It is hard to overstate the excitement of the Xbox community following the surprise release of the multiplayer for Halo Infinite on November 15. After over a six years hiatus, the Master Chief was finally back in a new mainline game and had brought a fun multiplayer experience along with him. As one might expect, this initial hype skyrocketed the game up the charts on both Steam and Xbox consoles. It even managed to have the most successful launch in Halo franchise history, with over 20 million players checking out the game. Despite this strong start, new data shows that its success might be short-lived.
Recently, it was revealed that Halo Infinite had dropped out of the top 5 most played Xbox games. At the time of writing, it occupies the 6th spot on the list behind Roblox. For comparison, other popular shooters like Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Apex Legends all sit ahead of Halo Infinite. In addition, the latest installment in the Halo series has started to lose players on Steam, as it currently is outside the platform's top 100 games according to Steam Charts. Add to that a dwindling amount of viewers on Twitch, and the situation does not look too promising.
Among the possible reasons gamers have stopped playing Halo Infinite, one of the most significant factors has been connection issues. While this is not the only problem experienced by the player base, it is arguably the most frustrating as it directly impacts the playability of the multiplayer. Since launch, gamers have had to deal with many annoying issues, such as desync that causes players to teleport randomly on the map. In addition, Big Team Battle, a classic game mode of the series, was nearly unplayable for weeks due to matchmaking complications. Despite recent patches from the developers that supposedly fixed some of these Halo Infinite connectivity issues, it could be too little too late for some gamers.
In addition to stability issues affecting the multiplayer, another contentious area in Halo Infinite is cosmetics. While this problem does not directly impact gameplay, many fans believe that the items available in the in-game shop are unfairly priced. Furthermore, most of those same fans felt that at launch, Season 1 Battle Pass progression was too slow. While it is worth noting that the developers have looked to improve these systems over the past couple of months, many gamers still feel as though more work needs to be done.
Besides these issues in Halo Infinite, another factor pertaining to the declining player count could be a lack of content in the game. For example, players continue to wait for the inclusion of Forge mode and campaign co-op, staples of the series. To make matters worse, a scheduled update about these features for January was postponed. This led many to question when these highly-anticipated modes would ever make it into the game.
One more factor contributing to poor player retention could be the lack in popularity of arena shooters. Compared to other types of games, arena shooters make up only a small slice of the gaming pie. As the top 5 most played Xbox games indicated, some of the most popular titles in the industry are battle royales. While rumors of a Halo Infinite battle royale have circulated for months, there is currently no official word from 343 Industries about including this game type in the future. As a result, the game looks to continue as only an arena-style shooter for the foreseeable future.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Halo Infinite. While this drop-off in the number of active players is a worrying sign for the first-person shooter, the game is still only a few months old. With this in mind, more updates are expected, possibly giving the game a new surge in popularity. It seems only time will tell if the developers at 343 Industries can bring back players that have already moved on to other games.
Halo Infinite is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.