Halo Infinite, the latest in one of the most important video game series ever made, has its multiplayer up and running free for players right now. This has made Halo Infinite the most successful Xbox title on Steam, ever, just a short while after its release.

It's hardly surprising that Infinite is such a big deal, especially given the history of the Halo franchise. After some rocky initial marketing, the game seems to be giving players everything they want and reminding them of everything they loved about Halo in the first place. This includes meeting new friends online, an experience that, back when Halo 2 was released, was somewhat unique to the title, at least on consoles.

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The past 20 years of Halo have seen a lot of highs and lows, but Halo 2 was arguably the highest of those high points, kicking off online console multiplayer for Xbox, making huge innovations on the FPS genre, and bringing people together like never before. One of those people was Lee Fabela, who started playing the game at 11 years old and, predictably, was not tolerated by many others. But one other player stood up for him and took him under his wing. According to Fabela, when they played together, they never lost a game.

halo 2 player died

Eventually the two lost touch when Fabela moved on from Halo 2, but after a while Fabela wanted to reconnnect. While other Halo fans made keychains, Fabela tried to track down his old friend, which he finally did when Xbox added a new feature that let him look up old gamertags. Fabela promptly looked up his old friend and sent him a message, but what came back was bad news. His old friend, who he learned for the first time was named Shaun, had passed away from Leukemia.

The one who sent the message was Shaun's nephew, who had inherited his uncle's Xbox. It was passed on to him because the two of them used to play together on weekends, just like Shaun and Fabela used to play together.

Shaun passed his Xbox and even his gamertag on to his nephew, possibly opening the door to new friendships, and even though they never got to say goodbye, Shaun helped Fabela connect with another player: his nephew. With the recent celebration of Xbox's past and the many games given backwards compatibility, it's sometimes easy to overlook the one of the other legacies of Xbox: the friends players made along the way.

Halo Infinite releases on December 8 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The multiplayer is available now.

MORE: Halo 2's Development Changed the Games Industry 17 Years Ago

Source: Lee Fabela - Facebook (via Gaming Bible)