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Halo Infinite is slipping. As first reported by Forbes, 343 Industries’ popular shooter—the marquee Xbox game of this generation—has dropped out of the top five most-played games on Xbox, down from once upon a time holding fast in the top position.
In November, Halo Infinite’s multiplayer portion launched out of the blue on Xbox and PC. The first mainline Halo shooter in six years, it’s also the first to feature a free-to-play multiplayer mode—a combination of factors that led to a stratospheric launch. On Steam, it quickly closed in on almost 300,000 concurrent players. More recently, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted how Halo Infinite has been played by 20 million people to date, making it the “biggest” launch in series history.
These numbers are of course impressive, but the trajectory that’s unfolded since is arguably concerning, at least that’s what the internet pundits say. Halo, after all, is Xbox’s flagship series, with Infinite the sort of definitive take that only happens maybe once a generation, if you’re lucky. If it’s not even on the podium of Xbox’s most-played games, what first-party game could possibly crack it? Right now, Infinite is behind—in reverse order—Roblox, Apex Legends, Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty: Warzone, and the eternally indomitable Fortnite. (Like Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode, all of those industry behemoths, save for GTA V, are free-to-play.)
On Steam, meanwhile, Halo Infinite has fewer than 10,000 concurrent players (as of this writing), though it’s still in the top 100. Barely. That said, take the Steam metric with a grain of salt, as it’s not entirely indicative of Infinite’s health. Halo has historically had a console-focused community. And those on PC could be playing, through a Game Pass membership, on Microsoft’s PC storefront. Anyone who plays Halo Infinite via Game Pass, which recently claimed 25 million subscribers, gets a markdown on the battle pass and other microtransactions, plus can earn free cosmetic rewards.
Dwindled numbers seem to echo a sentiment from some of Halo Infinite’s most vocal members: that the game has been spinning its wheels when it comes to long-term retention for some time.
Read the full article on Kotaku
