NEW HALO GAME RELEASE DATE SERIES

'I expect the day one audience for the new title to be franchise beating as a result and with in-game monetisation taking a more important role.' Microsoft has taken a dramatically different product strategy route since then with Xbox Game Pass and day one inclusion of first-party releases,' Harding-Rolls said. 'Halo Infinite is entering a market which has developed a lot since the last major release in the franchise in 2015. Thanks to Game Pass and free-to-play, which reduces cost friction and opens up the potential audience for Halo Infinite to anyone with a Game Pass membership, Harding-Rolls believes Halo Infinite could enjoy the biggest-ever day-one player audience for the franchise.

NEW HALO GAME RELEASE DATE SERIES

Not only that, but Halo Infinite is a unique release in the series because its campaign and multiplayer are separate products, with multiplayer being completely free-to-play. In a big shift for the series, Microsoft is making Halo Infinite (and all of its first-party games) available on Game Pass at no extra cost. That's due in part to the growth of Xbox Game Pass, which I have previously argued is Microsoft's secret weapon in the current console climate. Also, consumers in the market for an Xbox Series console and Halo will know it's arriving in a few days and will be happy to wait if they pick up a console during Black Friday.'Īnother element at play in the Halo Infinite release date situation is that the gaming market overall has developed and changed in a significant way since Halo 5 came out in 2015. The Black Friday issue is less relevant this year because Xbox Series consoles will likely be supply constrained. 'I don't think it makes a huge amount of commercial difference between launching mid-November and the beginning of December. In terms of the commercial impact of launching after the Black Friday shopping season, Harding-Rolls doesn't believe this is very significant or noteworthy. 'The release date appears to me to be a compromise between making it available in 2021 as promised but also giving the studio the most amount of time to deliver polish to the game before the release,' he said.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Putting the game out in December might be later than some fans might want, but it allows 343 to stick to its 2021 promise and give the team the time it needs to polish the game. After a year-long delay from its original 2020 release date, delaying the game again might have been too costly a decision ( although Joseph Staten did recently acknowledge Microsoft considered this). Halo 5, which is the latest entry in the mainline series, premiered in October 2015.Īccording to Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, Microsoft's decision to release Halo Infinite in December might come down to the company choosing to compromise. In fact, it's the latest date in the year ever for a new Halo game, with Halo: Combat Evolved (November 15, 2001) previously holding that designation.įor comparison, Halo: Combat Evolved launched in November 2001, Halo 2 debuted in November 2004, Halo 3 came out in September 2007, and Halo 4 launched in November 2008. The date is later in the year than many might have expected or hoped for.

Microsoft finally announced Halo Infinite's release date-December 8, 2021-as part of Geoff Keighley's Gamescom Opening Night Live event on Wednesday.

New halo game release date