Well, that was a wonderful surprise, wasn’t it? Yesterday, following some recent rumours, 343 Industries surprise-launched Halo Infinite multiplayer across last and current-gen Xbox consoles and PC via Steam as part of Xbox’s 20th anniversary celebrations. Within mere hours of its launch, the FPS game rocketed to more than 100,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform alone – and now it turns out the peak for launch day was more than two-and-a-half times that.
Head to SteamDB’s page for Halo Infinite and you’ll see that the final figure of peak concurrent players on the game’s (multiplayer) launch day hit an eye-watering 272,586. And, as SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik has rightly pointed out on Twitter, that was on a Monday, no less.
This figure puts Halo Infinite multiplayer in the top 25 most-played games – by peak concurrent player count – on Steam of all time, going by SteamDB’s figures. Ordering the list by all-time peak player counts, we can see Halo Infinite sits just below the likes of Skyrim (287,411), Destiny 2 (292,513), and the original Counter-Strike (319,586), and above other big names such as Rust (245,243), Payday 2 (247,709), and Rainbow Six Siege (201,053). In the list of all-time most-played multiplayer games on Steam, it’s currently in the number 16 slot, as of this story. It’s worth noting, though, that Halo multiplayer is free-to-play, while some other titles in these lists are purchasable games.
It’s a shame we don’t have figures across all platforms for Halo Infinite multiplayer’s launch day because, if its debut on Steam is anything to go by, it looks like it had a pretty astronomical launch day – but we can only guess what that total peak player count might be. However, game industry analyst Daniel Ahmad reports (below) that Halo Infinite multiplayer’s launch day player count makes it “the most successful Xbox Game Studios title of all time on Steam”, comparing it to the figures for Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Master Chief Collection.
It’s worth noting that this week’s launch of the game is technically a beta, but it does include “Season 1 content including all maps, core modes, Academy features, and Battle Pass”, according to the game’s official site. All progress made right now will carry over to the full game when the Halo Infinite release date rolls around on December 8. Season 1 is due to run until May 2022.
Halo Infinite multiplayer, which launched *looks at watch* about 2.5 hours ago, has already surpassed 162k peak concurrent users on Steam.
This makes it the most successful Xbox Game Studios title of all time on Steam
Halo MCC hit 161k PCCU
Forza Horizon 5 hit 81k PCCU. pic.twitter.com/lgMLNISeaw— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) November 15, 2021
Halo Infinite multiplayer is of course free, but if you’re keen to get an idea of how Halo Infinite’s paid skins will work, you can head to that link there. If you’d like to read our musings on what Halo Infinite might be like if it were a Bungie game, you know where to click.