‘Halo Infinite’ given early multiplayer launch for 20th anniversary

The latest game in the Halo series has been released three weeks early to coincide with the franchise’s 20th anniversary.

Halo: Infinite was originally supposed to be released last year but was delayed until December 2021.

But on Monday, at an Xbox 20th anniversary event, Microsoft revealed the multiplayer part of the game was being released the same day.

The single-player campaign is still being withheld until 8 December.

Halo was, at its peak in the mid-2000s, known as much for its online multiplayer as for the story-led campaign.

With this latest game, Microsoft has released the multiplayer part separately as a free-to-play title – a popular business strategy for many online games but a significant shift for the Halo series.

The release was widely celebrated by fans keen to play the multiplayer, which was reviewed well in early previews after a tumultuous development cycle for the game as a whole.

Piers Harding-Rolls, from Ampere Analysis, said the game was already setting records for player numbers on a Microsoft game on PC, though there were complaints about the levelling system being “slow-paced and potentially frustrating”.

But because it was free to play, it could be used “as a promotional tool for the launch of the campaign version of the game… and for sign-ups to Microsoft’s subscription service, Game Pass, which will include the premium version of the game at launch”.

“A substantial audience alongside the full suite of in-game monetisation that is being deployed suggests it also has a strong chance of being the most commercially successful Halo multiplayer ever,” Mr Harding-Rolls added.

The early launch means Halo is also directly competing against major November shooter releases Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty: Vanguard.