343 Industries and Microsoft may surprise us: we may not have to wait until December to get our hands on a new Halo instalment.

We’ve known for a long time that the multiplayer component of Halo Infinite will be free-to-play, which is a test for the Redmond company in the F2P market that is slowly being filled by all the publishers (Sony isn’t there yet, but it has plans to expand on this front). Now we’re hearing new rumours from several places at once, but we’re only linking to one of them.

November 15 is the 20th anniversary of the Halo franchise, as the first instalment, Halo: Combat Evolved, was released on November 15, 2001 (at least in North America), and it held up quite nicely among the original Xbox opening titles. And twenty years later (this Monday), the Xbox Series X Halo Infinite Limited Edition bundle will be available. Earlier, the odd Halo Infinite Early Access Digital bundle surfaced, but Microsoft quickly removed it from the Microsoft Store. The Yoroi armour is rumoured to be available the next three weeks: November 23-29, January 4-10, February 1-7.

It sounds odd that the limited edition Xbox Series X console for Halo Infinite will be available nearly a month before the game launches, but here’s the exciting thing: rumours are that the multiplayer portion of Halo Infinite will launch as a surprise as early as November 15! If this information is accurate, then Microsoft could be taking a big step forward in the first-person shooter market, as Halo is a pretty popular franchise (although maybe not as popular as it was in the mid-2000s), and a free multiplayer would only help Phil Spencer’s cause.

It’s not official, of course, but as there’s not much time before the truth is out, it might be worth trusting the rumours this time. What is official, however, is the release date for Halo Infinite: on December 8, Master Chief will return on Xbox Series, PC and Xbox One, but will also be on Xbox Game Pass, as well as Xbox Cloud Gaming, to keep people in the hunt.

Source: WCCFTech