Microsoft celebrated the original Xbox’s (and Halo: Combat Evolved‘s) 20th birthday yesterday, and to mark the occasion it decided to give everyone an early Christmas present: an early release of Halo Infinite‘s free multiplayer mode. Eyes up, Spartan. Time to get to work.
Happy birthday, Halo
Since it was announced that Infinite‘s multiplayer would be free for all, fans have been more than a little keen to get their hands on it on the game’s full launch day, the 8th of December. This excitement was only stoked further by the success of several beta-test weekends earlier this year.
The standalone, cross-platform mode has landed on Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and PC (via Steam and the Xbox app) shelves a few weeks early.
As with most titles at launch there have been a few hiccups here and there, namely some long loading screens and some players struggling to launch the title at all. The latter problem can apparently be solved with the first fix in the IT handbook: turning your machine off and on again. These kinks will presumably be ironed out as future builds are released.
At ~25GB, Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer isn’t exactly a small download, but it’s significantly trimmer than other games of its ilk. Even Halo 5: Guardians launched with a 46GB install size, with subsequent updates driving it up to 90+GB. We expect Infinite to grow with time in a similar way, but having the option to keep the multiplayer and campaign modes separate will hopefully keep the title from decimating your hard drive.
If you want all of the details, such as in-depth descriptions of the various game modes and recommended specs, head over to this accompanying Halo Waypoint post. If you’re more interested in Infinite‘s campaign, sorry, but you’re still going to have to wait for the 8th of December.