Suprise, Spartans! After initially announcing a launch on December 8, the Halo Infinite Multiplayer component is now live and available for play. Best of all, it's free! Have a look at the trailer announcement right now.
A Smash Hit
For those readers who stayed to finish this article, here are a few bits of interesting news.
The Multiplayer release coincides with the 20th anniversary of Halo: Combat Evolved's initial launch. Microsoft announced the multiplayer component's surprise launch during their anniversary stream, and it quickly kicked off a flurry of downloads.
Despite being out for only a few hours, Halo Infinite Multiplayer is breaking records and is already the most successful Xbox Game Studios release in history. According to SteamDB, more than 200k concurrent users have been recorded thus far, beating previous record-holders Halo: The Master Chief Collection (161k) and Forza Horizon 5 (81k).
Niko Partners's Daniel Ahmad weighs in on the success:
Halo Infinite multiplayer, which launched *looks at watch* about 2.5 hours ago, has already surpassed 162k peak concurrent users on Steam.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) November 15, 2021
This makes it the most successful Xbox Game Studios title of all time on Steam
Halo MCC hit 161k PCCU
Forza Horizon 5 hit 81k PCCU. pic.twitter.com/lgMLNISeaw
The game is so widely downloaded that Steam servers are struggling to keep up. While Steam hasn't collapsed from the strain just yet, downloads have slowed to a crawl, with players complaining that it could take days for them to download the 23.7 GB package.
Spartan Academy
Despite being still in its beta phase, Halo Infinite Multiplayer sports all its features and game modes. What's more, the Battle Pass and any progression made now will carry over to the full release. It even includes an in-game tutorial called Halo Infinite: Spartan Academy. Check out the gameplay video care of IGN:
Thus far, reactions to the Multiplayer component have been largely ecstatic, with players hailing the gameplay as a return to form and the early release a "genius move" that builds up significant hype for the official game launch on December 8.
If you haven't done so yet, you can start downloading Halo Infinite's Multiplayer component and tell us what you think of it. Also, please take a look at the best prices to pre-order Halo Infinite on our comparator.
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