. Heck I even maxed out the BP. The last multiplayer I ever maxed anything out for was Uncharted 2. That was over a decade ago!

Best game I've played in years. Love it.

If a FTP game of one of the biggest franchises in gaming history doesn’t draw those numbers you’d worry. As others have said… the real story is the fall off in numbers. Unfortunately

@Xiovanni Best comment 😂
Nonetheless congrats for delivering a solid game!

This shows the completely different model that MS have adopted over the 'sales' based model.

Under a sales base model, its all about 'sales' and that determines 'success' which is what really ended up driving Activision into the ground because CoD sold more, so move more studio's to keep CoD coming year after year. Cyberpunk was a 'commercial' success...

Game Pass is a different metric. Its about Player 'engagement' and Subscriber retention. The emphasis is on the Player, not the 'commercial' success.

This is why MS are telling us 'Player' numbers - like over 25m have played Sea of Thieves, over 20m in Halo and 18m in Forza, where as Sony who are 'sales' focused too is R&C sold over 1m or Returnal selling over 560k copies (old numbers but illustrative of the 'difference').

That's also why MS don't give Console sales but Game Pass Subscriber numbers too. If Game Pass does continue to grow, then it stands to reason that MS games will continue to break their own launch records. Its not 'just' the fact that these games are 'free' on Game Pass, but also the fact that Game Pass, and these Games, are also on more platforms than just the 'Xbox'. Halo 5 (I believe) didn't release on PC - certainly not the same day as the console release. Therefore you also have the much greater user base as well as the removal of the 'price' barrier that Game Pass offers...

Bought it just for the campaign and glad I did. Wasn't the biggest fan of 4 and couldn't stand 5 but this campaign was extremely good. Best one from 343 by far and worthy of standing next to Bungie's work on the series.