Nobody is playing Halo Infinite on Steam as player numbers drop to 2% of launch peak

2% of launch?

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www.vg247.com

"If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox," says Spencer

Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer has admitted that the Xbox platform would lose its way if the same happened wi…
www.vg247.com www.vg247.com
 
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I tried to play Halo infinite a month ago. There was new content. But the waiting time, at least on the PC relatively late in the evening, was long.
 
Game wasn't horrible but wasn't great either. Perfect example of a average game in the 6-7 range. Must've been a super bad year if this game won goty award.
 
I got the achievement for finishing the campaign in under 8 hours. I had the game purchased, decided to cancel, bought 3 months of GamePass, finished it, and then uninstalled the game. What's weird is that it's probably the most engaged I've ever felt in a Halo game, but my time with it was so short lived. I grew up playing these games on Xbox. If anything, I'd play the classic maps with the MCC, but there's other stuff I'd rather play.
 
Duchess said:
A few peeps on Reddit pointed out that it's more popular on GamePass and Xbox, so Steam usage isn't a particularly good metric.

Any Xbox players here want to verify..?
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It is in the 21st position among the most played games on Xbox. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact numbers.

"There are more people playing Dead Or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation than Halo Infinite"
ouch
 
Negotiator101 said:
You can't release basically the same game and just regurgitate the same thing for over 20years. People got tired of it and it's almost killed the franchise. It needs a complete overhaul to be fresh and exciting again.
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No, not at all, I have recently replayed the halo saga and they are still a delight and super fun, especially halo 2 and 3. The problem is that they haven't released a game at the level (not even close) of those games, halo does not need innovation, it needs good games.
 
I literally play one match a day just so I can get the Microsoft rewards points. Otherwise it'ss load of tripe because the network code is absolute blocks.
 
I never understood the appeal of Halo. I always thought of it as generic spacemen using sci-fi weapons to kill eachother on empty planets.
 
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How so? Nobody? I play regularly and am never lacking or taking long for matches. Seems like way too much hyperbole around Halo Infinite tbh
 
flying_sq said:
Not to me, it was like a Ubisoft open world game but with less to do.
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Absolutely agree with you here. The open world felt bolted on. Inconsequential. All the vehicles, marines, and special weapons you unlocked became useless in the final third act of the game where it was a traditionally linear-progression Halo.

Everything done in the open world only affected the open world. Not the final act, not the final boss fight, not the final story. You can kill all his HVTs, destroy the entire Banished hierarchy, destroy all the radio towers, and it doesn't change a single line of dialog at the end.

Infinite's open world felt like one gigantic form of game padding between typical linear levels.
 
analog_future said:
Yeah, those playing Halo Infinite are doing so on Xbox, not on Steam.
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Idk, I play on Steam since I prefer a Win32 versions whenever possible but I don't feel matches lack of something no matter which mode you pick. Even the new infection mode matches come out in second.

Idk about campaign either, I enjoy the multiplayer with some mates, not even a ver frequent player, like once a week and am not actually good but it's fun and matches come quickly.
 
That's how Halo pop stays when you make another crap Halo game. 343 systematically destroyed the franchise with every release during their tenure.
 
Halo is an old game though. I bet most of them moved on to play the latest and the newest game from MS's premiere 1st party studios.

Yeah, I'm sure they are currently enjoying playing Redfall. Quick someone check Redfall's steam player base.
 
I picked it back up a few weeks ago. I'm in my 40's and always had a soft spot for the series. It's clearly passed it's prime, but then again, so am I.

MS and 343 have done a done a ton of damage to the brand name. It sucks.
 
Just checked on the xbox store and it's ranked 21 on the most played list. I play from time to time on big team battle and don't have any issues finding matches.
 
Fake said:
Nice way to kill the franchise.
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I fucking hate her so much. Her career was about prestige and her own agendas, not the franchise she was tasked to grow and take care of. She completely ruined what was a marquee franchise and the face of XBox. I hope no one in the industry offers her a job again.
 
Saddens the heck outta me what MS has let Halo become.

Halo was a fucking event in the industry for so many years. Now it's an afterthought.

Fuck MGS, fuck 343i, and fuck Spencer for letting this legendary franchise go to shit.

And fuck whoever was involved in that abortion of a TV show. That shit just further proved how little MS cares about Halo anymore.
 
VAVA Mk2 said:
I fucking hate her so much. Her career was about prestige and her own agendas, not the franchise she was tasked to grow and take care of. She completely ruined what was a marquee franchise and the face of XBox. I hope no one in the industry offers her a job again.
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This is what woke DEI hiring practices get you.

Halo---literally the most dudebro franchise in the world next to Gears of War (and there's nothing fucking wrong with that)---is given to someone who clearly has no idea what the Sci-Fi military power fantasy of Halo was all about.
 
mrcroket said:
No, not at all, I have recently replayed the halo saga and they are still a delight and super fun, especially halo 2 and 3. The problem is that they haven't released a game at the level (not even close) of those games, halo does not need innovation, it needs good games.
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Halo 1-3 were defining games in their respective generations: massively influential, widely aped, and immensely broad in appeal. It's what made the franchise so special in its own time. The problem is that that time has passed. Trends have changed; audiences have matured and diversified; expectations and tastes have shifted. If Breath of the Wild or God of War 2018 had just been further iterations on Skyward Sword or God of War: Ascension, they wouldn't have had the same impact. Instead, both reinvented themselves to meet the expectations of modern markets: BotW becoming a take on the immensely popular open-world trend and God of War channeling the GOTY-ready hairy-dad simulator trope.

Halo Infinite took a late half-step into open-world design just as fatigue with open worlds was setting in - too little and too late. A radical reinvention of the series around the time of Halo 5 could have relaunched it and returned it to relevance - that time might be passed now. The brand is too badly damaged and fans are fed up.
 
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BbMajor7th said:
Halo 1-3 were defining games in their respective generations: massively influential, widely aped, and immensely broad in appeal. It's what made the franchise so special in its own time. The problem is that that time has passed. Trends have changed; audiences have matured and diversified; expectations and tastes have shifted. If Breath of the Wild or God of War 2018 had just been further iterations on Skyward Sword or God of War: Ascension, they wouldn't have had the same impact. Instead, both reinvented themselves to meet the expectations of modern markets: BotW becoming a take on the immensely popular open-world trend and God of War channeling the GOTY-ready hairy-dad simulator trope.

Halo Infinite took a late half-step into open-world design just as fatigue with open worlds was setting in - too little and too late. A radical reinvention of the series around the time of Halo 5 could have relaunched it and returned it to relevance - that time might be passed now. The brand is too badly damaged and fans are fed up.
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This is bollocks... sorry.

Reinvention is not what Halo needed. And in fact, reinvention is precisely what 343i attempted to do, to the series's detriment.

Your point about franchise fatigue just doesn't really hold weight. Most gamers don't experience this. Case in point: COD, which essentially has had the same basic gameplay loop now for decades and has only increased in success.

Halo never needed reinvention. It just needed a quality entry in the series that distilled and refined what made Combat Evolved so legendary. The problem is that after Bungie's departure, 343 never really understood what was important to Halo fans, plus their writing and story composition was fucking ass. They should have spent less time immersed in the expanded universe lore and more time just creating their own Halo stories that could be told effectively within the actual games themselves.
 
VAVA Mk2 said:
I fucking hate her so much. Her career was about prestige and her own agendas, not the franchise she was tasked to grow and take care of. She completely ruined what was a marquee franchise and the face of XBox. I hope no one in the industry offers her a job again.
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Halo was never good
 
The multiplayer is horrendous. The only people playing it today are people who have "I loved Halo as a kid" perpetually on loop in their brain. If it didn't have the Halo branding that 2% would be .25%.

The media gushing about it at release is a blight on their record.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Halo never needed reinvention. It just needed a quality entry in the series that distilled and refined what made Combat Evolved so legendary.
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What made Combat Evolved so legendary is that at the time no one had ever played anything quite like it. I remember playing it for hours at my friend's house, to the point where my muscles basically atrophied from perching on the edge of his bed for so long. It blew my tiny mind. You can't recapture that with another entry that 'distills and refines that' because what made it so good at the time was how original and new it all felt: the scale of the levels, the unique art direction, the concept of a ringed world that you could see stretching into the skybox...

It's like Star Wars - people keep trying to recapture that original trilogy magic, but you never will, because at the time every single thing was brand new and unlike anything else.
 
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They should have spent their effort after launch on an expansion of that open world. Its just dead once you are done.

Fleshing out the squad mechanics to the point you gather multiple and direct squads, set positions and swap between them across the map to attack / defend bases could have added enough mission types and possibly modes for multiplayer to warrant a dlc.

I don't follow much online gaming, I just can't understand how they have so little to show for the money and manpower spent on this thing.
 
343 has mismanaged the series since they got it. Really MS is responsible. Too many incompetent management roles running the ship for the franchise.
The series has so much going for it but every sense 4, it's been on the struggle bus.

There is a reason more people are still playing 2/3 than Infinite. Just sad because this used to be my favorite game series.
 
BbMajor7th said:
What made Combat Evolved so legendary is that at the time no one had ever played anything quite like it. I remember playing it for hours at my friend's house, to the point where my muscles basically atrophied from perching on the edge of his bed for so long. It blew my tiny mind. You can't recapture that with another entry that 'distills and refines that' because what made it so good at the time was how original and new it all felt: the scale of the levels, the unique art direction, the concept of a ringed world that you could see stretching into the skybox...

It's like Star Wars - people keep trying to recapture that original trilogy magic, but you never will, because at the time every single thing was brand new and unlike anything else.
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You're mistaken. You're too focused on the novelty.

What made Halo: CE so good was the underlying gameplay loop, the enemy AI, the weapons, and the vehicles. People played Halo: CE for many many years long after launch, long after the novelty wore off.

Halo 2 and Halo 3 refined the Halo: CE formula and continued the success of the first game, without any of the novelty that you place on so high a pedestal.

Halo's gameplay and campaign and MP were what made the series top-tier. 343i abandoned everything that worked to make something else.
 
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Average player numbers have been flat since March, and even peaked a little with the season 4 update.

Halo Infinite - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.
steamcharts.com steamcharts.com

But I was starting to worry that we hadn't had our weekly "Halo Infinite sucks" thread, so this one arrived just in time.
 
Spyxos said:
I tried to play Halo infinite a month ago. There was new content. But the waiting time, at least on the PC relatively late in the evening, was long.
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Try living in Europe and searching for a match on infinite. The writing was on the wall months ago here. 4 months after launch is when I first encountered long waits.
 
kvltus lvlzvs said:
Was the campaign any good?
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Yes, very much so at times, but missing biome diversity and missing the amazing level design due to it being open world. exploring with the grappling hook was tons of fun. Was glad to play it, but not as good as Halo 1-Reach campaigns.
 
MagnesD3 said:
How in the world did that win, was it just a combo Hopium and Hypium. The grappling hook in the campaign was really cool but that entire game didn't hold a candle to the old ones..
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Thirty7ven said:
Weird how in a year with Returnal, Metroid Dread, It takes Two, Hitman 3, Psychonauts 2, Inscryption… this bust ass game managed to get GOTY on neogaf.
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Ree users dormant accounts logged in to vote.
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Pelta88 said:
2% of launch?

pirates-ship.gif


www.vg247.com

"If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox," says Spencer

Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer has admitted that the Xbox platform would lose its way if the same happened wi…
www.vg247.com www.vg247.com
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Reward them with the industry. Give them another 3 or 4 storied 3rd party publishers.

Failing up is so current year in upside down world anyhow.
 
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