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Halo Infinite Hits Highest PC Player Count In Over A Year As Season 5 Lands

Got me to reinstall last night, I'll jump in for some games this week and see how we go...

Keep at it 343, a new engine is a big hurdle.
 

Assaulty

Member
Already down to 81 in the current concurrent player chart.

Below classics like Beam.NG Drive, Bloons TD 6, The Front, Soundpad and Cookie Clicker.

This is being touted as a win by our Xbro’s?

Wonder what you’ll say in 3 days time when it’s back down to 24 hour peaks of 5k.
This, lads and gents, happens when you get so invested in 2007 console wars that you have to bent every positive into "18k bad lel must be 5k in a month"

Truth is: Halo: Infinite is in a good state and so is 343 industries atm. The entire management layer has been layed off and replaced with sensible people that have proven are able to turn the ship around. This is the first time in 11 years that I have some hope for the franchise. There are probably between 60-80k players concurrent online at peak times between Steam (smallest population), xbox pc app and xbox itself, which is, all things considered, a net win for the franchise. Especially since we just came off HCS worlds which had the highest viewership since launch.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
This, lads and gents, happens when you get so invested in 2007 console wars that you have to bent every positive into "18k bad lel must be 5k in a month"

Truth is: Halo: Infinite is in a good state and so is 343 industries atm. The entire management layer has been layed off and replaced with sensible people that have proven are able to turn the ship around. This is the first time in 11 years that I have some hope for the franchise. There are probably between 60-80k players concurrent online at peak times between Steam (smallest population), xbox pc app and xbox itself, which is, all things considered, a net win for the franchise. Especially since we just came off HCS worlds which had the highest viewership since launch.
Nah. This is just what happens when someone who actually likes the series and has put thousands of hours in to it over the course of 15 years refuses to clap like a retarded seal because the latest free to play game in the franchise (that had a 6 year development time) can muster up a shite number like 15k concurrent Steam players during the launch of a new season.

I love the made up Xbox player numbers by the way. Why stop at 80k? There’s 1m people playing this on Xbox at any given time.
 

NEbeast

Member
Is this the new normal for xbox? Release half-assed games and then name them "good" 2 years later. Where are we heading when people are cheering this on? Demand better.
 

FireFly

Member
Nah. This is just what happens when someone who actually likes the series and has put thousands of hours in to it over the course of 15 years refuses to clap like a retarded seal because the latest free to play game in the franchise (that had a 6 year development time) can muster up a shite number like 15k concurrent Steam players during the launch of a new season.

I love the made up Xbox player numbers by the way. Why stop at 80k? There’s 1m people playing this on Xbox at any given time.
We do actually have some minimum numbers thanks to the Halo API.

 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
You get the Mark VI armour from the campaign for reaching the last rank. And there are regular events that give free armour pieces.
to be fair that's at least one good thing to work towards that's an actual reward, the free events I don't count, that stuff is shit and just a vehicle to sell better versions in the fomo shop that don't look like ass, but credit where its due they managed to add a bog standard feature and gave a decent reward at the end of it after 2 years. Shame they didn't retool their rewards so people get stuff the entire way there, but infinite is lost anyway.

its why people arnt clapping for BF 2042


its not a No Mans Sky style return, its a game reaching a point it should have launched at 2 years ago. However people are not going to stick around without tangible progression (no a badge wont cut it anymore, its 2023), and 343 are moving focus onto their next game anyway, Forge is great though hopefully the next game launches with it.
 
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Mownoc

Member
I don't see them keeping this bump.

It's down 12% today compared to the same time yesterday. We'll if it stabilises higher or quickly drops back to the 8k-9k daily peak it had before.
 
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ByWatterson

Member
Already down to 81 in the current concurrent player chart.

Below classics like Beam.NG Drive, Bloons TD 6, The Front, Soundpad and Cookie Clicker.

This is being touted as a win by our Xbro’s?

Yeah you know me King of the Xbots
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
I don’t see why they haven’t had 20 single player expansions for this game by now. It seem to literally be built for it with all the map areas you can’t go to. 😵‍💫
 
This is not looking good for the Halo demise narrative.
Tom Hardy Bait GIF


(but I'm taking it anyway)

Compare that 'peak' player count off of new content to a run of the mill day for 6 year old Bungo Destiny 2

Basically all games have a spike when a 'new season' hits, and it peters out after that. If at any point the game becomes actually good, people want to play it, it's properly supported, and word of mouth is positive then maybe it can grow. But right now it's a third tier shooter franchise and that might count as being overly generous.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
If at any point the game becomes actually good, people want to play it, it's properly supported, and word of mouth is positive then maybe it can grow. But right now it's a third tier shooter franchise and that might count as being overly generous.

You’re playing it? that’s from your own hands on impression post this update?

I don’t see why they haven’t had 20 single player expansions for this game by now. It seem to literally be built for it with all the map areas you can’t go to. 😵‍💫

Because the team is rightly prioritizing work on multiplayer content.
 
No reason for Microsoft to not take a page out of Ubisoft'e book with R6:Siege and give us unique support for years. That said, I've not really cared too much for MP in general as most of my friends group don't have time for the stress and commitment that can entail so I've always leaned more to the coop/pve side of things and in that regard, Halo hasn't given me anything to be excited for in a long time.
 

Codes 208

Member
I jumped on last night and remembered why i left. Framerate issues (on pc), trash-tier vehicles, all of the cool cosmetic shit behind paywalls, fiesta frequently giving me pistols and ravagers but gives the other team rocket launchers and hammers.

I even had a game glitch out at the end and i didnt get any of the progress from that match (and it was btb heavies so it was like a 30-min long game)

The gameplay also still feels janky in general. Coming off of the mw3 beta, i’m having a hard time jumping back into halo inf.

The new maps are fine i guess, outside of infection i dont really care for arena maps.

Not to mention, the flood being mitigated to off-screen intel blogs and mp cosmetics is a fucking insult, weve been asking for their return in the mainstream games since before 4
 
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Pop

Member
I have disliked 343i as much as anyone else over the years but since Phil and co cleaned up the studio, 343i seems in a much better place.

Its like old leadership just didn't want to do anything worth a damn for Halo.
 
I have disliked 343i as much as anyone else over the years but since Phil and co cleaned up the studio, 343i seems in a much better place.

Its like old leadership just didn't want to do anything worth a damn for Halo.

They wanted to, they just had shit ideas and no real leader(s) driving a quality vision for Halo. All 343 stories have been ass with the exception of them clearing their Halo bible slate with Halo 4 terminals. Books = downhill. Games (campaign story) = downhill. TV Show = Warthog off a fucking cliff with that silver universe shite. Hell even the multiplayer trailers had more interesting cutscenes and stories to tell than the Infinite campaign. In 7 years no one/team can write a solid Halo trilogy story to work with for the next decade as a universe framework?
 
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SABRE220

Member
Halo 3 had over 1m concurrent players for months and months after launch. I played daily in the UK after school.
Wow i knew halo3 was a juggernaut but I forgot just how massive it was, damn Microsoft did not take care of this ip very well.
 
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SABRE220

Member
It's still well below what a *AAA franchise title should be.
If you want big numbers for a game that was written off like Infinite....

LStrOcP.jpg
Wow thats quite impressive after the disaster launch of 2042, I honestly thought this game was dead. That being said if they released an upgraded bf4/3 im pretty sure that number would have been easily above 300k. I wonder if they can come back swinging with their next game or has the brand been damaged.
 

clarky

Gold Member
It's still well below what a *AAA franchise title should be.
If you want big numbers for a game that was written off like Infinite....

LStrOcP.jpg
Very impressive, but Battlefield has always had a massive following on PC, Halo not so much.

Good they've turned that game around seemingly though.
 
This is not looking good for the Halo demise narrative.
Depends how you view it. It's great Halo Infinite is still getting updates for those that enjoy the franchise, but Halo only able to crack top 50 on steam shouldn't be viewed as a big achievement. Unless you are Counterstrike, arena shooters with no variety in gameplay is a dead genre. You won't see Microsoft investing 500mil into Halo again unless they drastically change the gameplay design(which die hards would hate)

If Halo released in this state with all the updates it would still fail as a GAAS. It is an outdated formula that desperately needs changing
 
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Lillie

Member
I guess you haven't seen the official emails for season 5, the trailer and ads online for season 5 (including being shown at their esports tournament), and all of the 343 shill's social media hype for season 5. It's just a push to try to get people to come back to a dead game that doesn't play like halo in the first place
 

clarky

Gold Member
I guess you haven't seen the official emails for season 5, the trailer and ads online for season 5 (including being shown at their esports tournament), and all of the 343 shill's social media hype for season 5. It's just a push to try to get people to come back to a dead game that doesn't play like halo in the first place
That's called advertising not PR.

Edit: Also as the OP points out, games not dead. I was getting games instantly these last 2 weeks even before the update came out. Game was dying when I couldn't get games 12 months ago, not the case these days no matter how much you hope that's the case.
 
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clarky

Gold Member
Exactly, Look at BF2042s bump in players in comparison


It's ridiculous Halo Infinite's measly bump is even getting coverage tbh let alone overturning some demise.
Look at Bf2042's bump on console, oh wait there isn't one.

Your comparing a PC centric franchise to a console one. On PC.
 
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Three

Member
Look at Bf2042's bump on console, oh wait there isn't one.

Your comparing a PC centric franchise to a console one. On PC.
??
What the hell has that got to do with anything regarding the increase in player count of BF? It's not like they saw a decline on PC in the first place then suddenly discovered it's on PC again.
 

clarky

Gold Member
??
What the hell has that got to do with anything regarding the increase in player count of BF? It's not like they saw a decline on PC in the first place then suddenly discovered it's on PC again.
We are talking about the CCU of Halo no? Most of its player base is on xbox, most of BF player base is on PC, but your comparing the 2 on steam, doesn't make any sense to me but carry on.
 

Three

Member
We are talking about the CCU of Halo no? Most of its player base is on xbox, most of BF player base is on PC, but your comparing the 2 on steam, doesn't make any sense to me but carry on.
Wtf are you talking about? This thread was created based on the measly steam numbers bump. The word PC is even in the thread title.
 
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clarky

Gold Member
Wtf are you talking about? This thread was created based on the measly steam numbers bump.
And another user started to compare it to CCU bump of BF2042, i was just pointing out that they have 2 different audiences. One manly on console and one mainly on PC so hardly a fair comparison. And here we are, who pissed on your chips?
 
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hinch7

Member
Not sure how thats impressive. New World released a couple months earlier than Halo Infinite and the former is trending well over two times the numbers of active players. And that isn't a free to play game.
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Very impressive, but Battlefield has always had a massive following on PC, Halo not so much.

Good they've turned that game around seemingly though.
Its currently sitting 28th on the most played Xbox list. I wouldn't exactly call that impressive.


Look at Bf2042's bump on console, oh wait there isn't one.

Your comparing a PC centric franchise to a console one. On PC.

We are talking about the CCU of Halo no? Most of its player base is on xbox, most of BF player base is on PC, but your comparing the 2 on steam, doesn't make any sense to me but carry on.
Doesn't seem to be faring well anywhere 😕

I personally like the movement compared to the other Halo games but it severely lacked in content plus the coop took to long to release.
 

clarky

Gold Member
Doesn't seem to be faring well anywhere 😕

I personally like the movement compared to the other Halo games but it severely lacked in content plus the coop took to long to release.
Sure doesn't. It's trending upwards though from almost nothing.

I like the game, but got severely bored playing the same 5 maps on ranked. The content is there now but its probably too late. We'll see i guess. I've jumped back in but theres so many good games around at the moment and with Mario and Spiderman joining the party I'm not sure that I'll stick around for long.
 
I wonder how much articles like that help push even more people to jump back in to see what they've missed?

Like a kind of suggestive programming.

I'm being melodramatic, of course...or am I?
🤔🙄😀😁😆😂🤣😭
 
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stickkidsam

Member
Maybe I’m off my rocker but I don’t think content is Infinite’s biggest problem. It’s got plenty of content now and Forge is downright amazing. Even co op is there, mostly (RIP split screen).

The gameplay itself just doesn’t feel right. That’s not to say it’s bad. It just doesn’t feel… Halo. It’s like an arcade version of Halo. Movement lacks weight, physics are nerfed, a lot of audio feels like plastic or tin, players phase through each other, and everything has a bright UI outline. It’s a very different feeling to either classic Halo or 343’s other Halos. When ya combine that with a lack of progression systems, social features, and a customization system that is still lagging behind (and maybe leaned a bit too hard into goofy cosmetics), I don’t think any amount of content piled on top will change Infinite’s state.

It’s always gonna have a player base. Partly because it’s free to play and partly because it is a well made game. I don’t see it being the game to put Halo back on the map or more importantly rekindle the love of most Halo fans (old and new).
 
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