I still fully maintain the future is a campaign-less Halo. Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and users about the campaign's quality, the earned achievement statistics on both Xbox and Steam shows a minority of players engaged with the campaign compared to multiplayer.
On Xbox (and Windows Xbox PC App) platforms, only 25% finished the first level and retrieved Not Cortana™ (Together. Again?). Only 21% captured a Forward Operating Base (Reclaimer). Only 11% reached the mid-way point (Together. Again.). And less than 10% completed the
entire campaign (Set a Fire in Your Heart). And that's with the benefit of being included on Game Pass. The numbers for these four achievements are just as bad on Steam:
10.7%, 10%, 6.3%, and 5.8, respectively.
If we take Microsoft at their word that 20 million people have played Halo Infinite, barely 2 million of us completed the campaign. Around 12-13 million people stopped playing after the
very first level. Xbox fans can come in here and tell me I'm being hyperbolic but these numbers are easily accessible for anyone to check on the Xbox app and Steam's achievement page. Microsoft is probably sitting there wondering why they are dropping tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars on campaign development when 70%+ of players clearly don't care about it.
As much as I'd hate to see campaign disappear, if it does I fully understand why. Halo's biggest draw -- and biggest money maker -- is multiplayer.