Halo Infinite Has Fewer Players On Steam Than Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Game Rant

By Reece Alan Reid

Published Apr 14, 2022

Halo Infinite has lost a lot of players since release, and now the game contains fewer players than Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

While Halo Infinite enjoyed an excellent start on Steam, the game has had quite a serious fall from grace. Halo Infinite has seemingly only lost players on Steam since it launched, as fans have taken issue with the game's lack of content and issues that many feel the developer has taken too long to address.

Halo Infinite's player count peak was an impressive 256,619 back when it launched in November 2021. However, in the last 30 days, Halo Infinite has been unable to reach an average Steam player count of 6,000. One of the reasons that this is particularly interesting is because EA allegedly blamed Battlefield 2042's poor performance on Halo Infinite releasing at a similar time and it being a more polished game. Now it seems, as though both games are struggling to retain players.

This drop-off in players has driven many fans to return to Halo: The Master Chief Collection. At the time of this writing, Halo Infinite's 24-hour peak player count is at 7,810 players, whereas Halo: The Master Chief Collection had a 24-hour peak player of 9,083 players. This is likely quite concerning for 343 Industries, as having players return to an older iteration in a series is a good indication that fans are not enjoying the latest game.

Halo Infinite is set to receive its Season 2 update at the beginning of May, although some fans seem to think that this is too little too late. Some fans have made it known that they have been unhappy with the game's lack of content, as well as the developer taking exceptionally long to fix some of Halo Infinite's more glaring technical issues. 343 Industries will therefore likely be hoping to win some fans back with the Lone Wolves update, which seems to include some new maps and other content that is yet to be announced.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection's rise in players is likely also the result of a recent update. The update includes extra skulls for Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: ODST, which unlock various cheats and multipliers in the campaign mode of the games, and a new game mode called "Floodfight" in Halo 3: ODST's firefight mode, which allows players to fight off waves of flood enemies.

One month ago, three old Battlefield games had higher player counts than Battlefield 2042 as well. This shows that Halo Infinite's season 2 update will need to be a big hit to be able to draw some players back in, otherwise it may share the same fate as Battlefield 2042.

Halo Infinite is now available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

MORE: How Halo Infinite Season 2 is Taking Fan Feedback Into Account

Source: SteamCharts