While we know Xbox is stuck in all its fun new toys between Bethesda’s release of Starfield and its soon-to-win Activision Blizzard game piñata, it turns out it’s time to combine some sort of coordinated crusade. for the poor Halo Infinite again.
Yes, we all know how things started. Most people thought this campaign was pretty smart (I wasn’t), but it quickly became apparent that 343 didn’t know how to create or run Halo as a live service multiplayer call from the start.
But since its launch, 343 has worked tirelessly to solve it and now it’s done. They have managed to revolutionize at least the multiplayer component of the game abundantly (RIP Master Chief, which may now be limited). to appearances on Paramount Plus TV).
Now we’re about to achieve the fifth season of Halo Infinite, which is shaping up to be incredibly smart, after a series of faked seasons before. The “Reckoning” season kicks off in a week and includes in-demand features like AI in Forge, new Flood customization, Master Chief eulogy armor, and most importantly, Firefight’s return to the Halo series.
These are all wonderful things, which go up to some seasons of stuff now. But. . . It wasn’t enough to move the needle in any meaningful way.
Although things are going to improve a bit when the season starts, the trend line has been pretty mediocre. There aren’t enough people to give the game a second chance. At the time of writing, this is only the 30th most. . . It only has between 5 and 6,000 simultaneous Steam players at any given time, and even by the time the season launches, it only reaches 8-12,000.
Microsoft has consistently left Halo out of presentations over the past few years (it wasn’t discussed once at this year’s big summer 2023 show), and that turns out to be a mistake. It’s definitely worth it for Microsoft to stop getting into its acquisition frenzy for a minute and refocus on what was at least its flagship franchise here.
343 deserves more than it earned (what it got was usually layoffs) and Halo Infinite deserves another look after all those improvements. But unless Microsoft does its best to get the message across, I’m not sure what else can be done. . And even then, it may be too far behind schedule, with five seasons and two years to go, and with so many other multiplayer shooter options, it can be a hard sell for any marketing budget. You only have one chance to make a first impression and all that.
But yes, Xbox at least proves more than we’ve seen. Multiplayer has come a long way, even if all single-player content is frozen indefinitely. I’d love to see a genuine change in player mode. Numbers, but no matter how many innovations are made, I’m just not sure they’re planned.
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