Update: On Aug. 25, 2021, Microsoft finally unveiled a release date for Halo Infinite. The game will arrive in the Holiday window as promised: Dec. 8, 2021. We will have more thoughts on the game then. For now, our original article follows.
Much to our dismay (and my own predictions), a highly sought-after piece of information did not arrive. During the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase at E3 2021, we were denied a Halo Infinite release date. Still! We did get a much better look at the game we’ll all be playing when it arrives later this year — particularly on the multiplayer side. It feels like we’re reaching the end of a long journey, but one piece of the puzzle still eludes us.
I’ve personally been wanting to see something from Halo Infinite that would blow me away. I left the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase feeling much better about how multiplayer will perform than I have at any point during the past few years. Here’s some more info on the game’s release, and what in particular I really liked about the game’s time during the showcase.
The Halo Infinite release date is now Holiday 2021
Believe it or not, this small change here feels like a bit of a narrowing down, at least. Prior to today, the Halo Infinite release date was “Fall 2021.” Now that has both been pushed slightly and has become more targeted. “Holiday 2021” is still likely to occur during the fall window, but we can guess that the “Holiday” part now means we’re going to see this pretty darn close to the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
My money is the game dropping in November 2021, perhaps in the last third of the month. Of course, we’ll have to wait for Microsoft and the folks at Xbox Game Studios for an official announcement.
Multiplayer looks flipping awesome
If you’ve gone back to Halo: The Master Chief Collection at any point in the past few years, you’ve likely come to realize something about Halo multiplayer in those games. It is incredibly slow. Halo 5 did quite a bit to speed things up, but it still doesn’t feel quite as fast-paced and frantic as what you’ll find in other games that, let’s be truthful, now feel a bit more exhilarating as a result.
It feels like Halo Infinite is going to change this for the better.
As you can see in the video above, everything about Halo Infinite multiplayer feels brisk. There’s room for you to have some real hero moments thanks to the fast pace. You can pull off some really cool tricks, like using your grappling hook to snag a gun out of midair. Even simple things like running and jumping operate as though you’re in control of a futuristic supersoldier and not, you know, glued to the ground.
Some may be concerned that we’re still not seeing more of the campaign, but Microsoft could be revving up to make Halo Infinite the focal point of its fall push. With that in mind, the secrecy is not at all surprising. That would also explain the lack of a more specific Halo Infinite release date, too. Microsoft could blow the doors off the entryway to Holiday 2021 by showing a larger chunk of campaign and by dropping a release date at the same time.
We’ll have to wait and see if that ends up happening. Until then, we’ll be looking forward to the Halo Infinite multiplayer beta, which is set to kick off in the months ahead.
