The rumours were true: the new Halo instalment did indeed pull a silent multiplayer launch for the 20th anniversary of Xbox.
343 Industries and Microsoft announced that Halo Infinite’s first season has launched. Joseph Staten, the game’s creative lead, writes on Steam, “As we prepare for a significant increase in the number of players jumping into Halo Infinite on launch day, December 8, we want to ensure all our systems are good-to-go. While you may experience some bumps and bugs during this beta period, it does mark the official start of Halo Infinite Season 1, with all day-one maps and modes enabled as well as the full Season 1 Battle Pass. This means all the Battle Pass and customization items you earn or purchase during the beta will stay with you after December 8.”
Halo Waypoint reveals that the first season will not last for three months. The explanation is reasonable: “You will notice in the Battle Pass UI that Season 1 will last from now until May 2022, which is a change from our original goal of shipping a new Season every three months. We decided to extend Season 1 to give ourselves more time to ensure Season 2 meets our high-quality bar. So we can finish development for Season 2 healthily and sustainably for our team.
With the Season 1 extension, we aren’t just stretching out our original Season 1 plan. Indeed, we took this opportunity to add additional events, customization items and other content to Season 1 to make it an even richer experience from start to finish. For example, starting today and through the first week, you can log in to Halo Infinite to unlock a free collection of 20th anniversary-themed cosmetics. In January, after all of you have had a chance to play Halo Infinite’s expansive and adventure-filled campaign starting December 8th. All of us on the Halo Infinite team have had an opportunity to recharge our energy shields over the holidays; we will have more details to share about the Season 1 event calendar as well as our Season 2, campaign co-op, and Forge release plans,” the site said. The season’s opening event will be Fracture: Tenrai. It will begin on November 23, marking the first of multiple opportunities to earn the Season’s samurai-themed armour pieces and other customization items.
And on SteamDB, we see that Halo Infinite is now Microsoft’s most successful game on Steam. It set a record of 272586 concurrent players, which the Redmond-based company has never pulled off. Then again, being free-to-play has helped matters a lot.
Halo Infinite will launch on December 8 on Xbox Series, PC (Steam, Microsoft Store), and Xbox One. If Master Chief’s return is massive, the Xbox Series should take the top of the charts in December in North America.
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