Halo Infinite launched with high expectations and had a fantastic start. However, fewer and fewer players are still playing Microsoft’s flagship shooter. MeinMMO tells you the reasons.
When Halo Infinite unexpectedly launched its highly anticipated multiplayer earlier than announced on November 15, 2021, the hype was immense. Shooter fans flocked to Halo Infinite, and the mood among players and critics was fantastic. Even in the MeinMMO editorial team reacted very positively to the game.
At launch, over 200,000 Steam players were playing Halo Infinite simultaneously, making it one of the top 10 most popular games on Steam. On January 25, the official Twitter account of Halo announced that Halo Infinite has over 20 million players. This made it the largest launch in Halo history (via Twitter).
However, just about 3 months after the launch of the multiplayer, the game is losing more and more players. And while the game still has mostly positive reviews on Steam, only 65% of players rated Halo Infinite positively in the last 30 days.
What happened?
Interest in Halo Infinite is declining on Steam, Xbox, and Twitch
The changing mood around Halo Infinite is not just evident in the Steam reviews. There is also a general decline in player interest in Halo Infinite.
How popular is the game currently? The declining interest in Halo Infinite is clearly reflected in the numbers from early February 2022:
- On Steam, the player base for Halo Infinite averages around 10,000 to 20,000 daily players – a fraction of the launch numbers.
- Also on Xbox, the shooter is no longer in the top 5 most played games. It is currently in 6th place – right behind Roblox. This is remarkable, as the Halo games have been the prestige games for Xbox for 20 years.
- On Twitch, Halo Infinite faces the toughest challenges: The game often fails to reach the top 50 most popular games on the streaming platform (via Forbes)
This trend seems to be a consequence of a prolonged negative sentiment in the shooter’s fan communities. The atmosphere was so negative that drastic measures were taken on Reddit.
But why is the game, despite initial enthusiasm, facing so much criticism?
Technical issues and lack of content are the biggest problems
What is behind the downfall? Even though Halo Infinite faces significantly fewer public issues than Battlefield 2042 or Call of Duty, some things have been bothering players since launch. A few points weigh particularly heavily:
- Lack of content: The game has very few maps and game modes by Halo standards – the map editor “Forge” is expected to be released in May to remedy this. In addition, the game still does not have the essential co-op mode that many players are looking for.
- Performance issues on PC: With popular graphics cards like the AMD RX 580, the game only achieves around 30 – 40 FPS. Even on high-end machines, maintaining consistently high FPS for top monitors is hardly achievable.
- Annoying bugs: One of the most popular game modes, Big Team Battle (BTB), was virtually unplayable for months due to broken matchmaking. The problem was only resolved on February 4 after several attempts (via Twitter)
- Network problems: Players frequently report matches with high ping and latency problems. Especially the crucial close combat attacks often go unrewarded, leading to frustrating deaths.
- Poor rewards: One of the most discussed topics among fans is the poor rewards. The challenge system from the Battle Pass is frustrating, and the skins in the shop are too expensive. Many attempts have been made to address the issue – but fans are still not satisfied.
- Cheating issues: The game suffers from cheaters – even in the professional scene. The crossplay, which cannot be disabled, particularly frustrates players.
- Steep learning curve: Halo as an arena shooter plays quite differently from most popular shooters due to its high TTK and unusual shield mechanics. This makes it challenging for newcomers to get into the game.
- Controllers dominate: Due to very strong aim assist and the shield mechanics, controller players dominate in Halo Infinite. A fan has statistically shown how massive the difference is .
The technical issues and lack of content are the biggest topics in the fan forums.
User tunaburn on reddit says, “The multiplayer was fun, but it feels very limited, like something is missing. I got bored after finishing the Battle Pass. Big Team Battle was broken for so long that I forgot it existed.”
Major_Warren_Dingus sums it up: “Infinite launched in beta and got lucky to release next to Battlefield 2042, which launched in alpha.” (via reddit)
Halo Infinite was also successful thanks to Free-to-Play and Game Pass
Why was the launch so successful? An important reason for the popularity of Halo Infinite at launch was the positive reviews and the huge hype beforehand. Additionally, the big shooter competition in the form of Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty: Vanguard was very disappointing.
However, the low entry barriers also played a significant role:
- Halo Infinite is the first game in the popular shooter series to launch on multiple platforms simultaneously. It supports 2 generations of Xbox consoles (Xbox One and Series X|S) and is also available on PC.
- Additionally, the multiplayer is completely free-to-play and can also be played on Steam, while the campaign is more accessible than ever thanks to Xbox Game Pass.
This accessibility, along with the positive sentiment, made Halo Infinite the most successful installment in the legendary shooter series. But only in the short term.
That Halo Infinite couldn’t keep many of its new players long-term is also due to issues with the reward system. Developer 343 Industries is aware of the issues with Halo Infinite and plans to fix them. How many players will still be playing the game when solutions are in place is currently the big question.
What do you think of Halo Infinite? Do you still enjoy the game? Or were you disappointed? Let us know in the comments.
Despite numerous weapons, some iconic guns from the old games are missing in Halo Infinite. Which of these should definitely come back, we’ll tell you here:
7 iconic weapons from Halo that Halo Infinite must bring back
