Halo: Campaign Evolved may be the most important Xbox Game Studios release of 2026. When executive producer Damon Conn says that this "is an opportunity to pave the way for the future of Halo" he isn't being hyperbolic. "We're building a game in Unreal Engine 5, on a platform that we've never supported, while offering more ways for players to play with each other than ever before. We're excited to reignite the spark that started it all," he says, "but we don't take it lightly."

Halo: Campaign Evolved is pitched as a "faithful and modernized remake" of Master Chief's most iconic adventure, "and a celebration of Combat Evolved" ahead of its incoming 25th anniversary. Creative director Max Szlagor stresses that Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) "has been careful to craft the game in such a way that it stays true to the original's tone, atmosphere, feel, and emotional impact" as it grapples with the complexities of recapturing Chief's bounding momentum in a new game engine.

A New Dawn

Recapturing the classic Halo feel is key, because the future of the franchise is inextricably tied to UE5. The studio announced that it was hard at work on multiple projects back in October 2024, with a focus on crafting "the next generation of Halo with Unreal Engine" following the discontinuation of support for both Halo Infinite and the proprietary Slipstream engine.

I recently had the opportunity to play through a short section of the rebuilt, still iconic Silent Cartographer mission. Call it an amuse-bouche ahead of release later this year, a chance to reconnect with the floaty jumps, thunderous melee, chattering MA5B assault rifles, and bouncy Warthog rides that helped define the original adventure. Movement and momentum, combat and physics land in a way that feels as fresh as it does nostalgic. "It's important for us to be authentic to the feel, to the things people loved," says Szlagor.

Despite a focus on careful restoration, Halo Studios isn't afraid of making appropriate amendments to modernize Combat Evolved. "We were able to implement some changes that just kind of make sense," says Conn. "Like adding the ability to pick up and use the energy sword, Fuel Rod cannon, and Sentinel Beam Gun. You can also pilot the Wraith tank. These were all things you couldn't do in Combat Evolved."

Szlagor says that "being authentic to the material that's there" is a guiding principle, although Halo Studios is considering more foundational changes as it "rebuilds every mission, every encounter, and every cinematic" from scratch. "Another opportunity we have is to address player feedback, and look for ways to improve wayfinding and the diversity of encounters," says the creative director, alluding to the idea that a new generation of players needn't languish in The Library like so many of us had to 25 years ago.

If Halo Studios gets Campaign Evolved right, it should go some way to quelling lingering fears about whether this franchise can find a path forward on UE5. The introduction of brand new content should also demonstrate how strong a handle the studio has on the core ethos of the franchise – a key consideration as we wonder where the next mainline installment may take Chief and Cortana in the future, following the divisive response to Halo Infinite.

"We are also designing three brand new story missions focused on Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson," says Szlagor. "They take place before the events of Combat Evolved, and it'll be the kind of mission that Chief and Johnson would have gone on during that time period – featuring new environments, enemies, characters, and weapons." While Szlagor won't be drawn on more details, he does confirm that this special Campaign Evolved adventure "takes place before the events of Reach."

Whether you're here to indulge in some nostalgia, play the first new Halo campaign missions in five years, or dive into Installation 04 for the first time, you'll do it with a larger playerbase than ever before. Halo: Campaign Evolved marks the series debut on PlayStation, and it's undoubtedly the biggest first-party franchise to land outside of the Xbox ecosystem so far – joining Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War: Reloaded, which arrived on PS5 last year.

"We hope to bring along the series veterans who have been with us for the past 25 years and have them play with an entirely new generation," says Conn, who confirms that four-player online co-op with full crossplay is supported. "There are people who have never been exposed to Halo. Maybe they've always been on Sony products, switched consoles at a certain point, or just missed it at the time. We want to bring players back together."

"Halo is best played when we have a large, healthy community," says Szlagor. "We see this as a way to grow, expand, and reconnect the Halo community." Conn adds: "We want to honor the Halo legacy on PlayStation, and we're paving the way to expand our Halo universe – that's how we see it. And it's not a small thing. We don't and we won't take it lightly. We definitely feel the weight of it."

With Xbox preparing for its biggest year of the console generation so far, we are exploring the publisher's most anticipated first-party games (and some key Game Pass releases) as part of our Big in 2026 Spotlight series. Join us every day this week for exclusive interviews, new previews, and fresh insights into all of the upcoming Xbox games you need to have on your radar.

Former Halo lead Jaime Griesemer has commented on the debate about whether Halo should have a sprint function after it was retroactively added into Combat Evolved's upcoming remake.

Halo: Campaign Evolved was announced last week, joining 2025's Gears of War: Reloaded in returning to a beloved Xbox series. However, Campaign Evolved is not an exact remake, as the game adds things like sprinting and changes to the level design. Former Halo lead Jaime Griesemer is wary of some of the changes, including the removal of some rocks that were intentionally placed so that you couldn't destroy your enemies from the safety of a Warthog, calling Campaign Evolved "like the dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over."

In a thread on Twitter, Griesemer says, "Right, I'm going to settle this question once and for all in a definitive thread on the topic…'Should Halo have sprint?'" before following up with the type of rambling you'd find on a log in a horror game. "That's an absurd question. 'Should' implies a moral imperative. Game mechanics have no inherent moral value. This question has no legitimate answer and any attempt at answering it will result in a phone booth full of badgers."

Griesemer elaborates, "No mechanic makes a game unequivocally "better" because games are systems and changing a system is always a trade-off between positive and negative consequences." He then explains some of these in his view, saying that a positive aspect of sprinting is that it "allows players to get where they want to go in less time," and that "impatient" players want it for tasks like "back-tracking or they've played before."

But Griesemer adds that "sprinting breaks mission pacing and the sense of exploring a mysterious environment", and it "makes vehicles less useful and important." He cites playtests where "players complete an entire vehicle mission on foot because sprint makes it less obvious they are doing the wrong thing."

However, he doesn't believe that giving players the option to turn sprint off – the way Campaign Evolved will – is a good compromise, saying, "If you make a game mechanic optional you have abandoned your post, thrown up your hands and admitted you have no vision and that someone else should design the game. In this case, everyone else should design the game."

Halo co-creator says Campaign Evolved "looks and feels genuine": "It's gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001"

Halo fans have created their own Vampire Survivors-style game based on the iconic FPS franchise, and the group behind it has received a stamp of approval from Halo Studios.

While we are all waiting for the rumored Halo: Combat Evolved remake (that could be arriving on PS5) Spartan Survivors launched back in May. If the name didn't give it away, it's a Halo fan game that brings the franchise into the Vampire Survivors formula, complete with characters, weapons and enemies from the beloved Microsoft series.

Of course, with fan games it can go one of two ways, the classic route of the game being taken down (see: AM2R, Metal Gear Remake), or in other cases a company like Sega will embrace the fan community, even collaborating with them, as we saw with Sonic Mania.

Well don't worry about Spartan Survivors being taken away anytime soon, as the devs announced on Twitter that the game has the seal of approval from Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries). "Really love to see the passion you and your team have poured into this experience" a Halo Studios rep told the Spartan Survivors team, adding, "it really is fun and we look forward to getting further in our play through and unlocking more stuff."

The team revealed that Halo Studios "requested us to add a minor update to the legal disclaimer in the game's credits and the store pages," but outside of that they are free to go wild. While the game is available free on Itch.io at the moment, the team has confirmed that it's coming to Steam in July, mobile and Xbox "later this summer," and also plans to do a PS5 release of the game, fulfilling the prophecy!

Time will tell if Spartan Survivors will make its way to the list of the top 10 Halo games.

Halo could be making a comeback "very soon," according to a well-known dataminer in the Halo community… oh, and it's for a PS5 game.

Halo Infinite will be four years old by the end of this year, and Microsoft has been suspiciously quiet about what used to be its marquee franchise (now that it owns Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, it's no competition). Other than 343 Industries rebranding itself Halo Studios last year, there hasn't been a whiff of a new game and considering how long Microsoft games take from reveal to release these days (I can't believe Fable wasn't at that Xbox Games Showcase either), I'm sure many assumed it'd be a while before we see Master Chief again.

Well, there's been nothing official anyway, as whisperings of a new release of Halo: Combat Evolved (either another remaster, or a full-blown remake) have been part of the rumor mill for a while. But after the Xbox Games Showcase ended without a trace of Halo – outside of a brief tease about "a classic that's been with us since the beginning" coming in 2026 from Phil Spencer – the evidence started piling up.

However, Halo dataminer "gruntdotapi" has noticed that a Halo game has now appeared on the 343 Retail API and that it is specifically pegged to be a PS5 game, with no mention of a Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 version to be found. The user also posted that it has a new ID, ruling out the chance of it being a previously existing release like the Master Chief Collection or Halo Infinite.

While gruntdotapi doesn't have an ETA of a release date, this, combined with Phil Spencer hinting something Halo-related is on the way, leads me to believe we'll be getting this rumoured CE remaster sometime in early 2026. That or Spencer was hinting at the return of a REAL classic like Blinx the Time-Sweeper.

You simply will not guess the main character of the Psychonauts studio and Brutal Legends art director's new mind-bending adventure.

A former Halo developer recently revealed that the team had once pitched several spin-offs to management, including one ODST game that had much in common with this year's biggest release, Helldivers 2, although none of them were greenlit. Halo Infinite Forgers are now turning that dream spin-off into an unofficial reality.

Halo Infinite's Forge - the toolset that lets players build custom maps and modes - has been a rare, undisputed bright spot for the once struggling FPS, providing the game with over a million creations, including Pokemon clones, MOBAs, and kaiju boss fights. 

One team of superforgers, the Forge Falcons, even teamed up to create unofficial modes that captured a battle royale large-scale chaos and COD Zombies' wave-based survival. The Forge Falcons have now amassed "a team of nearly a dozen extremely talented forgers" to create its "most ambitious project" yet: a Helldivers 2-inspired mode called Helljumpers, built entirely with Forge's toolkit. 

The trailer above only gives us an early peek at Helljumpers' map, with a full trailer coming sometime this month and a full launch aiming for early June. The Forge mode is said to include "procedural objectives, in-game progression, upgrade systems, boss fights, extraction, drop pods, and much, much more." All the features you'd expect from Helldivers 2, then, just with Halo Infinite's wacky sandbox and alien baddies.

Comparisons between Halo and Helldivers have been rampant since the latter launched earlier this year and it's not hard to see why. The relentlessly sturdy Helldivers share a ton with Halo's orbital shock drop troopers: they deploy in drop pods, battle beasts several times their size, and are both inspired by the OG Starship Troopers. 

Helldivers 2's loop of furious bug squashing followed by slower, tactical maneuvering against ranged foes would suit Halo's Flood and Covenant factions perfectly. That's probably what makes Helljumpers such an exciting idea, and the failed ODST pitches so heart-breaking. Regardless, Helldivers 2's director said the Halo comparisons are unnecessary because "we need more compassion and union."

While fans continue to add to the game, developer 343 Industries has largely dwindled support for Halo Infinite. The studio recently ceased seasonal support for the game, instead choosing to deploy smaller updates on a more regular basis, all while the team works on future games in the series.

Check out the 10 best Halo games of all time.

 After sinking well over 30 hours into Helldivers 2, I can safely say it's accidentally the best Halo game to come out since 2010. Hold on. Halo game? Sure, there are some obvious similarities between the two sci-fi series – both have a similar militaristic aesthetic and are shooters that see humanity waging war against advanced alien factions with elite troopers that plummet into battle from orbit – but beyond that, they're quite different thematically and mechanically. 

However, Helldivers 2 perfectly embodies the glorious and hilarious multiplayer carnage that those Bungie-era Halo games from over a decade ago provided. While many Halo players' experiences are defined by the white-hot crucible of Halo 3's Lone Wolf playlists or classic LAN parties, mine (and I’m sure many others') were defined by accidentally fragging my friends or running them over while driving a Ghost. Cooperative play, whether it's through the Campaign, Multiplayer, and later the Firefight mode, has always been a core part of my experience with Halo and it's great that Helldivers 2 has allowed me to rediscover the same joy. But that has also left me wondering why Halo: Infinite and 343 Industries' previous games just haven't landed with me in quite the same way.

Like peas in a Hellpod

In the canon of Helldivers 2, the titular, fragile heroes with fancy capes have an incredibly short life-expectancy of a mere two minutes. This might be because of the gnashing claws and mandibles of the Terminids or the unrelenting, heavily-armored Automatons, but based on my time playing, a big part of it is your own teammates.

For me, these friendly-fire incidents are crucial to the joy of Helldivers 2, no matter how annoying they can be. It comes down to the fact that all players can gradually unlock an increasingly bonkers armory of weapons. Starting from a humble assault rifle, machine gun, and precise orbital strike, players can eventually work their way up to half-ton bombs, railguns, grenade launchers, and orbital lasers. Giving all players access to this ludicrous weapon sandbox is what makes Helldivers 2 so unmistakably a Halo game in disguise, and so fun when playing with friends because, inevitably, it all goes wrong.

Committing to giving players such a varied and overpowered sandbox of weapons to pick from is a foundation of Halo, and what has made it one of my favorite video game series of all time. There aren't many other games where you can charge up a Spartan Laser to hit an enemy vehicle, only for your teammate to walk in front as it fires, getting vaporized too, but Helldivers 2 brings its own brand of discord with its spectacular Stratagems. Seeing your friends get obliterated by a stray shot from your own orbital barrage makes me laugh out loud, even in the most stressful high-difficulty missions where every life counts, and enemy hordes are unending.

It goes the other way too, in that both series offer plenty of ways to help and not just hinder your teammates. For example, most vehicles in Halo require multiple players to operate effectively, and some of Helldivers 2's most powerful weapons are best when a friend takes the ammo to help you rapidly reload. Whether you're being a good friend or a right bastard, both Bungie-era Halo and Helldivers 2 are better co-op experiences for allowing these teamwork and team-killing moments, creating a perfect mix of camaraderie and chaos. It's both a good reminder that communication and careful use of your gear is key to staying alive – and it's also really funny.

Combat Devolved

So why is it that every main Halo game since Halo: Reach in 2010 hasn't quite scratched the same chaotic co-op itch that Helldivers 2 has? It’s not like that diverse sandbox of weapons that Halo is known for has gone away in the last 14 years, but there seems to have been a clear shift in priority when it came to PvP that had wide-reaching effects.

I've felt that the modern era of mainline Halo games from 343 Industries have had a habit of following the trends of the industry-leading shooters. Halo 4 introduced Call of Duty Killstreak-like personal ordnance drops and Halo 5: Guardians' microtransaction hell and Big Team Battle-equivalent mode, Warzone, introduced Req Pack cards. These kinds of personal power and progression systems are certainly fun to use, but they completely oppose the more teamwork-oriented nature of Halo's roots. Why squad up in a Warthog with your friends when you can call in your own Scorpion tank or Banshee?

Along with new movement mechanics and a lesser emphasis on PvE outside the campaign, Halo 5: Guardians in particular felt like a real step back for cooperative play in Halo in general, despite the campaign being built with it in mind. Halo Infinite certainly made improvements in this department, but the notable absence of core features at launch, including online campaign co-op and Forge was a huge disappointment. Moreover, recent news of more adventurous pitches for Halo games, including a game like Helldivers 2, failing to get off the ground has not only been a sad glimpse at what could have been for Halo, but also suggests that not even Xbox seems to know what to do with its most recognizable franchise.

All this has essentially allowed a 100-strong Swedish studio to fill the gap with a phenomenal, sci-fi, co-op shooter with a huge weapons sandbox and strong emphasis on teamwork. With Halo Infinite now in its final season, things are winding down for 343 Industries to move onto other projects – hopefully ones that branch out from the prestigious, flagship franchise rut that Master Chief seems to be stuck in. For now, it seems like my friends and I will be spreading Managed Democracy for a little while longer before bringing the war back to the Covenant.

Have fun locking and loading with the best shooters right now 

Developer 343 Industries has teased future plans for its iconic shooter series, just as it announced that support on Halo Infinite would be somewhat slowing down.

Halo Infinite, in my opinion, finally became the full FPS package that it promised at launch last month and stood shoulder to shoulder with its other, older Halo siblings in terms of feature parity and overall shoot-punch-boom fun. Season 5 introduced an excellent PvE mode, a host of fancy new maps, fresh equipment, and more - but it's also the divisive game's very last season.

In last night's community livestream, 343 Industries announced that Halo Infinite would be ditching seasonal cycles and adopting the smaller "content updates" - the first of which is dropping on January 30 - that Halo: Master Chief Collection enjoyed for a while. Instead, the shooter will now have smaller "Operations" run from four to six weeks with an accompanying 20-tier battle pass each time. 

"We have a dedicated team working on Halo Infinite, continuing to deliver going forward," the team revealed. The game is definitely not going into maintenance mode or anything similar anytime soon, but the studio is putting more power in the hands of players with plans to further flesh out the custom games editor, Forge. The community has already hammered out some wild creations with the tool, creating Pokemon parodies, miniature MOBAs, and giant Kaiju fights - and I wouldn't scoff at seeing more.

"But we also have additional teams now, accelerating towards the future, working on brand new projects," the team also stated. "We are also growing and have exciting things for the future." It certainly sounds like the team is gearing up work on the next mainline Halo game, while slowly dwindling support on Infinite. 

Games can't and shouldn't be around forever, but hopefully studio layoffs aren't paving the way for another bumpy road to release for the team. Fingers crossed. 

See where Halo Infinite places in our top ten Halo games of all time list.

Halo Infinite sprinted into release with all the momentum of a 290-pound space spartan, but as the seasonal updates slowed down and layoffs hit developer 343 Industries, community confidence waned. Thankfully, next week’s mid-season update marks a much brighter era for the once struggling shooter.

The tide has been slowly turning with several high-quality seasons back-to-back, some amazing community-made Forge creations, and more open communication from the studio. Halo Infinite has been in a healthy spot for most of 2023 - especially compared to the rocky 2022 - but the mid-season update will finally turn the game into the full Halo package.

That’s thanks to the addition of the series’ longtime PvP mode: Firefight. The mode was first introduced as a wave-based survive ‘em up in Halo 3: ODST, turned into an arcade score-chasing mode in Halo: Reach, and then returned in grand fashion in Halo 5. The RTS Halo: Wars games even tried to replicate the fun.

Firefight is coming to Halo Infinite on December 5 with three fan-made maps and the House Of Reckoning arena ripped straight from the campaign. The mid-season update also brings stability improvements, updates to Forge, and the Repair Field - a tool that fixes any damaged vehicles. 343 Industries is debuting a trailer on December 4, where we’ll likely get a good look at the anticipated mode.

The developer teased the announcement by riffing on Rockstar’s GTA 6 announcement. On Twitter, the studio posted an image of Infinite’s skybox with a similar hue to Rockstar’s teaser image. Many speculated that 343 was gearing up for a major announcement, but we now know the company will simply dish out the latest info for Infinite. 

Steady updates, exciting sandbox additions, Forge creations, campaign co-op, a ranked system, fun rotating playlists. Mix that in with the already solid gunplay and the excellent campaign and Halo Infinite finally feels like the package it was supposed to be at launch. Hopefully, it’s not too little too late.

The future of Halo is up in the air, but for now, check out our Xbox Game Studios list for everything in development at Microsoft.

Halo Infinite is currently traveling up Steam's revenue charts thanks to Master Chief's very expensive armor.

As spotted by @Mr_ Rebs_ on Twitter, Halo Infinite has jumped up 47 spots on Steam's Global Top Sellers Chart (by revenue) shortly after the release of the new Mark V armor cosmetic - which was inspired by Master Chief's armor in Halo: Combat Evolved. At the time of writing, 343 Industries' game is sitting at number 33 in the charts, next to GTA 5 and Tales of Arises's Beyond the Dawn expansion. 

As reported by PC Gamer, the new cosmetic will set players back 2,200 in in-game currency for the full set, or $22. That might not sound too big of an ask if you're a big fan of Halo: Combat Evolved, but it's pretty shocking when you realize that you can purchase Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, as in the game the armor comes from, on Steam for much less than $22. 

In case you were wondering, the new cosmetic does come with a few added extras. For starters, it doesn't look as pixelated as it did back in 2001, as Halo Waypoint reveals, the new Mark V armor has been "updated and enhanced" for Season 5 of Halo Infinite. They also now allow for coating, visor, emblem, and FX customization giving players more options when it comes to customization of the classic skin. 

This isn't the only nostalgic thing heading to Halo Infinite. In just over a week's time on November 14, players will be able to revisit a bunch of Halo 3 maps in Halo Infinite including The Pit, High Ground, Isolation, Cliffside, and many more. You can find the full list here. 

Need a little break from Halo Infinite? Take a look at our games like Halo list to find out what else you could be playing. 

A developer for Halo has shared their frustration following the GTA 6 trailer leak, telling fellow devs to "please just let cool moments be cool moments."

Earlier today on November 8, a report went live that suggested GTA 6 could be announced "as early as this week," with a trailer next month. Just a few hours later, Rockstar confirmed the report and told fans to expect the first GTA 6 trailer in December. Although an exciting few hours for GTA fans, this turn of events doesn't sit quite right with John Junyszek, Halo's community manager at 343 Industries. 

Quoting the original report, Junyszek points out that the leak came from people who "weren’t authorized to speak publicly" about the upcoming project, before telling others: "Don't be this person." Speaking from the perspective of a developer, Junyszek writes: "If you're ever fortunate enough to work on a game that millions of people care about - don't be this person." 

"Imagine: You and your teammates have been dreaming of this moment since day one. Now that it's almost ready, entire teams have started planning to turn that reveal into something truly memorable for the fans, the studio, and the gaming community as a whole," the tweet continues, "then, right before the announcement, someone takes it upon themselves to undermine it all - robbing millions of fans (and the team you've been in the trenches with) of the reveal that they deserve."

Junyszek adds: "Rather than being a spectacular surprise - you are now an expectation. All because of one person. Don't be that person." Before telling fellow game developers and leakers to "please just let cool moments be cool moments." 

Honestly, I can see where Junyszek is coming from. GTA 6 fans may be rejoicing at the news, but imagine how much more exciting that announcement trailer would have been if we had no idea when it was coming. Instead, we'll now be counting down each day of December until it releases. Either way, GTA fans will soon be getting what they've been dreaming of for several years now. 

This isn't the first time developers have rallied around GTA developer Rockstar. Last year, following the huge GTA 6 leak, employees from Naughty Dog, CD Projekt Red, and more showed their support for the studio online following the 90+ video leak. 

Find something to keep you busy while we wait for GTA 6 with our games like GTA list. 

Players are creating entirely different games within Halo Infinite’s Forge tool following a mega-update to the custom map editor.

Forge is a longtime series tool that allows players to edit existing maps, create their own from scratch, and even dream up whole new game modes using Halo’s chaotic alien sandbox. But with the release of Season 5: Reckoning - which dropped on October 17th - developer 343 has added NPCs to Halo Infinite’s toolset, allowing players to manipulate the behavior of grunts, brutes, and other enemies. 

Calling the update a game-changer wouldn’t be an exaggeration since, well, players have literally been recreating other games within Halo Infinite’s Forge. Over on Twitter, DanTheBloke showed off their “Pokemon battle arena.” The player somehow managed to stuff various aliens into balls which you can throw, before setting two teams off in a cage fight. There are health bars too! All it needs now is some XP and we can have a proper train/battle/gym loop.

Another forger went backward in the Halo space-time continuum and recreated the final mission from Halo: Combat Evolved. In a video posted to Reddit, The Maw’s tight warthog run stayed intact with the remake, complete with the original’s badass music. 

Rather than turning Halo into a different classic game, some forgers instead switched genres, turning the FPS into a light MOBA. On ResetEra, user Gowans created a single-lane MOBA mode “over the space of 90 minutes and with zero experience of Forge coding.” The mode sees opposing grunt swarms blasting at each other until the enemy base (Sentinel, in this case) is destroyed. 

Firefight vs Giants from r/halo

Of course, forged modes would be incomplete without the purely whacky ones. Redditor loudmaryjane expanded the already-scary hunters until they reached a towering size and, to top it off, the custom level loosely resembles a city. So that’s basically a Spartans versus Kaiju mode. 

Countless other clips have circulated online as forgers experiment with survival modes, escort missions, and battle royales. Halo Infinite’s Forge already spawned a million creations and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a million more with this update. All things considered, Halo Infinite’s fifth season has given the struggling shooter a much-needed boost thanks to the gorgeous new maps, interesting Forge creations, and the upcoming PvE mode.

Here’s our guide to every Xbox Game Studio and what they’re working on.

A new Halo game is reportedly in development at 343 Industries, built on Unreal Engine and currently codenamed "Tatanka".

A report from Bloomberg (paywalled) suggests that with its recent layoffs and leadership changes, Halo developer 343 Industries is "all but starting from scratch" as it looks to build the future of the Halo series.

One major source of development headaches during Halo Infinite's production was the use of the Slipspace engine, an aging set of tools with roots that were decades old. Bloomberg's sources suggest that even now, finished multiplayer modes based on popular options like Extraction and Assault have gone unreleased partly because of engine issues.

Now, 343 is reportedly moving to Unreal Engine for a new game codenamed "Tatanka", developed in partnership with support studio Certain Affinity, which "started off as a battle royale but may evolve in different directions", according to Bloomberg's sources. The report suggests that further Halo games may also be developed on Unreal, though there are concerns within the studio that the switch may poorly affect the series' gameplay.

The name Tatanka has been rumbling around in connection to Halo with various leaks and rumors for years, and up until now had been understood as a battle royale game mode for Halo Infinite. Certain Affinity CEO Max Hoberman said last year that "we’re doing something unannounced, and we’re doing lead development on that unannounced thing, from conception and design. It’s something big and new for the franchise." Hoberman said the project had already been in development for "more than two years" even then.

Microsoft wants to know if you're "done" with Halo Infinite.

Microsoft is quizzing players on whether or not they are "done" with Halo Infinite.

As spotted by Twitter user Rebs Gaming, Microsoft has released a new Xbox Research survey to gauge players feeling about the latest entry in its flagship series. As the accompanying images show, the company asks, "Are you done with Halo Infinite?" Players have the choice of responding with "Yes", "No", or "Maybe", though there doesn't appear to be any follow-up questions for those who no longer play the game, such as what made them quit or what sort of changes could be implemented to entice them back.

Other questions centre around Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries and its interaction with the series' fanbase. Microsoft asks players if they think the developer is "listening and making changes to Halo Infinite based on community feedback" and, in a separate question, asks if the developer is "doing a good job communicating with the community".

The survey also suggests more traditional multiplayer modes could be making their way to the game. Players are asked which game modes they'd most like to see added to Infinite, with options including Infection, Firefight, and Domination. 

While we don't know what information Microsoft has garnered from these queries, the responses could help determine what the future holds for Halo Infinite and how long it continues to be supported with content updates. The road to release wasn't the smoothest for the Halo series' newest entry, and the game has struggled to meet players' expectations since launching in November 2021.

Earlier this month, it was reported that 343 Industries had been heavily affected by Microsoft's latest round of layoffs after the company announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees. Following the news, 343 Industries' studio head, Pierre Hintz, issued a statement confirming that the developer remains committed to the Halo series, "343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future, including epic stories, multiplayer, and more of what makes Halo great," said Hintz.

Check out what's coming to Microsoft's latest console this year and beyond with our guide to upcoming Xbox Series X games.

The single-player DLC planned for Halo Infinite has reportedly been scrapped as 343 Industries supposedly ceases "active development" of the Halo series. 

This claim comes from Twitter user @BathrobeSpartan (as shared on ResetEra) who, in a lengthy thread, shed more light on the effect Microsoft's recent layoffs have had on the Halo series. According to the leaker, the plans developer 343 Industries had for Halo Infinite in 2023 remain unchanged, even after the studio was supposedly hit hard by Microsoft's latest round of layoffs.

The studio will apparently still be focusing on Halo Infinite's multiplayer after its plans for multiple campaign DLCs were scrapped. The single-player content, which was apparently planned to expand the game's narrative over months, was reportedly canceled after Bonnie Ross (former head of 343 Industries) left the company in 2022 and Pierre Hintze, along with other new key roles were filled at the studio. 

It's said in the Twitter thread that the reason behind this cut content was due to narrative single-player content being "difficult to produce" as well as it "not offering strong player retention," and "not allowing for viable monetization for the sustainability of the studio and the teams." 

Another interesting claim made in the thread is that 343 Industries will apparently soon be ceasing active game development. Instead, it's said that the studio will be responsible for coordinating the follow-up of Halo Infinite and franchising the Halo license to other studios, whilst also supporting the game's multiplayer. This is reportedly due to the Halo Infinite failing to meet its financial expectations. 

These claims were later backed up by fellow Twitter user @Porshapwr, who quote retweeted the original thread and added: "From what I can corroborate, the below is accurate. Halo is certainly not going anywhere, but to realize its potential the management structure is changing (drastically)."

Did you enjoy Halo Infinite? Take a look at our best Halo games to see where it placed in our list. 

Halo Infinite's bot bootcamp mode is gone as of the newly-released winter update, leaving players without a permanent PVE playlist.

The mode's removal was technically announced as part of a blog post last week laying out the playlists which would be available after the winter update. Bot bootcamp was not among them, but since 343 Industries did not directly address the mode's removal, players held out hope that it might still somehow be part of the game. But now that the winter update has arrived, bot bootcamp is nowhere to be found.

Bot bootcamp is billed in-game as a way to introduce players to Halo Infinite's multiplayer game mechanics, but even experienced fans continued to use it as a way to enjoy multiplayer in a lower-stress environment. It also served as a particularly easy way to grind through the game's regular challenges.

"Halo Infinite’s playlist offerings will continue to evolve and shift in response to player behavior in-game (where players spend their time) and community feedback," the devs said in last week's blog. Playlists in core and social modes are going to keep rotating on alternating weeks, so maybe bot bootcamp will return in some form sooner rather than later.

The biggest addition in the winter update is Forge mode, which might end up being a workaround for players looking to compete against bots, since you can theoretically build bot matches of your own. Unfortunately, Forge doesn't currently support the same sort of matchmaking as bot bootcamp, so it won't be a replacement. You will, at least, be able to play around on maps made out of 150,000 bananas.

Take aim at the best FPS games with our guide to the genre's brightest stars.

Ah, the best free Xbox One games. The last-gen console might be usurped by the likes of Xbox Series X, but it's still got plenty of life left in it for those not quite ready to upgrade their setup. What's more, you don't even need to shell out for an incredible new title to play on it, because us here at GR+ have trawled the length and breadth of Microsoft's catalog to bring you the ultimate free Xbox One games still available as we head into 2025. It's also worth checking out our pick of the best free Xbox Series X games, especially if you're hoping to trade up. For now, let's dive into those freebies - no credit card required.

15. Halo Infinite

Developer: 343 Industries
Year: 2021

Halo Infinite is a new beginning for the famous Xbox franchise. 343 Industries has focused its efforts on delivering a platform for future expansion, with Halo Infinite launching as a free-to-play multiplayer experience that's designed to grow and evolve over time. It's a tightly-designed, and chaotically tense, arena shooter at its heart. With support for cross-play across PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox One, Halo Infinite is a must-play multiplayer experience.

Read our Halo Infinite review here

14. PUBG: Battlegrounds

Developer: Krafton
Year: 2017

PUBG: Battlegrounds took the world by storm in 2017 and now the battle royale that helped to kickstart a global phenomenon is free-to-play. It's all the better because of it too, given the huge array of available content, different maps, and tactical combat for you to dive into. PUBG is slower and more punishing than the games it inspired – Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Warzone – but it may be more rewarding as a result. PUBG: Battlegrounds is a truly excellent third-person shooter and absolutely deserving of your time and attention. 

13. Call of Duty Warzone 2

Developer: Infinity Ward / Raven Software
Year: 2022

Call of Duty Warzone 2 builds on the gunslinging battle royale prestige of Caldera to deliver not only high-stakes PvP combat encounters, but narrative-based extraction campaigns via DMZ mode. The Call of Duty offshoot sees you take part in epic battles of up to 150 players, collect loot, and complete contracts, all delivered with the sweet shooter satisfaction the Call of Duty series is known for. Activision keeps the game fresh with regular content drops, and the maps are dense and perfect for playing around with strategy. One of the most attractive things about the game is that it keeps loadouts, inventory, and finding the right loot simple, so you can focus on the important things like taking out the enemy and showing off your sniper skills to your friends. 

Read our Warzone 2 review next

12. Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie
Year: 2019

Bungie's shooter now has a free-to-play flavor thanks to Destiny 2: New Light, a special version of the full game that focuses on content released before Destiny 2: Shadowkeep. Jump in and you'll find a specially made intro mission set in the Cosmodrome from the original Destiny, as well as every planet and hub in Destiny 2, including DLC areas. There's also campaigns, the PvP Crucible, Strikes, Gambit and in-game events. There's plenty to enjoy without spending a dime, but if you want to unlock later content, you'll need to stump up for Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, at $40.

Read our Destiny 2: The Final Shape review here

11. Rocket League

Developer: Psyonix
Year: 2016

Imagine if arcade racing and soccer had a baby, and you've got some idea of what makes Rocket League such a blast to play. It's fine minutes of chaos as you race to bash the ball into your opponent's goal in one-on-one, or up to four-on-four matches. There are boosts to give you more power as you tackle your rivals, you can smash up enemy cars, and nothing quite compares to scoring a goal from mid-air. Other modes like Dropshot keep things spicy, and developer Psyonix is a big fan of tie-ins with pop culture like WWE, Back to the Future, and The Witcher, and special events to coincide with stuff like the Super Bowl. 

Check out our Rocket League review

10. Fortnite

Developer: Epic Games
Year: 2017

Fortnite is a true behemoth in the video game industry, and you can get in on the action for free! While Epic Games' battle royale once drew a lot of inspiration from PUBG, it now operates in a world of its own. It's home to live events, a mass of playable pop-culture icons, and some pretty excellent third-person shooting mechanics too. Fortnite continues to implement massive changes to its maps, systems, and structure, so it's well worth taking another dip into the battle royale if you've been away for a while. And if you're preparing to play for the first time – you're in for a real treat!

Check out our Fortnite review here

9. Apex Legends

Developer: Respawn
Year: 2019

EA's free-to-play shooter came from nowhere to challenge Fortnite's dominance of the free-to-play battle royale genre in early February 2019, reaching over 50 million players by the end of its first month. Apex Legends is home to a vibrant community, thanks to a responsive, squad-based shooter with amiable characters, and clearly-defined skill classes. It's developed by Respawn Entertainment, of mech-shooter Titanfall fame, who also made Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. 

Read our Apex Legends review here

8. Roblox

Developer: Roblox Corporation
Year: 2016

You might not be familiar with Roblox, but ask any kid and they'll give you all the latest on the game and game creation platform that sees around 20 million games a year added to its world. Some of the biggest games on the platform are Adopt Me! - an MMO-style game where the main draw is adopting and caring for pets - the fantasy RPG school-themed Royale High, episodic horror game Piggy, and The Sims style Welcome to Bloxburg. Those who are done with playing can spend their time building their own games or items, and there are special events like an annual Easter egg hunt. 

7. Fallout Shelter

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Year: 2017

Fallout Shelter's wasteland meets The Sims shouldn't be so addictive but, somehow, running your own vault can eat up time like nobody's business. It starts with the basics: building the facilities you need to keep people alive - power, food water etc - and then assigning settlers to run it all. Before long though you're sending people out on missions, fighting off raiders, dressing up pets, and more. It's all free to play but it can be quite hard to resist spending some money on Lunch Boxes - the in-game loot that gives you stat-boosting settlers, outfits, and more. 

6. Paladins 

Developer: Evil Mojo Games
Year: 2017

Think 'free Overwatch' and you're basically there. It's a team-based objective focused shooter full of strange and colorful characters. The classes are built around clear roles. with the Front Line class made to control objectives and provide support. The Damage class is obviously all about hurting enemies, while Support is about offensive and defensive back up, and Flank fight from a distance. Just working through the 30 plus characters currently included will give you plenty to do. Especially with the card-based system used to tweak and adjust their load outs. But, chances are, once you've done that you'll have a good grasp of the gameplay and want more. Match involves objectives, like taking zones and escorting payloads so this is very much about characters working together. 

5. Warframe

Developer: Digital Extremes
Year: 2014

Thanks to regular updates, Warframe has attracted a hardcore community, and the game’s blend of gravity defying melee attacks and boisterous sci-fi blasting are unlike anything else out there. Best of all, despite being free-to-play, even the most frugal firefight fans can enjoy breakneck multiplayer without ever prying open their change purses. If you’re feeling flush you can buy some Platinum on the Xbox Store, but you don’t spend all your pennies on sci-fi bling to enjoy Warframe - the pleasure of zipping about with its somersaulting stars is gratifying enough as is. Whether diving into quest-driven PVE action or dabbling in competitive deathmatches, Warframe always feels like its own unique entity. The maps are also brilliantly varied, including Pluto, the Moon, the dwarf planets of Ceres and Sedna. With so many different types of Warframe armor and weapons to pick from, plus numerous ways to slice and dice foes, there are hundreds of hours of entertainment here for the grand price of absolutely nothing. 

Check out our Warframe revieew for our initial thoughts on the game at launch

4. MultiVersus

Developer: Player First Games
Year: 2022

While it's worth noting that you need a WB Games account to play, MultiVersus is here for anyone looking for a great fighting game that won't cost you. Similar to Super Smash Bros in its set up, MultiVersus lets play as fighter from a roster of iconic characters - with everyone from Bugs Bunny, Velma from Scooby Doo, Batman, and Fin the Human from Adventure Time on various maps. With cross-play multiplayer support, you can try out 2v2 co-op, go against a pal head-to-head in 1v1 fights, or get friends together for a four-player Free For All mode.  

3. Smite

Developer: Titan Forge Games
Year: 2015

You may already think you're a god at highly competitive multiplayer games - but what kind of god? Greek? Egyptian? Norse? These are but a few of the mythologies represented by the gigantic roster in Smite, a MOBA played from a behind-the-back third-person perspective that puts you at ground level for all that sweet minion-slaying, kill-spreeing action. The primary mode is the classic 5v5 on a three-lane map, but there are a wealth of additional modes and maps to try out.

Like any MOBA, Smite comes with a cycling rotation of free-to-try heroes, and earning your favorites for keeps is simply a matter of some moderate time invested. Smite's cartoony visual style and often flashy, sometimes goofy animations are certainly appealing, and the sheer variety of its deity selections ensures that you'll find a god of your own to master and/or worship. If you do feel like plunking money down, there's even an option to buy every god, now and forever, that has been and ever will be added to the game.

2. Dead or Alive 5 Last Round: Core Fighters

Developer: Koei Tecmo
Year: 2015

Dead or Alive 5 is a bummer conceptually speaking. When you look at the in-game store and realize it would take well over $1000 to purchase a complete version of the game with every costume, character, and feature unlocked, it can feel like the absolute nadir of free-to-play game making. Play just the free version of the game, though, and you'll realize that Dead or Alive 5 doesn't need to be a complete game to actually be a good one. The simple but deep rock-paper-scissor structure of DOA's fights, where blocks counter strikes and throws counter blocks, creates a delicious base for the pyrotechnics layered on top of them. All of DOA's base characters are fun to swing around an arena on their own, no ridiculous and overpriced downloadable Christmas bikinis necessary.

Read our Dead or Alive 5 review here

1. Killer Instinct

Developer: Iron Galaxy
Year: 2016

The revival of the classic fighting franchise Killer Instinct was a pleasant surprise when it was revealed by Microsoft prior to the Xbox One launch. The fact it also happens to be a rock-solid fighting game that manages to stand apart from its competition thanks to its unique handling of c-c-c-c-combos is nothing short of astounding. Throughout the years, Killer Instinct has continued to evolve and be refined, with balance tweaks and an influx of new fighters making it feel like a living experience where you can always find something worth checking out. And while the full experience will cost you some dough, you can still enjoy unlimited bouts with a selection of free fighters, who are rotated in and out on a regular basis.

Read our Killer Instinct review here

Look ahead to future releases with our roundups of upcoming Xbox Series X games. 

The latest Halo Infinite roadmap is here, and so is the now-familiar cycle of emotions provoked by an update from 343 Industries. It goes something like this: excitement at a fresh collection of Halo Infinite news, reservation as you start to parse through that news, pleasant acceptance of a few good tidbits of information, worry as some of the updates start to seem a little concerning, then disappointment once you realize this is all you're getting for the next six months to a year. 

The latest Halo Waypoint update was especially upsetting in that regard, as we learned that season 3 is being pushed from November of this year to March 2023 and that 343 Industries is abandoning Halo Infinite split-screen co-op altogether. Naturally, players feel like the goal posts have yet again been moved - the fact that the couch co-op cancellation was quietly squirreled away in a 30-minute update video doesn't help either. The most frustrating thing about all of this, however, is that Halo Infinite could be a great game - I just don't want to wait for all these promised improvements anymore. 

RIP couch co-op  

Halo 5 Guardians was the first Halo game to launch without couch co-op, with 343 scrapping the mode in part to ensure the game could reach 60fps. But a Halo game without split-screen co-op is a Halo game only in name, and fans of the franchise were vocal in their disappointment. As such, 343 Industries loudly and declaratively responded to the backlash. Studio founder Bonnie Ross took to the DICE Summit 2017 stage and discussed what the team had learned from the debacle. "It's incredibly painful for the community and for us," she said. "It erodes trust with the community as the community is part of our world-building … I would say for any FPS going forward, we will always have split-screen."

In July 2020, then-studio head Chris Lee doubled down on Ross' promise, saying "we will have split-screen and we will have co-op when we launch Halo Infinite." Halo Infinite's launch was soon pushed back to 2021, and when it did launch, it did so without campaign co-op or Forge, which were delayed until at least May 2022. Then, in March 2022, both modes were delayed again, with 343 admitting that Infinite's open world was presenting "big challenges."

Players can (and should) be understanding of the rigors of game development, especially when you consider the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shift to a work-from-home model. But the issue isn't with what's being provided - it's with what's being promised, and how those promises keep shifting.

Transparency 

343 Industries' latest spate of updates is fairly transparent, and that's partly what's so frustrating. It's not that past updates or conversations with players have seemed to obfuscate the truth, but that the truth keeps shifting, with long gaps between each adjustment. And it's not just split-screen co-op that's been a victim of shifting goal posts, but also Forge, matchmaking, online co-op - really the entire Halo package.

While testing out the Halo Infinite network co-op beta in July, I realized that it was incredibly difficult to find people to squad up with. The Halo Discord was ignoring my requests and none of my friends had access to the beta yet, so I pinged a question over to Xbox asking whether or not the mode would have matchmaking at launch. A representative responded: "Online matchmaking will not be available with final co-op. We encourage you to continue to use the Halo LFG and the new Discord voice call feature on Xbox to find players to party up with as you continue playing the beta." This is all fine and dandy, but here's the rub: when were we going to learn that this incredibly useful feature was absent?

Then there's the issue of repeated delays when it comes to multiplayer seasons and updates in general. In April, I wrote that Halo Infinite's status highlighted the need for clear live service roadmaps, as players had grown confused and frustrated at the lack of concise information. At that point, after months of silence, we were finally told how long Season 2 would be, that campaign network co-op was coming in August, and Forge would drop in September (or maybe November, it wasn't clear). Since then, we've lost split-screen co-op entirely, network co-op and Forge were pushed to November, Season 2 was extended to almost a year, and Season 3 was pushed back five months. And still, the vagueness persists - I had to watch a 30-minute video to learn that split-screen co-op was canceled. 

Good bones 

The most painful part is that Halo Infinite is a good game with rock-solid gunplay and frenetic, fun multiplayer that feels like it honors the franchise. Even jumping back into the campaign a few months ago was thoroughly enjoyable, though I wish I could have done it with my partner beside me and a few empty tinnies between us. 

Halo Infinite's better qualities are mired by inconsistent messaging and what seems to be a top-down issue, where higher-ups may be writing checks the dev team is struggling to cash. In February, I wrote that Forge would help Halo Infinite tap into a community of creators who could create new maps that would help keep online play fresh and potentially take the pressure off of the dev team. With no Forge in the mix, online play is getting stale fast, especially since we've only gotten two new maps since the game launched nearly a year ago. 

Halo Infinite has so much potential and a passionate fan base that wants, desperately, for this game to have a shelf life as long as the others in the franchise. For a while, players just wanted consistent updates on what was to come. But with so many features delayed or outright canceled, even with the latest roadmap in my hands, I have to wonder how much of it will actually materialize. Will we ever get a robust Forge roll-out? Will Season 3 last just three and a half months? Most importantly, will I run out of patience before this game finally feels complete? 

Check out the best open world games to play right now and completely forget real life exists.

A major Halo Infinite update has quietly snuck in the announcement that a split-screen co-op mode will not be happening. At all. While players can get excited about the latest Halo Infinite fall/winter roadmap, a video accompanying the announcement from 343 Industries buries some not-so-great information within it.

At the 11:46 mark in the video, 343 head of creative Joseph Staten looks to the camera and says, "We had to make the difficult decision not to ship campaign split-screen coop, and take the sources that we would use on that and go after this list and all these other things."

The list Staten is referring to includes cracking down on cheaters, increasing stability and polish, sorting out multiplayer performance issues, and more. The 30-minute long video adopts 343 Industries' more recent push for transparency when it comes to updates and realistic roadmaps, something that players seem to be welcoming with open arms. However, it's disconcerting to have something we've long been promised quietly canceled in the middle of a lengthy update video.

And when you consider the conflicting information 343 Industries has given players since long before launch, it's even more frustrating. Back in July 2020, the studio promised Halo Infinite would have split-screen co-op at launch. And while a Halo Infinite network campaign co-op beta was available for players earlier in the summer, it was never made clear until just now that split-screen co-op was off the table.

The rest of the Halo Infinite roadmap confirms that a Forge beta and campaign network co-op will come in the winter update which will run from November 8 to March 7. A new season, Halo Infinite: Echoes Within, will kick off March 7 and run until June 27 of next year. 

Xbox suggests using Discord for Halo Infinite campaign co-op when it finally drops. 

A 343 Industries employee thinks Halo Infinite Forge will "change the game forever" when it finally drops.

Halo Infinite esports and viewership lead Tahir 'Tashi' Hasandjekic responded to a tweet from 100 Thieves co-owner Jack "CouRage" Dunlop, who was lamenting the lack of content in Halo Infinite.

"I'm just sitting here sad thinking about Halo: Infinite. The gameplay was really fun but man. It just had NOTHING. N O T H I N G. It hurts to say now and I’m sorry if that offends anyone. But seriously, my favorite game series of all-time was just so poorly handled. Goodnight," wrote Dunlop. Tashi responded with "stay tuned - big stuff on the way."

After Dunlop pointed out that decisions from the top need to be "looked at," Tashi agreed, before promising that Forge would be the injection of content and excitement players need. 

The highly sought-after Forge mode is supposed to get a beta version sometime before the end of Halo season two, with a full version releasing sometime during season three. We've already seen some wild fan builds like a P.T demo, Squid Game's Red Light, Green Light, and a map made out of 150,000 bananas, but the average Halo Infinite player wants to get their hands on Forge. 

Back in February, I wrote that Halo Infinite needs to tap into its community of creators, and Forge is the way to do it. Not much has changed since then. The lack of map options and new modes is disheartening for die-hard Halo fans, and Forge can solve the problem. It's clear that the team at 343 Industries feels the same way, but now we just need to see the goods. At least Forge doesn't seem too far away anymore.

Xbox suggests using Discord for Halo Infinite campaign co-op.

How many bananas can you stuff into a map on Halo Infinite’s upcoming Forge mode? According to one player, 149,612 of them at least, but only if you get creative. 

Map creator Lunacy – an appropriate name – explains on YouTube that they started the build with the express purpose of finding out how many bananas they could place into a Forge build. They swiftly hit a roadblock as placing 900 crates crashed their game, so they ended up stitching together four builds with 850 banana boxes each to make their build. In case you were wondering, each crate has 44 bananas, which is how we arrive at the total number of fruit. 

“While all the Einsteins were out there pushing the limits of Halo Infinite forge with their big brains, I was over here stacking bananas like a pilgrim,” they say. “I almost lost my mind with all the crashes.”

If you’d like to see the build yourself, alongside fanart of Master Chief with various bananas of differing sizes, you can check out the video below:

While it remains unknown when Halo Infinite will officially get Forge, we've already seen oodles of impressive fan builds following a leak. So far, we've seen the P.T demo, Squid Game's Red Light, Green Light, and many more. 

Thankfully, the Forge doesn't seem far away. In an April update, 343 Industries explained that the mode would be going into open beta sometime during season two before fully releasing in season three. Season two kicked off in May, so we hopefully won't be waiting long now.

Halo Infinite campaign co-op won't have online matchmaking, Xbox suggests just using Discord.

343 Industries has outlined what's coming up in Halo Infinite's next Drop Pod update, which is scheduled to release on August 9.

In a new Halo Waypoint post, the studio behind Halo Infinite confirmed that it is simplifying helmet customization but allowing all visors to work on all cores, even though previously, they were spread across the five armor cores. 

Following fan feedback - and despite "some complexities" -  the update will also allow "certain" Mark VII helmet attachments to be worn across multiple Mark VII helmets. And while not every Mark VII helmet can be used "without clipping awkwardly or large gaps", "the total number of [customization] options has been greatly increased". 

That's not all, either. More ranked playlists are on the way, starting with Ranked Doubles, which will launch alongside a CSR reset two weeks after the Drop Pod's release. A social Team Doubles playlist will also be available.

"We’ll monitor the health of Ranked Doubles and all our playlists after its addition to the matchmaking lineup. If all playlists continue to perform as expected, we’ll keep these additions and continue experimenting with adding more Ranked playlists in the future."

ICYMI, Halo Infinite campaign co-op will not offer online matchmaking even after the mode leaves beta. A representative for Xbox recently confirmed as much in a statement to GamesRadar+, while also recommending some familiar alternatives to matchmaking.

"Online matchmaking will not be available with final co-op," the statement reads. "We encourage you to continue to use the Halo LFG and the new Discord voice call feature on Xbox to find players to party up with as you continue playing the beta."

343 Industries is working to preserve a bunch of content from pre-release versions of Halo and Halo 2, rebuilding them for players and modders to enjoy in the Master Chief Collection. And did you know that a Halo Infinite player has recreated Squid Game's Red Light, Green Light thanks to a leaked version of Forge mode? Another player recently used the leaked mode to recreate the brilliant P.T demo, too.

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Season 2:

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The best Halo games speak to how many strong entries we've seen in the iconic series over the years from 343 Industries and Bungie. As some of the very best FPS games of the day, we've seen different experiences land across Xbox's console generations, with certain Halo games earning spots among the best Xbox 360 games and best Xbox One games of all-time for good reason.

With big cinematic campaigns, memorable multiplayer maps, and more, Master Chief has taken us on all manner of adventures, and happily, we have some new games to look forward to in the future. During 2024's Halo World Championship Series, news came that 343 Industries has rebranded to Halo Studios, with multiple new Halo games are in the works.

While we wait it out for what's to come next for the series, now's a great time to reflect on all it's brought us so far. So, whether you're a newcomer who wants to put on Master Chief's armor for the first time, or you're a longtime fan who wants to check out our ranking, read on below to discover our pick of the best Halo games.

10. Halo Wars 2

Platform(s): PC, Xbox One
Release year: 2017

Ask yourself an honest question. Do you really need another Halo real-time strategy game in your life? Probably not, right? Well, you’re getting one anyway, champ! In defense of Halo Wars 2, it continues to get one thing absolutely right: it's an RTS that works really well on a pad. The original is one of the few games in the genre that feels comfortable played on a controller, and this sequel subtly evolves the control scheme, giving you a streamlined strategy title that never feels like it needs a mouse and keyboard – though the PC version does support them.

New control groups make waging battles a more nuanced affair, and splitting your army into separate groups leads to multitasking alien murder on an epic scale. The story the Creative Assembly manages to spin is surprisingly decent, too, and Blur Studio's gorgeously rendered cinematics ooze big-budget sleekness. The army-building antics of the new Blitz mode are also worthy of praise – recruiting enormous UNSC armies by building decks of cards is a really cute spin on the RTS formula. Halo Wars 2 may continue to try and fill a gap in the market that probably doesn't need plugging, but it still serves up a decent slice of strategy. Read our Halo Wars 2 review for more details.

9. Halo Wars

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Release year: 2009

It's hard to believe Halo Wars is even part of Microsoft's flagship series. For one, it's about the rank-and-file of the UNSC, with nary a Master Chief in sight. Perhaps more importantly, it's not remotely close to being a first-person shooter. Developed by the studio that created PC strategy classics like Age of Empires, Ensemble Studios took Halo's myriad aliens, weapons, and vehicles and put them in a console-exclusive real-time strategy game - the video game equivalent of mixing oil and water. But not only does Halo Wars work - it's one of the series' unsung classics.

Halo Wars lets you build your own base, upgrade buildings, and amass a legion of soldiers, Warthogs, and Pelicans in order to crush the Covenant armada. But rather than getting bogged down in menus and statistics, Halo Wars streamlines the whole process for the Xbox 360, keeping the action running at a brisk pace that's distinctly Halo. It may not feature as many options as its more complex PC contemporaries, but if you want a break from staring down the barrel of an MA5 Assault Rifle, Halo Wars provides a unique perspective on an iconic franchise. Check out our Halo Wars review for more insights into this classic.

8. Halo 5: Guardians

Platform(s): Xbox One
Release year: 2015

Here it is: the first (and hopefully only) Halo campaign that's simply no fun to play on your lonesome. Make no mistake, Halo 5 was designed to be played with three online chums by your side. Fight against one of the campaign's dratted Wardens – an infuriating breed of mini-boss who can only be hurt from behind as your allies distract them from the front – and you'll know exactly what kind of tiresome grind Halo 5 is when 'enjoyed' on your own.

Despite Microsoft throwing an insane budget at Xbox One’s first proper Halo, every part of Guardians feels confused. Master Chief has to share the spotlight with new spartan protagonist Locke, Cortana is kinda the baddie but not really, while the game's controls crib on Call of Duty (Halo finally gets iron sights) and Titanfall (note the boost dash) without ever fully convincing. Even Warzone, a commendable, sprawling new online mode, feels outdated and placed next to the ever-evolving FPS treats of Destiny. Halo 5 isn't necessarily a bad video game, but it's unquestionably a deeply compromised one. Want to know more? Read our Halo 5 review.

7. Halo 4

Platform(s): Xbox One
Release year: 2012

Watching a studio take over a storied series from its creators is always difficult, but 343 Industries had it harder than almost everyone else. Bungie had essentially become The Beatles of game development by the time it bade farewell to its landmark sci-fi shooter. Halo 4 could've been the best game ever made, and it still would've been saddled with unreasonable expectations. Of course, this somewhat soft series reboot isn't the greatest game of all time; it's merely a very good shooter. But hey, that's still a might fine accomplishment.

Halo 4's campaign really shines, with smart level design that never falls prey to Bungie's bad habit of making huge spaces that are easy to get lost in. There's nothing like Halo: CE's Library or Halo 3's Floodgate here – no Flood at all, in fact – making it the first numbered Halo to totally excise the series' most annoying enemy. Multiplayer may try a little too hard to court the COD crowd – a sprint button in Halo still feels like heresy – yet there's no denying this is one of the most gorgeous games ever to hit Xbox 360. For more, check out our Halo 4 review.

6. Halo 2

Platform(s): PC, Xbox
Release year: 2004

The game that put Xbox Live on the map. You may look back and groan at all those lackluster Arbiter missions in the campaign, yet there's no denying Halo 2 has one of the most important online modes of all time. Though it needed a day-one patch to really sing (yes, even back then), Halo 2's multiplayer stands as a landmark in the history of Xbox Live, bringing Bungie's unique combat into a sprawling suite of matchmaking features, customization, skill ranking, and just about every feature you've come to expect from online games today.

Halo 2's online encounters had a seismic impact on the Xbox landscape, and the hugely influential mode nearly covers up a wobbling campaign filled with linear environments, grating shootouts, and cheap 'gotcha!' moments. The plot is smart to frame the first game's events as a spark that ignites civil war within the Covenant, but the spectacle is constantly looking for a better game to go along with it. At least Marty O'Donnell's music is phenomenal. Check out our Halo 2 review for more details!

5. Halo 3: ODST

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release year: 2009

ODST doesn't even let you play as a Spartan, yet it solidifies a decent spot on this list as a jazzy, essential part of the Halo legacy. You get a different perspective on the battle against the Covenant. You aren't an invincible, genetically altered super soldier – you're just a guy who probably went down to the local recruiting office and signed up for the USNC. As such, you can't jump as high, survive as much punishment, or dual-wield weapons like the Chief. Who cares, though? Those shortcomings just makes your ODST stand out from the superhuman crowd.

Halo 3: ODST pulls together an engaging story that mixes the series' open-ended shooting with a detective-style story. Your character, the Rookie, becomes separated from his squad, and is subsequently knocked unconscious. When he awakes, he's forced to piece together the events caused by the shockwave from the Covenant ship's destructive departure over the city of New Mombasa. The campaign neatly ties into Halo 3's story, making it essential if you want to keep up with the overarching narrative. ODST is anything but the same old Halo game, and with a set of story missions you can tackle in any order you like, spread across an evocative sandbox-like city, this is perhaps the bravest entry in the franchise. Read our Halo 3: ODST review for more information on this must-play shooter.

4. Halo Infinite

Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X
Release year: 2021

Released as part of the 20th anniversary of the Halo series, Halo Infinite is a stunning return to form for Master Chief. 343 Industries was able to take the promise of Halo: Combat Evolved – the dream of fighting for inches of space across a sprawling hostile alien world – and bring it to life. Faced with the difficult task of closing the chapter on Cortana's story arc and making the Chief feel relevant again on a new generation of consoles, Halo Infinite is undoubtedly the best this series has been since Bungie handed over the reigns to the franchise to 343.

Of course, there's so much more to Halo Infinite than a fun campaign offering. 343 reimagined Halo's multiplayer to be tighter and more focused. At its heart, Halo Infinite is a four versus four arena shooter that makes it feel as if your team is only ever one kill away from victory. At the same time, the broader Big Team Battle skirmishes highlight how excellent Halo's core strafe, shoot, and melee setup really is. Released as a free-to-play experience, the Halo Infinite multiplayer is experiencing some growing pains with respect to content and progression, but the fun to be found here is undeniable.

Check out our Halo Infinite review to learn more about the best-value title on our list.

3. Halo: Combat Evolved

Platform(s): Xbox
Release year: 2001

One of the best shooters of all time. End of. Halo instantly made Xbox a credible gaming platform right out of the gate, and it remains one of the best launch titles ever. No, it's not perfect – lord that the Flood-infested Library level ever suck – yet Combat Evolved still provided the granite-strong raw material that all future Halo outings were carved from. That first mission, where you drop into open combat with the Covenant, is often mimicked, rarely bettered (yes, 14 years later), and still brings out /all/ of the goosebumps. The story, while a little bloated, remains exciting, and the gameplay retains the lightweight, agile purity that's stayed constant over the years.

In fact, said agility, combined with super smooth shooting, forms the basis for Bungie's latest space-opera, Destiny 2, which owes a massive debt to Halo: CE. The Anniversary edition of CE prettied up the visuals, leaving most other elements untouched for better or for worse. Good: the enemy AI remains as fun to fight as it was back in 2001. Bad: the Library still exists, and the weapons – while retaining a beautiful, lethal simplicity – feel limited by modern Halo standards. Regardless of flaws, Halo: CE remains a glorious, streamlined prototype that changed the FPS forever, and is still well worth revisiting, even to this day.

2. Halo 3

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release year: 2007

The best multiplayer game there's ever been, and quite possibly ever will be. There, we said it. Forget Mario Kart, Goldeneye or Timesplitters 2. Halo 3's multiplayer is incredible. INCREDIBLE. If you've ever gathered with your buddies for a disgustingly life-affirmingly addictive two-vs-two team 49-50 deathmatch on Guardian, you know what we're talking about. And if none of that sentence makes a lick of sense to you, rush out, pick up Halo: The Master Chief Collection, get together with three friends and immediately indulge in the most moreish deathmatches (played across the best multiplayer maps) ever conceived.

The campaign ain't half bad, either. The action is classic Halo in its prime, pulsing with superb gunplay, destructive vehicle segments, and co-op moments that still burn bright in the memory – remember /that/ Scarab fight? Couple this decidedly decent campaign with a multiplayer mode you may have gathered we're quite fond of, and you're left with a truly sublime Halo. For more information, check out our five-star Halo 3 review.

1. Halo: Reach

Platform(s): Xbox 360
Release year: 2010

Halo: Reach represents the pinnacle of Bungie's tinkering with the Halo formula. The graphics still hold up thanks to strong art direction, the sense of movement is intoxicating, each weapon packs a mighty wallop, and the supremely paced campaign is easily the best story mode to come out of the series. Reach boldly experiments with established mechanics and engages its players in a way no Halo before or since had the guts to. And don't even get us started on the inevitable, selfless conclusion.

Customizing your Spartan becomes a thorough and personal experience, allowing you to get into the nitty-gritty of building a look and loadout that perfectly suits your playstyle. Invasion mode offers asymmetrical multiplayer that makes matches exciting and unpredictable. You can spend endless hours in Firefight with its full matchmaking support and variety of maps. Daily and weekly challenges force gamers to switch up their playstyles and try something new. Commendations reward the most dedicated players and feel like gaining a medal of honor. Theater and File Share let you easily record and share your most unbelievable, awe-inspiring, or just plain goofy moments. Halo: Reach was Bungie's farewell to the series, and it's a hell of a note to end on.

There's more where these come from for fans of Halo Infinite. Check out the best co-op games to buddy up and get your looter-shooter fantasy on, from Rainbow Six Siege to GTA Online.

Halo Infinite error codes and glitches can be really frustrating to deal with, even if they're not very common. While it can be the case that the issue is caused by a hidden bug from an update or server issues, sometimes, a fix for Halo Infinite might be needed on your end to get things sorted. As new error codes and issues are bound to appear the more Halo Infinite gets updated, we'll continue to update this page whenever they arise to make sure you're always in the loop. Whatever you're looking for when it comes to Halo Infinite error codes and fixes, just look below.

Halo Infinite error codes

• There was a problem with the dedicated server
• There was an issue with the Halo Infinite servers
• Error Code 0x80070424
• Error Code 0x00000001
• Error Code 0x8007003
• Error Code 0x80070005

There was a problem with the dedicated server

If this message comes up in the wake of clicking on Halo Infinite multiplayer, it probably means that the fault isn't at your end. When the "problem with the dedicated server" message pops up, it's usually meant that the Halo servers themselves are currently non-functional. Reassuring for your own copy of the game, but it also means there's probably no fix you can implement to resolve the problem, which is frustrating. To make sure that your connections are valid, restart the game and check your own internet connection, but if that doesn't help, check with any of the official Twitter accounts to see if the devs have commented on it.

There was an issue with the Halo Infinite servers

This one is a simple one - when you click on multiplayer game modes there'll be a message that arises that says "There was an issue with the halo infinite servers", and prevent you from selecting the actual option to play the matchmaking game. 

The vast majority of the time, this is simply because you don't have the most updated version of Halo Infinite and the servers don't run on whatever outdated version you're playing. That's easy to resolve - close the game, check for an update, and make sure it's downloaded and installed. At that point there shouldn't be any further issues.

Error Code 0x80070424

This one seems to affect mainly PC gamers, and seems, from what we understand, to be an issue with the installation of the game via the Xbox App or similar. It's not clear exactly what's gone wrong here, but the most successful approach as we understand it is to do the following:

1. Ensure all relevant apps are updated to their most current build via the Microsoft Store, including those you launch them through.
2. If still no success, right click on them in the Start Menu and choose to Terminate, Repair and Reset each one. 
3. After that, search for Powershell app, run it as an administrator, and enter the following command: Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers| Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”} 
4. Try to install Halo Infinite again.

If that doesn't work, the only thing we can suggest is to contact customer support for Microsoft and get their two cents on the issue. In fact, that's generally a good back-up plan for any of these fixes not immediately working.

Error Code 0x00000001

Another issue that seems to be affecting installation of the game, this one actually broadly affects any game downloaded on PC from the Xbox lineup. In this case it usually means that when you try to open the game, you're instead sent to the Gaming Services page on the Microsoft Store. 

This one is a bit simpler and usually just means that you need to update something fundamental - usually Gaming Services, the Xbox App, or even your Windows OS. Make sure each of these are up to date as much as possible and try again.

Error Code 0x8007003

This error seems to be fairly similar to 0x80070424 (catchy names, aren't they?), and we've seen some record of the same fix for that working here. However, if that doesn't work there's also this fix that seems to have helped some people:

• Open your computer's Settings app
• Select Accounts, then Sign-in options, then scroll down to the Privacy section
• Turn off "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart."
• Restart your computer.

Error Code 0x80070005

This one seems to prevent players from installing the game beyond a certain point, usually about 49%. There's a few potential problems here, with a few potential fixes.

• Make sure that you have space on your PC to download the game. Make sure you have at least 10GB more than you think you need, just to be certain.
• It's possible that firewalls and anti-virus software are preventing it from being downloaded. Turn off Real-time protection in Windows Security, or the equivalent software you use.
• Run Disk Cleanup on your computer to get rid of any conflicting files.
• If the game is downloaded and installed but you're still getting this message, it may be because an error means your account isn't viewed as having permission to play it. Try playing offline, or contacting customer support.

Halo Infinite weapons | Halo Infinite equipment | Halo Infinite Tenrai event | How to level up fast in Halo Infinite | Halo Infinite Battle Pass | Halo Infinite ranks in order | Halo Infinite controller settings | Halo Infinite KD tracker and player records | Halo Infinite Fiesta matches | Halo Infinite killing spree | Halo Infinite User is Banned | When do Halo Infinite challenges reset?

Lots of Halo Infinite weapons are available for you to try out across both the campaign and multiplayer. Whole armies of Banished can crumble when faced with any of these weapons in the hands of Master Chief in the campaign, but you'll need to understand every weapon to defeat your opponents in multiplayer. We’ve tested every weapon in multiplayer to see how exactly they work and how they stack up against each other. If you want to know about all the Halo Infinite weapons, and which ones you should definitely pick up in multiplayer, we’ve got you covered.

Plenty of Halo classics, like the Battle Rifle, Sniper Rifle, and SPNKR Rocket Launcher, are present in Halo Infinite, although there are a few notable omissions. An arsenal of tools for the Banished, including the Mangler, Stalker Rifle, and Skewer, and a refreshed set of high-tech Forerunner weapons are also available for players to pick up on different maps. While some iconic Halo weapons, such as the Magnum pistol and tactical shotgun, aren’t currently in the game, there is a possibility that they could be added later.

Halo Infinite weapons list

• Assault Rifle
• Battle Rifle
• Commando
• Sidekick
• Bulldog
• Sniper Rifle
• Rocket Launcher
• Hydra
• Pulse Carbine
• Needler
• Plasma Pistol
• Energy Sword
• Gravity Hammer
• Disruptor
• Mangler
• Stalker Rifle
• Shock Rifle
• Ravager
• Skewer
• Heatwave
• Sentinel Beam
• Cindershot

Best Halo Infinite multiplayer weapons

Halo Infinite best multiplayer weapons

The weapon sandbox in Halo Infinite feels incredibly varied and refined, with each weapon having its own place. Of course, certain weapons are going to be great for certain situations, but there are definitely some that excel overall or are excellent for their specific purposes. You should definitely pick up these six weapons whenever you spot them on the battlefield in Halo Infinite multiplayer, in no particular order:

1. Battle Rifle – For the best precision weapon that isn’t the Sniper Rifle, the Battle Rifle is what you need. This weapon really rewards accuracy, and players that can control its recoil and stay on target will get rapid four-burst kills at medium range with the Battle Rifle. We advise learning where it can spawn on every map.
2. Mangler – This hand cannon is proving to be a real menace in Halo Infinite’s multiplayer at the moment. Landing three headshots results in rapid kills even at range and landing one shot followed up by a quick melee leads to even quicker close-quarters kills. Keep an eye on weapon racks for it.
3. Rocket Launcher – The Rocket Launcher is great for getting multikills in Quicklplay arena matches, and works well against vehicles in Big Team Battle. It’s an all-round destructive powerhouse, but make sure you don’t blow yourself up.
4. Skewer – This weapon is the ultimate vehicle-killer with the ability to one-shot small and fragile vehicles and seriously damage bigger ones. It is also always a one-hit kill on enemy Spartans and doubles up as a heavy sniper rifle with very limited ammo, so don’t miss!
5. Heatwave – For any close-range fights, the Heatwave is a great weapon to have ready. It can reliably kill enemy Spartans in two shots using the vertical shot pattern, and some lucky ricochets might help you out. Switch to the horizontal pattern for clusters of enemies.
6. Cindershot – The Cindershot is a great anti-Spartan grenade launcher that takes a bit of skill to get used to but can be deadly in the right hands. Getting used to its projectile velocity, bouncing, and guidance will allow you to consistently land two direct hits and clean up entire teams in Quickplay.
7. Honorable mention: Assault Rifle – The best part about the Assault Rifle is that you don’t even need to pick it up as everyone starts with it. Halo Infinite’s iteration of the classic weapon is actually pretty good, and you should consider holding on to it, particularly for smaller maps, as it’s a solid all-rounder for close and medium range fights.

Halo Infinite UNSC weapons

Halo Infinite Assault Rifle

A modern Halo game wouldn’t be complete without the timeless Assault Rifle. This Halo Infinite iteration of the Assault Rifle, the MA40, features a high rate of fire, a 36-round magazine, and decent handling, making it a versatile close-range weapon. With its smart-link sights returning from Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Infinite’s version of the Assault Rifle can be effective up to medium ranges, so long as the player has good recoil control. However, beyond that, the Assault Rifle is going to get outclassed by any of the precision weapons, such as the Battle Rifle, as it is simply not accurate enough and does not deal enough damage.

Halo Infinite Battle Rifle

Featuring as one of the top precision weapons in Halo Infinite, the three-round burst Battle Rifle returns. The BR75 version of the Battle Rifle seen in Halo Infinite brings back the original Bungie-era appearance complete with the mounted scope to offer accurate aiming at longer ranges. In Halo Infinite you’ll be able to defeat an enemy Spartan in just four bursts, provided every bullet hits your opponent’s head. With a slightly slower fire rate compared to the Halo 5: Guardians Battle Rifle and more vertical recoil, the Halo Infinite BR75 is much less effective at closer ranges unless you’re able to get those crucial headshots.

Halo Infinite Commando

Making its Halo Infinite debut is the VK47 Commando. It’s a completely new UNSC weapon that sits between the Assault Rifle and Battle Rifle as a precision tactical rifle. Like the Assault Rifle, it’s fully automatic, but comes with a 3x tactical optic and has a much slower rate of fire, high recoil, and a comparatively small 20-round magazine. The Commando has is meant for accurate fire at medium range that outclasses the Assault Rifle but can go toe-to-toe with the Battle Rifle. Using the Commando like the Battle Rifle with short, controlled bursts means you won’t suffer so much from the miniscule aim assist and massive crosshair bloom, making it almost feel like a like a mini DMR.

Halo Infinite Sidekick

The MK50 Sidekick is Halo Infinite’s answer to the UNSC pistol. It’s not quite the classic Magnum, but it’s got a 12-round magazine and a high fire rate for a semi-automatic gun. Landing seven headshots against an enemy Spartan will take them down easily at close-range, but the Sidekick’s high crosshair bloom makes it harder, but not impossible, to use at longer ranges. As with most first-person shooters, switching to your pistol is always faster than reloading, so this Halo Infinite weapon makes for a great assistant for weapons like the Commando, Pulse Carbine, and Assault Rifle if an enemy gets too close.

Halo Infinite Bulldog

Another Halo Infinite weapon that builds on a classic one, the CQS48 Bulldog functions quite differently to the traditional tactical shotgun of Halo’s past. The Bulldog still has the pump action but it’s fully automatic, fires much faster, and sports a seven-round drum magazine that makes reloading much quicker overall. Unfortunately, the Bulldog cannot defeat enemy Spartans with one shot, so to balance it out, it has much better range, allowing you to get kills with two or three rapid shots quite consistently.

Halo Infinite Sniper Rifle

The original UNSC Sniper Rifle returns as the S7 Sniper Rifle. It’s one of the weapons that has remained relatively unchanged from game to game, even in Halo Infinite. As with previous versions, the S7 Sniper keeps the usual four-round magazine, its variable zoom scope – this time in a 5x-10x configuration – and can still one-shot kill in multiplayer if you’re able to pull off a headshot. Although, you could go for a 360 no-scope too to get some bonus medals read out by Halo multiplayer announcer, Jeff Steitzer. 

Halo Infinite Rocket Launcher

The double-barrelled Rocket Launcher returns in Halo Infinite as the M41 SPNKr after getting left out at launch in Halo 5: Guardians. This Halo Infinite weapon is not too different from previous versions and still has the dual rocket tubes loaded with some highly explosive missiles. This version’s rockets have a large blast radius but a low velocity and relatively small lethal area within that big explosion. To defeat any stronger enemies or deal some serious damage to vehicles, you’ll need to get a direct hit. The rockets also have no locking capabilities against aerial vehicles, so you’ll have a hard time trying to hit Wasps or Banshees.

Halo Infinite Hydra

Making its debut in Halo 5: Guardians, the UNSC Hydra is a kind of rocket launcher-grenade launcher hybrid that fires small micro-missiles that can lock onto enemy infantry and vehicles. It still has the six-rocket drum that needs to be loaded with individual missiles, but it now has two firing modes. The normal mode fires incredibly fast missiles with no locking. Just two direct hits with this mode will take down an enemy Spartan. You can then switch to the tracking mode which allows you to lock on before firing so that the missiles seek towards a target. Four direct hits with the seeking missiles will defeat an enemy Spartan, so you trade damage for reliability.

Halo Infinite Banished weapons

Halo Infinite Pulse Carbine

This new Halo Infinite weapon combines the classic Plasma Rifle and Covenant Carbine into a medium range, burst rifle. The Pulse Carbine fires five relatively slow-moving plasma bolts that have light tracking capabilities to compensate per burst. Like previous Covenant weapons, you need to manage the heat by venting it – six rapid bursts cause an overheat but the carbine automatically cools itself gradually. While enemies can easily hop around and sidestep the tracking plasma shots up close, but this becomes much more difficult at medium ranges. Two bolts within red crosshair range are enough to kill, allowing the Pulse Carbine to compete with other medium-range Halo Infinite weapons like the Commando and Battle Rifle.

Halo Infinite Needler

The Covenant’s classic rapid-fire SMG is back in Halo Infinite with more pink crystals to fire. This iteration of the Needler has a 26-round magazine and fires incredibly quickly. As with Needlers in past Halo games, you’ll need to get up close for it to be even remotely effective. Being within red crosshair range activates the needles’ tracking abilities, and landing enough of them on a target will still cause a devastating supercombine explosion of pink mist. It’s high fire rate makes it feel like the closest weapon to an SMG in Halo Infinite, and it’s very good when you find its range sweet spot.

Halo Infinite Plasma Pistol

The Plasma Pistol makes a reappearance as a weapon in Halo Infinite, but it’s had one massive change: it can no longer EMP vehicles – that function now belongs to the new shock damage type in Halo Infinite, which is found on the Disruptor, Shock Rifle, and Dynamo Grenade. As is normal for the Plasma Pistol, it still functions quite terribly as a normal pistol too, even in Halo Infinite. Thankfully, it can still charge EMP shots to instantly take down an enemy’s shields. Even though it’s known as the noob combo, pairing the Plasma Pistol with a precision weapon to clean up an easy kill with a headshot is still a completely viable strategy, even after 20 years of Halo.

Halo Infinite Energy Sword

Halo multiplayer isn’t complete without someone running around hacking Spartans up with the Energy Sword. It remains pretty much as it always has, being a one-hit kill and having a decent lunging range. The Halo Infinite Energy Sword does not have any smart-link ‘sights’ like it did in Halo 5: Guardians, and it consumes 15% of its charge per kill, so you don’t get as many hits as you have in the past. While playing Halo Infinite multiplayer, use the Grappleshot equipment item to quickly reel yourself in towards enemies. Be aware that the Repulsor is a great counter to the sword too!

Halo Infinite Gravity Hammer

Another iconic Halo melee weapon is also available in Halo Infinite. The Gravity Hammer returns but feels a little different compared to previous Halo titles. The Gravity Hammer is much slower to swing and requires better timing to wield effectively. It doesn’t really have much of a lunge either, but to compensate, its area-of-effect blast is now much bigger but also feels very focused directly in front of you. Gone are the times where you could panic-slam someone that got too close to you. Halo Infinite requires you to be much cleverer when wielding the Gravity Hammer.

Halo Infinite Disruptor

What appears to be the smallest firearm in the Banished’s arsenal, the Disruptor is an automatic pistol that is a fair bit better than the Plasma Pistol. It’s decent against Spartan enemies in Halo Infinite multiplayer, dealing low damage but also hitting them with a shocking damage-over-time effect that can tickle them to death. However, it’s much better against vehicles due to its shock damage bullets which can EMP vehicles. Firing enough of them into any vehicle will temporarily disable it, giving you the chance to kill the driver or hijack it. The Disruptor might not see much use in the smaller arena modes, but it should be a good sidearm to grab in big team battle modes with plenty of vehicles.

Halo Infinite Mangler

The new Banished Mangler is Halo Infinite’s answer to a hand cannon, but it looks a lot like the slow-firing Mauler shotgun-pistol from Halo 3. In Halo Infinite, it’s more of a slug-shooter, firing large, high-power rounds instead of a pellet spread. Three headshots with the Mangler will get you a perfect kill in multiplayer. It even has two tusk-like blades on the front that are used in its melee animation. This weapon has the potential to be quite devastating in the right hands, but missing a shot can easily lead to you losing a fight.

Halo Infinite Stalker Rifle

The new Stalker Rifle is a new take on the Covenant Carbine that sits between the carbine and the classic Beam Rifle sniper. The Stalker Rifle is a slow-firing, long-range weapon that can defeat an enemy Spartan in as little as three headshots. Despite being more like a marksman rifle than a sniper, this rifle also comes with a variable zoom optic, making it great for chipping away at enemies at very long ranges. To balance the Stalker Rifle’s high damage, only seven shots can be fired before it overheats. Venting before an overheat is much fast than a full cooldown, so manage your shots carefully. The Stalker Rifle will be easily outclassed by other weapons up close, so a reliable secondary is definitely needed if an enemy manages to close the gap.

Halo Infinite Shock Rifle

If the Skewer is the Banished’s heavy sniper weapon, the Shock Rifle is a much lighter long-range weapon. Like the S7 Sniper Rifle, the Shock Rifle has a four-round magazine but fires very slowly and lacks the variable zoom scope of the S7. It can still get one-hit kills with headshots, but narrow misses can cause minor glancing damage to enemy players. This is because the Shock Rifle actually fires a three-round burst very quickly, so missing just one of these shots won’t quite bring down a Spartan in one shot. However, its shock damage can arc between nearby enemies, so landing a shot can soften up clusters of foes. The shock damage gives it strong anti-vehicle potential as hitting a vehicle with enough shock damage will temporarily disable it.

Halo Infinite Ravager

The Ravager is a brand-new Banished grenade launcher-like weapon in Halo Infinite that packs a punch with a volley of exploding plasma balls. Each trigger pull with the Ravager fires a burst of three red plasma balls that arc and then explode on impact, with three direct hits being enough to defeat a Spartan. Holding down the trigger to charge up the Ravager will allow you to fire one large plasma ball instead that leaves behind a burning pool on the ground, which is great for area control. Be sure to keep an eye on the weapon’s temperature as it overheats after only a few bursts, and cools down very slowly.

Halo Infinite Skewer

Another of the Banished’s new Halo Infinite weapons, the Skewer is a long-range sniper weapon that also has the vehicular destruction abilities and appearance of a rocket launcher. The Skewer is a massive shoulder-mounted cannon that fires a giant javelin spike at incredibly high speeds. Hitting a Spartan with one of these spikes always results in a one-hit kill. It also has a variable zoom scope like the S7 Sniper Rifle, and it is particularly effective against vehicles – it can one-shot small and fragile vehicles like the Mongoose, Ghost, and Wasp. To balance it out, the Skewer’s size means it handles slowly and can only hold one spike at a time with a lengthy reload between each one.

Halo Infinite Forerunner weapons

Halo Infinite Heatwave

The first of the new Forerunner weapons in Halo Infinite, the Heatwave is a revamped version of the Scattershot shotgun from Halo 4 and 5. It’s very different in appearance but still has its ricochet projectiles and can penetrate through targtes. These ricochet projectiles have far more chaotic paths that allow them to fly around for a bit, making it likely that an accidental ricochet could finish off your opponent. By default, the Heatwave fires a horizontal line of six hard light projectiles, but toggling to its alternate fire mode changes the spread to a more vertical, shotgun-like pattern which is better for focusing on a single target. The Heatwave is great for defeating enemies in tighter spaces once you’ve mastered using the vertical fire mode and it can defeat a Spartan reliably in two shots.

Halo Infinite Sentinel Beam

Making its return, the classic Forerunner Sentinel Beam is back with Halo Infinite. This version of the weapon looks, sounds, and behaves quite differently compared to previous versions. It now deals quite significant damage but has hefty recoil to compensate. You’ll also notice that it no longer has a battery and overheat mechanic. Instead, the Sentinel Beam now operates from a limited supply of ammo that needs to be charged back into the weapon, so it’s much more like a conventional reload, rather than an overheat. The beam can also penetrate targets, so lining up the perfect beam will allow you to damage multiple targets at once.

Halo Infinite Cindershot

The Cindershot is a completely new Forerunner weapon in Halo Infinite. It’s basically a grenade launcher – like a Forerunner version of the Hydra – but it has lots of extra things going on to make it unique. First of all, its grenades will bounce once if they hit a surface and then detonate into fragments, so you can bounce them along the ground or around corners to catch enemies out. The Cindershot also has an alternate fire mode that converts the grenades into laser-guided micro-missiles. When you fire one, it will fly towards wherever your crosshair is pointing, and can still bounce. It’s an interesting weapon that will allow for some very creative plays, with two well-placed shots – not even direct hits – being all that’s needed to bring down an enemy Spartan.

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Halo Infinite is overhauling its ranking system in an attempt to fix issues like inaccurate skill assessments and uneven player matchups, but it'll be in vain if the MMR situation isn't handled.

MMR or matchmaking rating is what Halo Infinite (and many other multiplayer games) uses to match players of similar skill levels together. With MMR, if you perform poorly in one game, you'll be matched with lower-skill players in the next. It's a solid system, but the major issue here is that it seems like Halo Infinite applies this MMR formula across both social and ranked playlists. 

So while the upcoming ranking system rework will likely see many players getting placed an entire tier lower than in the previous ranked season, Halo Infinite ranked will remain handcuffed by the MMR situation. Let's look at how 343 Industries can fix that alongside its current plans for a ranked rework.

Ranked Rework 

Halo Infinite's rank reset is dropping on February 22, and it'll likely cause players to drop a full tier, as 343 Industries believes the original ranking system was a bit too generous, according to the Halo Waypoint blog post announcing the changes. The generosity 343 is referring to is in the game's CSR or competitive skill ranking system, which has apparently been ranking all of us too high for months. While I was certainly happy to make it into Diamond 1, there is an argument to be made that attaining a Diamond rank in the current system is a bit too achievable considering it's just a tier below Onyx, the highest you can go. 

My potentially erroneously inflated ego aside, all of our ranks are set to seriously change on February 22. Just like a new ranked season in Apex Legends, the Halo Infinite ranked reset will require players to play through 10 placement matches before getting placed in a tier - and you should expect to be much lower than last time.

The CSR system will also be adjusted so that players aren't ranked as low as they would normally be out of the gate in order to make up for what 343 expects to be a massive drop across the board and prevent a seemingly insurmountable climb back up to your original rank. And 343 is looking to "reduce the disruption" of a Diamond 1 post-placement ranking limit and will push that up to Diamond 5. So, while you could technically come out of your 10 placement matches in a higher position than you could before the incoming reset, it's highly unlikely since CSR will be a bit more stingy this time around. 

343 Industries believes the changes "will help improve the ranked experience for players of all skills by providing more accurate, balanced, and fair matches. And this CSR update does seem like it has the potential to help make Halo Infinite's ranked play feel more even-keeled - but no matter how many changes are made to CSR, balance will never be achieved without a serious look at MMR. 

The MMR Problem 

While MMR is a commonly used feature in matchmaking, the biggest issue with Halo Infinite's take on MMR is that it appears to be calculated across ranked and social playlists. This means if you perform well in a social match you'll get a harder ranked match, while struggling in a social match will get you an easier ranked matchup. This approach punishes players who like to warm up in Big Team Battle or Team Slayer matches before jumping into ranked play while rewarding those who want to exploit the system. The latter of the two take part in what's called "sandbagging," or purposefully tanking in social games just to jump into ranked and clean house against easier opponents.

Reddit user RealSonZoo conducted an extensive experiment to prove that social MMR carries over into ranked games and affects your matchups even after placement matches. Using a test account, they purposefully tanked ten Quick Play matches, then tried to play well during their rank placements. Initially, they were placed in low-skill ranked matches: their first match played them on a team with a cumulative MMR of 293 against an enemy squad with an MMR of 298, but by the time they finished their ten ranked matches, their team MMR was 1107 while their opponents' was 1301. 

RealSonZoo was placed in Platinum 3 with a CSR in the thousands, but their next few games were incredibly tough - they believe that their "hidden MMR" was steadily rising as they played well in ranked. So they decided to tank more social games, purposefully losing about a dozen Fiesta matches before jumping back into ranked play where they were up against lobbies with MMRs nearly 400 points lower. 

This experiment proves that Halo Infinite's system of utilizing a hidden MMR that applies to both social and ranked play is broken. That system can't be fixed just by resetting CSR, as players can still sandbag in social matches to ensure they get easier ranked games. While a CSR reset will certainly help shift Halo Infinite ranked play closer towards a state where every player's experience is relevant to their skill, it will never attain true balance without overhauling MMR. 

The Halo Infinite ranked reset is due to kick off February 22. 

Halo Infinite needs to tap into its community of creators, and Forge is the way to do it

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has confirmed that from Season 2, players will be able to earn Credits as part of its battle pass system.

It will be welcomed news for Halo Infinite fans who have, up until now, only been able to unlock Credits – the only in-game currency players can use to purchase items from the store, including Spartan skins – via real-cash microtransactions. 

"Thanks to your continued feedback, we are happy to confirm Credits will be earnable in Season 2's Battle Pass," tweeted 343 Industries' head of design, Jerry Hook earlier today.

"That means you will be able to earn Credits as part of your Halo Infinite progression. We'll have more to share on this as we get closer to Season 2."

Right now there's no confirmation on when, exactly, the changes will be implemented, but Season 2 is expected to launch around May 2022, so it's probably safe to presume it won't be before then unless 343i has another change of heart.

The announcement follows a previous commitment from Hook, who last week said the studio had been "monitoring the discussions" about the game's shop and microtransactions and had plans to be "reducing pricing across the board" from as early as this week. 

"We’ve been monitoring the discussions on the Shop, bundles, and pricing closely since launch," Hook said at the time. "Using data and community feedback, we’re going to begin rolling out changes to how we package and price items in Halo Infinite.

"Starting Tuesday, the Shop experience will vary week-to-week. We are focused on reducing pricing across the board, providing stronger values in our bundles, starting to put individual items outside of bundles, and more.

"We will be trying new things throughout the rest of the season so that we can continue to learn and improve for the future," Hook later added in a follow-up tweet. 

ICYMI, Halo: Infinite players are increasing their calls for optional cross-play as cheating on PC continues to be a problem. 

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The Halo Infinite story can be a little confusing. Developer 343 Industries has built a narrative arc that can both serve as a jumping-on point for new (or otherwise lapsed) players of Halo Infinite and provide a resolution to a story that's been steadily building for 20 years. As a result, you might find it useful to have elements of the Halo Infinite story explained. 

We're going to go over many of the broader Halo Infinite story beats here, doing our best to get you up to speed on the major characters and events that inform the drama central to the campaign. Unsurprisingly, this Halo Infinite story explainer will contain light spoilers, so proceed with caution and jump around this article to get information on the staging, characters, and events as you so need them. 

Here's what you do (and what you don't) need to know to understand the Halo Infinite story. 

What is going on in Halo Infinite?

The introductory hour of the Halo Infinite campaign underscores 343's decision to create as close to a blank slate as possible. Halo Infinite effectively opens at the end of a story that was never told, some 18-months after the conclusion to Halo 5: Guardians. So don't worry, you haven't missed anything, all Halo players (no matter their experience with the series) are in the dark in the beginning. The war against the Banished has already been waged and lost, with humanity now facing extinction and the remnants of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) scattered across a Halo Installation that's being slowly brought online.

What are the Halo rings?

There are seven Halo Installations, with Infinite set on Installation 07 – Zeta Halo. The Halo Array was built by an ancient precursor race called the Forerunners; each ring has its own unique ecosystem and is designed to serve a specific purpose – research facilities that study and contain different life forms across the galaxy. What you really need to remember though, is that each Installation is actually a ring-shaped, planet-sized superweapon that's capable of wiping out all life in the universe. A last-resort option created by the Forerunners to defeat a threat that is existential to existence – in previous Halo games it was the Flood, in Infinite it is something else entirely. 

Where has Master Chief been?

As a little primer: John-117 was abducted by the UNSC as a child to be enlisted in the Spartan-II program engineered by Dr. Halsey, trained and physically-augmented into the super soldier we know today. In the opening of Halo Infinite, we see Master Chief lose a battle with Atriox, leader of the Banished, and is presumed dead. The forces that survived the crash of the UNSC Infinity have subsequently spent six months scattered across Zeta Halo, alone and fighting for survival. By the time Chief is recovered, taken off life support by a friendly UNSC Pilot, and makes it planetside, it's his job to rally what little of the UNSC remains and stop the Banished from getting Installation 07 online. 

Who are the Banished? 

Given that Halo 5: Guardians effectively ends with Cortana leading an army of unstoppable AIs, dubbed the Created, in a war against the universe, Halo Infinite's cold open with a fight against the Banished is a little confusing. Essentially, the Banished are a group of Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and Brutes who splintered off from the Covenant. This rogue faction was first introduced in Halo Wars 2 and arrived on Zeta Halo six months before Halo Infinite's action. The Banished are powerful, well-resourced, and driven by revenge – holding both fear and reverence for the Master Chief. 

What happened to all of the other Spartans?

Halo 5: Guardians players may be wondering what happened to Blue Team (the last remaining company of Spartan-IIs), Team Osiris (the new generation of Spartan Vs led by Agent Locke), and the numerous other Spartans that exist in the Halo universe. Basically, they are all MIA. One of Halo Infinite's collectibles are UNSC Audio Logs, many of which will hint towards what happened to the other Spartans that were stationed on the UNSC Infinity ship, while you'll also stumble across those that were killed on Zeta Halo by Jega 'Rdomnai – an Elite who specialises in hunting Spartans. 

What's going on with Cortana?

Cortana has a huge presence in Halo Infinite, with Master Chief spending much of the game working to both shut down Installation 07 and find out what happened to the Smart AI who came along for the ride in his most formative adventures. Back in Halo 4, Cortana started showing the effects of "Rampancy", which is the name given to the deterioration of an AI after they consume too much information. In an effort to combat Rampancy, AIs are deactivated after seven years to prevent them from turning against their creators. Cortana sacrificed herself in Halo 4 to save Master Chief, but a part of her program is revived during Halo 5 – where she subsequently ammasses an army of Created and Guardian forces that are capable of enslaving civilisations and destroying planets. Much of Halo Infinite sees Master Chief hunting for Cortana, unaware of her location or status.  

Who is The Weapon?

Master Chief has a new friend along for the ride in Halo Infinite, so don't worry if you don't recognise them. 'The Weapon' is a new Smart AI specifically designed to help contain and eradicate a fully-rampant Cortana before she enslaves the universe, designed by Dr. Halsey – the creator of the Spartan II program and architect of the original Cortana model. 'The Weapon' was entrusted to Master Chief prior to Halo Infinite beginning, and his mission was to use the new AI to finally take Cortana offline. The results of that gradually unfurl throughout the Halo Infinite campaign. 

Halo Infinite has answered the question that has plagued us since 2004: What's the best rifle in Halo? Since Halo 2, three rifles have vied for the top spot: the assault rifle, the battle rifle, and the DMR. Since rifles are the primary weapons given to players in multiplayer matches, the conversation around which rifle reigns supreme is a passionate one, with proponents on all three sides vehemently believing their rifle is the chosen one. 

But with Halo Infinite, it seems as if 343 Industries is taking a side in the rifle debate. Sure, the assault rifle is the strongest it's ever been, but the complete erasure of the DMR and the centering of the BR in ranked play says a lot about how the developers see the future of Halo matchmaking. The BR is stronger at a distance than the AR, and with no other weapon comparable to it in the current Halo Infinite meta, I formally declare it the best Halo rifle of all time. As far as Halo Infinite weapons go, the battle rifle is god tier. 

The rifle in Halo history 

Halo: Combat Evolved had the assault rifle, a close-range weapon with a high rate of fire that would melt the Covenant, Flood, and enemy Spartans up close. But Bungie flipped the script when it introduced the battle rifle in Halo 2, opening up the floodgates (hehe) when it came to player’s opinions. The three-round burst precision weapon was incredibly powerful at medium and long range, and worked as the perfect pairing when used alongside the SMG ( which replaced the assault rifle). The BR/SMG combo was like the weapon equivalent of a charcuterie board, offering the best gun flavors on a single plate.

Then things got complicated. Halo 3 offered both the AR and the BR, effectively splitting Halo players into two camps. The competing rifles caused a rift between players, with some preferring the AR's high rate of fire, while others lauding the BR for its surgical precision – a three-round burst to the head could be especially lethal. But Bungie wasn't satisfied with the chasm Halo 3 caused, and decided to add another weapon into the mix to further complicate things: the DMR.  

The DMR, or Designated Marksman Rifle, replaced the BR in Halo: Reach. The DMR sits somewhere between the BR and a sniper rifle when it comes to fire rate and accuracy – it has a single round rate of fire that can be accelerated with a quick trigger finger and impressive accuracy at a distance. Its distance from the AR made Reach's rifle options feel a lot more distinct, effectively ending the debate over AR vs BR supremacy. 

Then came Halo 4, the first game made by new developer 343 Industries. It felt like an attempt to tick all the boxes of what made Halo multiplayer so attractive, but unfortunately, a lot of ticked boxes resulted in a convoluted mess. Halo 4 included the AR, the BR, and the DMR, all of which were primary weapon options, expanding the rift between rifles. As fair as performance goes, all three rifles existed in a kind of murky middle area, where using one rarely felt substantially different than using another.

That's why Halo 5 kept all three, but attempted to adjust them slightly so that the BR felt more decidedly like an option halfway between the AR and the DMR. Here is where BR supremacy started to take shape, as players found the retooled rifle to be universally useful in multiple situations. Unlike the AR, it could hit targets at a distance of more than a few meters, and unlike the DMR, it could hold its own in close-up firefights. And Halo Infinite makes it very clear where it stands on the rifle debate: it deleted the DMR from existence. 

Battle rifle supremacy 

Halo Infinite replaces the DMR with the VK78 Commando, an automatic rifle that is unwieldy at a distance thanks to a fairly heavy recoil that includes substantial muzzle climb. The Commando is by no means an actual swap for the DMR, as it feels more like a weapon sitting somewhere between the AR and the BR. Interestingly enough, removing the DMR from the equation, and upping the quality of the AR (which absolutely shreds in this game), means that Halo Infinite effectively clears the floor for the BR. It's in the spotlight, exactly where it needs to be. 

As far as the Halo rifle debate goes, I chose a side back in my Halo 3 days, when I was a religious player of Team SWAT. SWAT is a game mode where you have no shields, no motion tracker, and just a precision weapon like the BR or a handgun at your disposal. Headshots are extra-lethal, so SWAT players became surgeons with the three-round burst weapon, and I became chief surgeon on call. 

I love the BR so much that when Halo 4 offered the DMR as a loadout option for SWAT matches, I scrolled over it to equip my trusty battle rifle. You can imagine how excited I was when I dropped into my first Halo Infinite ranked match and saw my only weapon was the BR. I quickly fell back into old habits,  jumping off a ledge just to let the reticle drift over an enemy's head while I unload a few bursts, or chucking a grenade at someone's feet and timing a BR headshot right when it explodes. The Halo Infinite BR sits somewhere between the BR of Halo 3 and the BR of Halo 5 in terms of time to kill (TTK), as pointed out by YouTuber Aozolai. It is slightly slower to get a kill than the Halo 5 BR, but I firmly believe this is purposeful.

With a stronger AR shredding people at close range and a handful of new long range weapons like the Stalker Rifle and Shock Rifle, the BR slots perfectly into the space carved out for it by Halo 5. It is the perfect mid to long-range weapon that will kill an enemy with four bursts – and they don't even need to be all to the head, thanks to Halo's shielding system. Since headshots are more lethal after a Spartan's shield has cracked, you can hit three body shots with the BR, crack a shield, and fire the last burst at their head. Instant rag doll. 

The battle rifle remains the supreme Halo weapon, offering face-melting accuracy and a fairly fast TTK that makes it lethal across any game mode. If you aren't all that great at accuracy, two bursts and a melee will fell your opponent, or seven bursts to the body. If you're a surgeon with the damn thing, cracking a shield and delivering a single burst to the head will get you through many a match. The battle rifle is the multi-tool of the Halo universe, and Halo infinite treats it with the reverence it deserves. Long live the BR, I will pray at its altar for the rest of my days. 

The Fracture Tenrai event says more about the early state of Halo Infinite than I expected it to.

Halo Infinite feels like a homecoming. 343 Industries was faced with what should have been an impossible challenge: to celebrate a 20-year legacy while outlining the foundations for future adventures. And so there's another ringed world to explore and a new Smart AI companion to shine a little light in its darkest corners; a new extinction event for humanity to narrowly circumvent and yet another fight for Master Chief to threaten to one day finish. Halo Infinite is Halo as you remember it; Halo Infinite is Halo as you've never seen it before. 

While 343 may have been at the helm of this series for a decade now, it never felt as if the studio truly understood what it had in its hands. Halo 4 was too thematically familiar, Halo 5: Guardians too mechanically expansive, and the scars left by the corrosive launch of The Master Chief Collection never healed over for many in the community. In Halo Infinite, the response to such a sustained campaign of criticism is one of deliberate defiance. 

Halo Infinite is a spirited return to the familiar fundamentals that underpinned Combat Evolved, reclaiming a sense of discovery that, while once at the heart of Halo, has gradually withered over time. It's a truly expansive experience too, shoving Spartan-117 out of the small sandboxes he's been so comfortable playing in for all these years to encourage exploration of the entire playground. And tying it all together is a free-to-play multiplayer component which pulls players across three platforms into one shared, competitive arena. It's an undeniably bold package. 

Waging war

Halo Infinite kicks off with the war against the Banished already lost, with the loose coalition of Covenant exiles already entrenched on Zeta Halo – having spent six months steadily pulling apart the last remnants of the UNSC as it works to piece a fractured Installation 07 back together again. Master Chief is tasked with getting planetside and battling back the Banished frontline, fighting for inches of ground as he chases the ghosts of his past. 

Infinite is set 18-months after the devastating conclusion to Halo 5: Guardians and, aside from a handful of collectible audio logs detailing life aboard the UNSC Infinity, it isn't all that interested in exploring what happened in the interim. 343 has made a concerted effort to strip Halo down to its essentials, to make it more manageable for players coming in without two decades of lore committed to memory: there's a super soldier to control, a hostile alien world to tame, and a blue-hued hologram to befriend. 

It's in this stranglehold where Halo Infinite struggles under the weight of its own legacy. Players new to Halo won't be properly equipped to appreciate much of the drama at the heart of Infinite's overarching narrative, while series veterans will likely lament the absence of so many supporting characters – many of whom have become so intrinsic to the feel of the Halo universe. But for those that have been with Chief since the beginning, the story satisfyingly resolves an arc that's been steadily building since Halo 2 – even if the road to reach the end can be a little bumpy at times. And, yes, you may well cry by the time the credits roll. 

The way 343 tells this story is a break from convention. Halo Infinite eschews the breakneck, cinematic structure that the series has dutifully followed since its beginning, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Core missions unfurl within beautifully-lit corridors and perfectly-staged sandboxes, just as well as they always have done, but Chief now has the opportunity to explore the world around him between the litany of lengthy boss battles and tiresome monologues. 

The influence of Combat Evolved missions like 'Arriving on Halo' and 'The Silent Cartographer' are clear, informing the vibe and visual aesthetic of Halo Infinite's world and the pace at which you're able to move through it. Much like the game that started the series, most of the action plays out beneath a truly stunning skybox, dominated by an awe-inspiring alien superstructure that bends off into the stratosphere. While Halo Infinite lacks the level of polish and visual detailing you may expect from a flagship Xbox Series X experience, Installation 07 can be an undeniably beautiful space to spend your time on.   

Zeta Halo isn't an "open world" in how we traditionally think about them in this era; it isn't as large or as loud as the spaces presented in Borderlands, Fallout, or Far Cry. Instead, it's spacious and stripped-back, designed to encourage gradual progression and exploration. Access to new sections of the map are granted slowly over time, gated by progression of the story, so you're never left feeling overwhelmed by the world state or by a mess of waypoints.

If you really want a traditional Halo experience, you can find it in Infinite. The world itself is largely optional, so you can restlessly barrel down the golden path if you want to – bookending each linear mission with a short drive in a Warthog and the occasional fight with roving packs of sharply-written, and surprisingly tough, Elite, Grunts, and Jackals. If Bungie had the technology and resources to build an open world back in 2001, you have to imagine that it would have looked something like this. 

Exploring Zeta Halo

Of course, focusing on the critical path would miss the point entirely. You'll want to spend time exploring Zeta Halo because it is a world worth exploring. Not because it floods you with points-of-interest, but because it is a naturally curious landscape. It's fun to look around, to use the new Grapple Shot to quickly scale the environment, or to jump behind the wheel of your favorite vehicle and go off searching for hidden Skulls on mountaintops and other secrets in shadowy loot caves. You never know what you might find, or what opportunities to engage the Banished might arise, when you're out in the wilderness. 

The structure and pacing of the world smartly reflects Chief's struggle. While he is working against the clock to disable the Installation, he's also trying to gain a foothold against the Banished and rally what little is left of the UNSC around him. As a result, each section of the map contains a handful of overrun Forward Operating Bases to reclaim, and Banished Strongholds that need to be taken offline. 

The FOBs effectively act as anchor points for exploration. Recapture a base and it will reveal optional objectives and collectibles in your immediate vicinity – Marines can be rescued (and later recruited for combat-ops); Banished bounty targets will relinquish fun weapon variants once defeated; Spartan Cores can be collected and used to upgrade your equipment (such as your Shields or Grapple Shot), while Weapon Lockers will unlock unique cosmetics for use in multiplayer. It's all extremely manageable, and the cycle of moving into an area, capturing an FOB, clearing the space of waypoints, and then moving onto the next was enjoyable all throughout my 18-hour playtime.

FOBs can also be used to requisition unlocked weapons and vehicles, and replenish your ammunition. It's here where Halo's dynamic shifts, as you begin equipping yourself to push against Infinite's more challenging enemy strongholds – packed to the rafters with devilishly sharp Banished forces. Historically, Halo games have typically felt open and reactive, but what you could accomplish in any of its sandbox arenas was ultimately governed by whatever weapons or vehicles 343 (and Bungie) made available to you. But in Halo Infinite, every instance of combat is interpretive. 

The amount of choice you have in Halo Infinite is staggering in this respect. You can park up outside a Banished facility and pick Jackals off at range with an S7 Sniper Rifle, descending into the chaos you've engineered once ammunition wears thin. Perhaps you could Grapple Shot over the defensive perimeter and begin raining M41 SPNKR rockets down on unsuspecting Brutes. Maybe you call-in a Warthog at an FOB, pack it with Marines wielding power weapons, and drive right on up to the front gates of the base with the horn blaring. Whatever your approach, the enemy AI will always respond in kind. It's challenging, it's kinetic, and it's always exhilarating. 

What's impressive is that Infinite always feels like classic Halo once combat is initiated. Movement is tight and methodical, a frantic rush of gunfire, grenades, and melee strikes – your peripheral vision filled with swarming enemies across a variety of distances and verticalities. Combat may be more open-ended than ever before, and yet it retains its crafted feel – as if every encounter is tailor-made just for you, when the truth is any two players may have an entirely different experience. The absence of co-op at launch is all the more painful once the scale of Halo Infinite's combat becomes clear.

Thankfully, 343 pulled back on many of the more divisive elements introduced in Halo 5: Guardians. While Master Chief is still able to sprint, mantle, and aim-down-sights of every firearm, the Spartan abilities have been removed. No longer are you able to shoulder-charge enemies, unleash ground pound attacks, or use stabilizers to hover in mid-air. The focus is back to moving fast and building momentum, strafing in and out of fire as the sound of your recharging energy shield dominates the soundscape. Movement is grounded and tactile, even as you use the Grapple Shot to reel yourself toward aggressors or away from danger.

Speaking of equipment, while it makes a welcomed return to play from Halo 3, much of it is perfunctory. Not only is it fiddly to switch between your unlocks with the D-Pad, particularly in the middle of frantic combat encounters, but it's only the Grapple Shot that has any real utility. The Drop Wall is a faint echo of the Bubble Shield, the Thrusters are only useful on the rare occasion a pair of Hunters emerge, while the Threat Sensor is rarely worth the effort of equipping it. And that's even after you upgrade the lot with collected Spartan Cores. Truth be told, the Grapple Shot is such a revelatory addition – expanding the scope of play so successfully both in and out of combat – that there's rarely any point switching away from it. 

Finish the fight

Halo Infinite is an undeniable good time. Movement is weighty and tactile, retaining the grounded feel that's inherent to all good Halo games, without sacrificing any of your agility or mobility. Combat is fast and reactive, with enemy AI constantly pushing you to utilize everything around you for survival – equipment, weapons, and even the environment itself. The decision to shift Halo's long-established traditions into a sprawling open-ended sandbox only works to expand the scope of play in its favor.

Against impossible odds, Halo Infinite is both a familiar celebration of two decades of adventures with Master Chief and an expansive foundation for future evolution. 343 has siphoned the spirit of Combat Evolved and modernized it, delivering the best Halo campaign in quite some time in the process. Whether you're a series veteran coming in to finish another fight, or a new player landing on Zeta Halo to start one, this is one adventure you should jump right into. 

Halo Infinite was reviewed on Xbox Series X, with code provided by the publisher.

If you're getting the Halo Infinite User is Banned message and wondering how long the timer will last before you can get back into the action, we've got all the nuances and details laid out below. Being banned from matches temporarily is annoying, and sometimes it feels like it might be unfair. We've laid out why you can get banned below, as well as what you can do when it happens in Halo Infinite and how long the banning timer can last.

Halo Infinite User is Banned message and timer explained

Users can be temporarily banned from certain game modes, usually by quitting early and effectively abandoning the match (it also counts as quitting if you simply shut down the game). Unfortunately this has led to issues like the game crashing unexpectedly, which is then registered by Halo's servers as a sudden attack of cowardice - and people get banned over a technical error. 

Halo Infinite ban timer length

The amount of time you're banned either way will depend on how many times you've committed this infraction, as the ban timer extends each time. The minimum length at the time of writing appears to be five minutes, which then extends accordingly as follows:

• 1st Ban: 5 minutes
• 2nd Ban: 15 minutes
• 3rd Ban: 30 minutes
• 4th Ban: 1 hour
• 5th Ban: 3 hours
• 6th Ban: 16 hours

As far as we know there's no way to reset, alleviate, or reduce this timer, so if you're one of those who were unjustly banned because of sudden crashing - that's rough. However, the banning doesn't appear to be universal - at one point a crash was registered as quitting suddenly for us and we were banned for five minutes, but only from Ranked Matches (where the issue has occurred). It wasn't a problem when it came to Quick Play games, so it looks like there's a certain amount of leeway in this regard.

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Halo on Xbox One is a full-fledged entry in the first-person shooter series, but Microsoft won't say whether it's Halo 5. Microsoft confirmed to GameSpot that the new game, which was first teased at E3, is part of the Reclaimers saga.

That's right, it's now the Reclaimer saga, not trilogy.

Halo 4 was originally billed as the start of another self-contained trio, much like how Halo: Combat Evolved kicked off the first set of three. Turns out that was a bit too restrictive for the next phase of Xbox's signature space marine adventures.

"While we originally said trilogy, we've actually expanded this to more of a saga, so we don't want to limit the Reclaimer story within a trilogy," a Microsoft representative said.

Microsoft Game Studios VP Phil Spencer told GameSpot that we'll learn more about how it ties into the newly expanded narrative soon.

"It is the next Halo game that we are working on," Spencer said. "We will talk more about actually the story arc in the game and how it plays out; we've got more time to talk about that."

Halo 4's first DLC map-pack, Crimson, lands on December the 10th, bringing three new multiplayer maps and eight new Achievements. The details of the latter have just dropped via Halo Waypoint. Better polish up that aeriel combat if you want them though. Jumping seems to play a rather large part.

The details? As below.

Now They Fly?

Get a kill while airborne in a Warthog - 50 points

Size Is Everything

Kill 20 enemies with a detached Machine Gun Turret - 20 points

ODST

Kill a player while you're airborne from using a Man Cannon - 30 points

Bigfoot

Kill 20 enemies using the Mantis' stomp attack - 20 points

David and Goliath

Board an enemy Mantis - 20 points

Clay Pigeon

Shoot an enemy out of the air while they use the Man Cannon - 40 points

Special Delivery

Kill an enemy with a melee attack when landing from a Man Cannon - 30 points

Pump Yer Brakes

Score the killing blow on a Mantis - 40 points

As for those maps? All the details (as well as a whole raft of screenshots) are right here.

This means war

Two of the biggest shooter franchises unleashed their latest entries into their respective series this holiday season, which automatically spurs the question, "Which one is better?" Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops II brings the setting to the near-future, improves the multiplayer systems, expands on the popular Zombies co-op mode, and introduces several campaign elements that have never been seen in a Call of Duty game before.

Bungies Halo franchise was passed on to a new developer, and the result was absolutely magnificent. Halo 4 is arguably the best Halo game ever, with a strong multiplayer, single-player, and co-op showing. But is it enough to best Treyarchs Black Ops II? Its time to find out.

Singleplayer

Halo 4: 343 Industries revamped Halos campaign, focusing more on story than Bungie ever did. Characters are well developed, and the narrative does a good job of kicking off a new Halo saga instead of retreading old ground. Its a bit on the short end when compared to past Halo games, clocking in at around five to six hours instead of the series typical 10, but it introduced awesome new enemies and weapons, and is action packed throughout..

Call of Duty: Black Ops II:Black Ops II's campaign is a bit different from the Call of Duty games that came before. Rather than focus on bigger explosions and gigantic set pieces, the main thrills come from the twists and turns of the campaign's events--which are based on your performance and choices. Though some aspects of the campaign fall flat (like the flawed Strike Force missions), the branching story and multiple endings will make you want to play through the campaign more than once.

Winner: Halo 4. While we were impressed with Call of Duty's choice-driven narrative, Halo's campaign really stepped it up, delivering something incredibly refreshing.

Multiplayer

Halo 4: Halos multiplayer hasnt evolved much since Halo: Combat Evolved hit the original Xbox (save for the addition of online play, obviously), but Halo 4s competitive side does move the series forward a bit. Sprinting and other gameplay changes make it feel faster, and the addition of Ordnance Drops--343's take on Killstreaks--add some nice variety to matches. Being able to choose loadouts is a nice touch as well, but Halo multiplayer is still Halo multiplayer.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Treyarch didn't just slap together a few new maps, change a few weapon skins, and call it a day. Some significant changes have been made to make the competitive multiplayer even more engaging than before. The new Scorestreak system encourages players to work for the greater good, and the "Pick 10" customization system opens up even more freedom to loadout creation, allowing you to equip only what you want to use and nothing you don't.

Winner: Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Pick 10 is awesome, and it moves things forward more than Halo 4's half-step into the modern era.

Co-op

Halo 4: Besides co-op for the entire campaign--which is totally amazing, and an absolute blast on the harder difficulties--Halo 4 also adds Spartan Ops to the mix. Spartan Ops is a side campaign broken up into episodic levels, downloaded for free every week (for Xbox Live Gold subscribers). These episodes are even given their own light plot elements, giving you reasons to come back week after week to play more co-op with friends.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Treyarch's co-op Zombies mode has become one of the biggest draws to the developer's Call of Duty games. For Black Ops II, Zombies has expanded well beyond the previous game's Survival mode to an open world Tranzit mode and a competitive Grief mode. Who needs campaign co-op when you have a zombie-filled side campaign?

Winner: Tie. Spartan Ops is an excellent addition that keeps us intrigued, but we also can't stop playing the new Zombie mode.

Presentation

Halo 4: Halo 4 is, by far, the best-looking Halo game ever made, and one of the prettiest shooters in recent memory. 343 Industries has gifted Halo a new graphical style that has a nice, slick sci-fi feel, looking like a merger of classic Halo and Metroid Prime--and thats not, in any way, a bad thing. The soundtrack, too, is incredible, with a score that impresses from beginning to end.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Black Ops II is no slouch when it comes to impressive visuals and immersive sound design, and it all feels like a step up from the first Black Ops title. The 2025 world makes one of the most interesting settings in the series. Futuristic nightclubs, cities floating in the middle of the ocean, and the war-torn 2025 version of Los Angeles are all awesome sights to see.

Winner: Halo 4. Black Ops II looks good, but not nearly as impressive as Halo 4.

Originality

Halo 4: Sure, 343 could have found an excuse to reignite the human-Covenant war, bringing back everyones favorite conglomeration of evil aliens for another battle, but it didnt. Instead, the developer acknowledged the roots while moving forward, leaving the past in the past and starting a totally new saga with new aliens, new weapons, and new characters.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Call of Duty hasnt been known for being the most original shooter franchise in quite some time, but Treyarch did put effort into bringing something new to the table. The branching story mechanics of the campaign have never been done in the series before. The guns, gadgets, and futuristic locations that were spawned from the 2025 setting also gives us somewhat of a new experience, but in the end, youll still feel like youre playing a Call of Duty game.

Winner: Halo 4. Treyarch moved Call of Duty forward, but its still wrapped up in the same tropes as before, whereas Halo definitely upped the ante.

Bonus features

Halo 4: Besides playing through the campaign, co-op, and multiplayer, Halo 4 includes multiple other ways to interact with the world. Forge, for instance, allows you to create your own multiplayer levels, and Theatre lets you capture the best moments from your games and share them with others. Sadly, neither has recieved huge upgrades since Halo 3.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Outside of the three main gameplay modes, Black Ops II offers plenty of other things to do. The Elite service gives you social features and stat tracking so you can organize clan matches and track your performance. Theater allows you to create, edit, and share videos. The brand new CODcasting feature lets you commentate on matches like an eSports shoutcaster. You can easily spend hours in Black Ops II without ever once firing a bullet.

Winner: Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Elite, Theater, and CODcasting all work together to create an impressive package, and Forge simply isnt as impressive as it was when Halo 3 released.

Verdict: Halo 4 wins

It was close, but we feel that Halo 4 is, in this case, the better game. It has a more original and interesting single-player campaign (complete with four-player co-op action), a solid multiplayer side, and the incredibly imaginative Spartan Ops, making it the better package on the whole.

That doesnt discredit how good Black Ops II is, though. If youre looking at just the multiplayer portion--as many people are--wed actually recommend going with Treyarchs shooter. Pick 10 totally revamps how creating your class works, and the addition of CODcasting and Elite should help enable the community in a big way.

Which do you prefer?

Weve given our verdict, but we want to know which game you think is better. Do you side with Treyarch and Activisions Black Ops II, which moved the series forward further than the last few games combined, or are you more of a fan of Master Chiefs new journey? Let us know in the comments below!

And if you're looking for more on these awesome shooters, check out 21 must-know facts about Halos lore and the best Call of Duty memes on the internet.

Bought the Halo 4 War Games pass for all of those shiny new multiplayer maps? Wondering when exactly your investment is going to pay off? Well we may have the answer, via Germany, via a page the Xbox 360 dashboard.

Highlighted by Halo Council forum user xJumPeR_JumPzZ, the info in question purportedly comes from a advert that appeared a few days ago. It details the the already announced Halo 4 map packs - all of which are included in the 2000 MSP War Games pass - named Crimson, Majestic and Castle, with release dates of the 10th of December, the 25th of February and the 1st of April, respectively. All three dates tie in with the rough release windows already announced, so the info sounds plausible.

Each pack will contain three maps. No definite word on the size or game-type suitabilities of each one yet, but we do at least have some some rough descriptions.

This might not be news to some of you, but it turns out that Halo is really good. I made this discovery rather rapidly just last weekend. Well I say “rapidly”. You’ll have to discount my previous 11 years of multi-faceted derision from the equation in order for that statement to remain strictly accurate.

You see I’d never got on with Halo. My attitude towards it over the years has been one of indifference at best, and one all too frequently typified by searing damnation of its generic universe, generic characters, and slow, generic, “my first FPS” gameplay. When I first played Combat Evolved on my uni friend’s Xbox I wasn’t impressed in the slightest. I was feasting upon a diet of Quake and Half-Life at the time, and the lumpen, broad strokes exploits of a faceless jolly green giant space marine in a cartoon sci-fi universe just did not do it for me at all. And as for all of those claims that Halo had changed the face of gaming forever by making FPS work on a console? Pah. Goldeneye had done that four years earlier as far as I was concerned. The N64 just lacked the Xbox’s second analogue stick.

I tried again with Halo 2, playing a chunk of the campaign in co-op with another friend. But again I couldn’t summon up even one iota of the effort required to care less about it. I had TimeSplitters 2 by that point, which was faster, funnier, more imaginative in its design and storytelling, and looked way better from an art design perspective. And then Half-Life 2 happened. Sorry Halo. Another nice try, but I wasn’t biting.

And so it continued until last weekend. Every new Halo was a bit shinier and brought a couple of new tweaks, but a quick dabble always gave me the unpleasant, sluggish feeling of playing Quake III underwater. It still felt like a training wheels FPS. A competent game that copied the basics of multiple better games, but didn’t execute them with as much finesse or flair.

Whatever Halo did, it never managed to shake my perception that the franchise had just got lucky. That it had gained an artificially high profile by simple virtue of being one of the stronger first-party exclusives in the Xbox’s launch line-up and had coasted along on undeserved circumstantial hype since then. So I kept going back to what I saw as the smarter, more interesting shooters, and left Halo on the shelf time and time again. With Half-Life and Portal and Bioshock and Battlefield multiplayer to occupy me, there was no way that the Chief could possibly grab my attention.

But now he has. I rinsed through about 70% of Halo 4’s campaign in one sitting on Friday night. I finished it off the next day, and I’ve been playing multiplayer during every spare minute ever since. I just really, really like Halo now. Completely and wholeheartedly, and I absolutely cannot and will not stop playing it unless I absolutely have to.

I’ve discovered that I was wrong about it, basically. That’s not something I say about anything very often, because I’m a) usually right about everything and b) always very stubborn. But I was wrong. Despite some flaws in its campaign, Halo 4 has completely won me over.

But how did I get to this point? How did I come to be in possession of my own copy of Halo 4, after so many years unwilling to even use a Spartan-based disc as a novelty beer coaster? The simple explanation is that things have changed a lot in FPS over the last 11 years, and what Halo represents to me now is a very different thing to what it represented in 2001.

You see for me, first-person shooters are about a lot more than simply shooting things from a first-person perspective. Given their viewpoint they’re potentially the most immersive genre of all, but personally that immersion has to come as much from gameplay possibilities as it does from visual fidelity. There’s no point giving me a beautifully rendered world if I don’t feel like my actions within it really matter.

I need to be able to have a meaningful effect on my FPS environments. I need my tactical decisions and the creativity of my thinking to shape or at least strongly influence the way things play out. And I need the game to accommodate my desire for a bespoke, self-authored experience and react to the one I create. To me, FPS guns aren’t weapons. They’re unique, functionally distinct tools with which to cultivate and choreograph eclectic emergent action sequences and mid-fight meta-narratives. And that sort of thing just doesn’t happen in FPS as much as it used to.

Shooters have become glossier and more cinematic, and insanely well polished of course. But without naming any names, it’s no secret that they’ve also become increasingly less interactive. In fact some of them now almost feel like part of a different genre to the stuff that first made me a fan. Level designs are increasingly funnelled. Weapons are increasingly ‘realistic’ and similar in effect. AI is less demanding of creative play. Interactions are increasingly a case of follow the leader, do what you’re told. Playing an FPS used to feel like being a sculptor of action. Now a lot of them make me feel like I’m just an actor in someone else’s play.

The truth is that I’ve labelled myself an enthusiastic FPS player for a very long time, but over recent years I’ve only felt like a fan in principle, finding less and less examples that really gave me what I wanted. Because what was the last great mainstream console FPS built around the qualities I’m after? Singularity? Bulletstorm? Bioshock 2? And two of those tanked commercially.

So I started to gravitate towards Halo 4 a couple of weeks ago. The series had long had a reputation as a freeform shooter sandbox, so out of borderline desperation I decided that it might be time to give it another try. The development shift from Bungie to 343 Industries helped too, if only in terms of giving me an outward justification for backing down on my long-held anti-fanboyism. Pride swallowed, excuses in place, I got hold of a copy and gave it a go.

And ye gods, was coming back to Halo a beautiful experience this time around. Yes, it has issues. There’s too much repeated level design in the campaign, and too much arbitrary button-pressing by way of narrative McGuffins. But I can forgive a handful of dated old-school design crutches when they come along with so much old-school design brilliance.

Each and every time I get into a firefight in Halo 4, magic happens. In campaign, a run-in with overwhelming opposing forces isn’t intimidating or irritating. There’s no fear of the cheap bullet-hell onslaught and attritional grind that ‘certain games’ bring in such situations. There’s just opportunity and excitement. Between the inter-locking intelligence of its enemy AI and the adventure playground puzzle-box of its environmental design, playing Halo 4 today is like finding a crisp waterfall of rainbows and wishes in the middle of a baked-hard desert of uniformly coloured sand. Multiply all of the above by the sheer number of ways that every single encounter can be interpreted and reinterpreted by each combination of weapons you and your co-op partners may be packing, and you have a vision of multiple possible, completely different Halo 4s stacked on top of each other, just waiting to be unlocked by player experimentation.

And multiplayer is a revelation. Because now that I’m actively looking to Halo for something specific, I’m seeing what it can really do for the first time. After tiring of multiplayer shooters built around twitch-focused hide-and-seek and insta-kill machine-guns, what I perceived as Halo’s slowness is now obviously just a perfect pace for allowing methodical, tactical firefights.

That weapon-set isn’t insipid, as I once thought. It just demands thoughtful use and has its power pitched towards playful, completely asymmetrical cat-and-mouse combat rather than instant domination. That regenerating shield isn’t a cop-out for cowardly players. It’s a fundamental tool in facilitating drawn-out skirmishes and a back-and-forth, almost conversational combat flow. It’s also a fantastic route to poker-style battles of nerve and wits, as players back off to preserve their own shield while trying to work out exactly how much punishment their opponent can take.

But you probably know all of this already, because there’s a good chance you’ve been happily playing Halo for years. But alas it’s taken 11 years and a very particular set of circumstances for me to come to appreciate it, as well as a rather hefty change of attitude. Now that I’m actively reaching out to Halo rather than poo-pooing its efforts in favour of those of its genre rivals, it’s obvious why it’s so good.

Via a combination of internal and external forces I’ve ended up really getting to know the game for the first time. To be fair to my earlier self, that can be a tricky thing to do unless you really want to, particularly when you’re dealing with the kind of great game design that thrives on subtle intricacy and depth. But the experience has been a positive one all round. You see not only do I like a new game now, and not only has that discovery really cemented what I personally want out of game design, but it’s also made me realise just how easy it is to close yourself off to the good stuff. Even if – in fact especially if - you think you’re already looking at it elsewhere.

Fanboysism. Positive or negative, it gets your nowhere.

Now to get myself a copy of Halo Anniversary and start from the beginning. Again.

You know that kid at parties who talks too much? Drink in hand, way too enthusiastic, ponderously well-educated in topics no one in their right mind should know about? Loud? Well, that kid’s occasionally us. GR Editorials is a semi-regular feature where we share our informed insights on the news at hand. Sharp, funny, and finger-on-the-pulse, it’s the information you need to know even when you don’t know you need it.

Some players flocking to Halo 4's multiplayer on its release day are having a tough time getting online. Users are reporting issues with server availability both for competitive matches and Spartan Ops, and 343 Industries has acknowledged it's working on the problem.

Affected players receive "Server Unavailable" messages errors and may be unable to participate in the game's online modes. Some matches do work, but players have reported XP not being properly rewarded upon their conclusion, and that they have had difficulties with joining friends or adjusting equipment.

While the issue isn't afflicting all players, 18 pages of response on the official Halo Waypoint forum thread indicates it may be fairly widespread.

"As you can imagine, there are a tremendous number of new players connecting to Halo 4 right now," an administrator said on the thread. "We’re aware that some users are experiencing occasional issues connecting to the Halo 4 services. Please bear with us as we continue to work through these issues during the launch period."

Halo 4 is the beginning of a new trilogy for the vaunted sci-fi shooter franchise, but it's also a continuation of one its driving relationships. NBC News spoke with Cortana voice actress Jen Taylor about what has changed both within the game's narrative and how that narrative was recorded.

" I was given very different work to do this time," Taylor said. "The character is going through some big changes. She has quite a different journey in this game from what she's ever had. So I got to do some different things."

Halo 4 will see the Master Chief and Cortana on an alien world, fighting the Prometheans as well as the Covenant when it releases on November 6. Changes are coming from within, as well: Cortana's existence as a post-expiration-date artificial intelligence on the edge of rampancy will play a significant role in the story.

The strain Cortana's transition will impose on her and the Chief's relationship could be all the more apparent, as the two actors were placed in the same sound stage to act out their lines for the first time.

"To have somebody go through any kind of an emotional scene there with you--it makes it more real somehow," Taylor said. "It feels more authentic to work off of somebody. Even the happy-go-lucky scenes and the wry scenes are more fun. Steve [Downes, the Master Chief's voice actor] and I get along incredibly well. So it made it more emotional, more intense. Everything is more heightened because you are experiencing the journey with someone else."

Halo 4's release date of November the 6th is looming over us like a big Jolly Green Giant space marine looms over a squeaky purple midget alien. And we all know what that means. Another Halo, another slightly over-serious live-action launch trailer. This one is a bit different though, given that a) it's been produced by Se7en and Fight Club director David Fincher, and b) it's a fair bit less pretentious than usual.

Pretty blunt stigmata imagery at 1:13 though. And that crucifiction pose in the opening and closing shots is fairly blatant too. Hmmm, what could they be getting at with this groundbreaking visual metaphor?

Join us next week, when reveal the exclusive first images of the unlockable Crown of Thorns helmet for multiplayer.

Halo 4 has hit the internet in decidedly illicit form, just over three weeks before its official release date of November the sixth. While the source of the leak is currently unclear, full playthrough videos of the game are already appearing on YouTube. Microsoft is firefighting the situation.

Speaking to Polygon at the New York Comic Con on Saturday, Halo franchise director Frank O' Connor said of Friday's leak that Microsoft is addressing the issue on a case-by-case basis. When asked if he was surprised by the leak of such a high profile title, he responded in the negative, shrugging and replying "This is how surprised I am about this".

No material from the leak currently seems to be turning up on YouTube through an internal search, so it seems that Microsoft is starting to get the situation under control in that respect at least. An image seeming to illustrate a leaked set of Halo 4 retail discs turned up on NeoGAF late last week, but it's unclear if the photo has anything to do with this situation, if even genuine.

Halo 4 may seem like a swan song for the Xbox 360, but Frank O'Connor believes the console and the rest of its generation still has a lot of life and power left to tap into. GamesIndustry International spoke with O'Connor, Halo franchise development director at developer 343 Industries.

"I would actually strongly contest the fact that the Xbox 360 is at the end of its life cycle, this has already been one of the longest generations and there's a really good reason for it, which is that current consoles are incredibly flexible and still really powerful," O'Connor said when asked why the game wasn't saved for the next generation. Halo 4 looks good because "that machine has an awful lot of untapped power still."

O'Connor said current generation consoles are already widely distributed everywhere and are used for much more than just games. That means people are going to keep their systems for Netflix and other media content, and as long as the consoles are still there, people will want gaming experiences for them.

O'Connor also spoke about the design decision behind Halo 4's Spartan Ops downloadable co-op missions. He said many Halo players just tackle the single-player campaign or dive straight into the multiplayer; but by rewarding gamers for playing smaller-scale co-op missions with multiplayer unlocks, more might decide to cross over.

Spartan Ops' serialized format also presents a great opportunity for narrative control which is not feasible in 10-hour long campaigns, O'Connor said.

"In a movie I know it's going to last an hour and 40 minutes, as a director I can make you sad at the start, hopeful in the middle and joyously happy in the end, and you control that whole experience with music and timing … Spartan Ops gives us an opportunity to tell stories and control the pace and cadence of the narrative experience by making these little discrete chunks of story that are episodic, so just like a TV show."

Time and money are two things no one ever seems to have enough of. Rather than have you all blindly casting about for the multiplayer-centric shooter you'll call home this holiday season, we've done of the bit of the legwork for you, compiling details on three of this year's top shooters: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Halo 4, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter. All three have robust competitive multiplayer modes, so have a look, and we'll be updating this article as more intel comes in.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

From what we have seen and played of Black Ops 2, you can expect the maps to have comparable sizes and a similar feel to the previous installments. Some maps have tight ally ways for fast, close-quarters shooting, while others are perfect for sniping--with eagle-eye verticality and long corridors. The maps generally allow for more fast paced combat, with moving spawn points and relatively small arenas that drop you right into the action.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

We've only seen a few of the maps coming to Warfighter, but, so far, they seem to be comparable to 2010's Medal of Honor maps. There are more confined maps meant for the standard multiplayer modes like Team Deathmatch and Sector Control, which allow for fast-paced combat and close ranged encounters. The larger maps are generally dedicated to Combat Mission--a match type similar to Battlefield 3's Rush mode--and are broken up into sections that the attacking team must capture.

Halo 4

Halo's maps are traditionally larger than the modern era shooters and also have much less loose cover spread around to accompany the more arena-style shooting. The smaller maps encourage fast-paced engagements and have bounce pads scattered across the map to help players traverse distances faster. Halo 4 also includes massive sized maps to cater to vehicle combat. The large fields and wide-open spaces take the pace of the game down a peg, but once you get into the action, you're bound to encounter some YouTube-worthy moments.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Black Ops 2 sticks to the bread and butter multiplayer modes that gamers are used to, but there have been a few new additions to the series. Have a look.

Multi-team deathmatch - Tired of two-sided engagements? Black Ops 2 is allowing up to four teams to battle it out for the most kills.

Hardpoint - A brand-new game type for the series, but similar to the Headquarters game mode, Hardpoint has players rushing to gain control of a single point on the map and protect it from capture.

Domination - Two teams attempt to capture as many of the maps control points as possible.

Team Deathmatch - Everyone whos ever touched a shooter has played this mode. Two teams try to kill each other. The team that reaches the score cap or has the most kills at the end of the match is the winner.

Search and Destroy - There are no respawns. The objective of the attacking team is to detonate a timed bomb at one of the multiple bomb sites on the map. Either the defending or attacking team can eliminate all opposing players to earn a victory.

Capture the Flag - Players must guard their flag while attempting to bring the enemys flag back to base.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

There hasn't been a particularly large amount of info coming out for Warfighter's multiplayer, but we've gathered a few details on what to expect in gameplay modes.

Team Deathmatch - Every shooter needs this mode. Medal of Honor: Warfighter is no exception.

Hot Spot - Five PETN (the abbreviation to some fancy words for explosives) caches are spread across random locations in the multiplayer map. The first team to capture and defend three out of the five locations is the winner.

Sector Control - Sector Control is a domination-style mode that tasks players with capturing and holding neutral points on the map. The team that reaches the score limit by keeping control of the most capture points wins the match.

Real Ops - This is Warfighter's version of Hardcore mode. HUD elements like radar and ammo indicators are stripped away to make a more "true-to-life" experience.

Combat Mission - The attacking team must overtake multiple enemy bases in stages, while the opposite team defends those locations from dug-in defensive positions. This mode functions similarly to Battlefield 3's Rush mode.

Halo 4

Halo 4 breaks up its multiplayer in two sections, competitive and cooperative. The cooperative mode is completely new and ambitious, but is seems we can also expect the same classic competitive modes to make a comeback.

War Games - The traditional Halo multiplayer game modes such as Slayer, Team Slayer, and Capture the Flag are found in War Games. Two new match types have been announced. The first, called Infinity Slayer, allows players to earn points to call down Ordinance Drops, supplying them with weapons and power-ups. Regicide places the top player in a Slayer-type match as "King." As the "King" racks up kills his value increases to other players, encouraging his opponents to kill the leader for a large bonus

Spartan Ops co-op - Spartan Ops is an episodic co-op series that follows the missions of the Spartan IVs on the UNSC Infinity. Players will be able to join with up to four friends to take on challenging co-op levels. The developer, 343 Industries, will be adding new co-op missions every few weeks with story based content that will tie-in to the main Halo storyline.

Almost every shooter in the current generation has a character progression system in place, and the holiday releases are no exception. See how they compare below.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Gaining experience points in-game will earn you unlocks you can add to your loadout and Scorestreak options.

10-point customization system - Black Ops 2 features a brand new way to customize your loadout. The player loadouts are now based on a ten-point system. Weapons, perks, attachments, and equipment cost one point to add to your loadout. Any perk, weapon, attachment, or equipment slot can be left empty, meaning you dont have to equip anything that you wont use.

Scorestreaks - In addition to unlockable loadout options, players will unlock new Scorestreak bonuses upon leveling. The former Killstreaks from previous games have been changed to Scorestreaks in Black Ops 2. After selecting three for your loadout, you'll earn them in-game by getting kills, claiming capture points, and basically doing anything to assist your team in winning a match to rack up Score. Once you achieve the required amount of score for your respective Scorestreak, you are able to unleash one of the skills on your fellow gamers.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Warfighter will also include a progression system that works as it did in Medal of Honor (2010), and it allows you to unlock new weapons, attachments, and equipment by earning experience from kills and capturing objectives

Similar to Black Ops 2's Scorestreaks, Warfighter's Support Actions provide combat bonuses when players reach a specified number of points for racking up kills and completing objectives in a match. The most recent multiplayer trailer for Warfighter has confirmed the mobile Mk19 Grenade Launcher, a Blackhawk Helicopter that becomes a mobile spawn for your team, and the RQ-7 Shadow recon drone as Support Actions.

Halo 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Black Ops 2 will feature a variety of (near) future prototype weapons and advanced variants on modern era firearms. All weapons fall under the typical categories of handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, light machine guns and launchers.

Where Black Ops 2's weapons really stand out from other shooters is in the attachments. The new additions include an X-ray scope, Target Finder scope, long barrel (for increased accuracy), and a Millimeter Scanner, which allows you to see stationary targets through solid objects.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Halo 4

Thanks to Halo 4's setting and the new Promethean enemies, there should be more than the standard UNSC, Covenant, and Brute weaponry available in multiplayer (the exact multiplayer weapon list has yet to be announced). In addition to the return of the Battle Rifle and DMR, we're hoping players will be able to get their hands on the Promethean Incineration cannon, Scattershot shotgun, fully automatic Suppressor rifle, long-range Lightrifle, Boltshot pistol, and Binary Rifle in multiplayer.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Outside of earning Scorestreaks that allow you to control unmanned drones, and man the guns of an attack helicopter and other aerial behemoths, you won't be able to pilot or drive your own vehicles in multiplayer.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Vehicles in Warfighter only provide support functions in the form of mobile spawn points and attack helicopters.

Halo 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

As of now, we know that those who pre-order Black Ops 2 or drop the big money on the special editions, will receive the Nuke Town 2025 map. Post-launch, we expect that regular DLC map packs will be released that include both Zombie maps and competitive multiplayer maps as has been done with previous Call of Duty releases.

Activision has also been teasing Call of Duty: Elite 2.0. It's said that the current subscription service--which allows subscribers early access to DLC content, among other perks--will be receiving an upgrade. Details on what those upgrades entail are not available as of yet.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Developers, Danger Close, have already announced the first DLC content that will hit Warfighter. The Zero Dark Thirty map pack is a tie-in to Sony Picture's Zero Dark Thirty movie, and will feature two Middle East multiplayer locations that were suspected hiding places of Osama Bin Ladin.

Warfighter will most likely keep the trend of 2010's Medal of Honor and release regular DLC updates including additional game modes and map packs.

Halo 4

Be sure to check back for more info on the biggest multiplayer shooters coming out this holiday. We will be updating this article as more information becomes available, including announcements on upcoming maps, modes, weapons, and everything else.

Which games are you looking forward to the most this holiday? Do you already know which shooter you will choose over the others? Let us know in the comments below.

Which FPS do you plan on buying this Holiday?

If any story ever seemed to exemplify the dangers of trying to be too clever when teasing your fans, it could be this one. Because unless this is all an elaborate red herring (and to be honest, there's a decent chance it might be), then Halo 4 developer 343 Industries might just have accidentally leaked a fairly significant page of the game's script all over the internet.

Originating in a post on NeoGAF (potential spoilers through that link obviously), the story goes that a raft of information regarding a (or potentially the) climactic battle with Halo 4's previously unconfirmed antagonist is visible during one brief shot in 343's recent "A Hero Awakens" documentary video. A re-watch and some judicious pausing reveals that the information is indeed present, via what appears very much to be a page from the game's mocap performance script.

Turning up at around the 3:55 mark, the page is only in focus on screen for the merest blip of time, but that didn't stop GAF user Slightly Live from digging out possible details of the identity of the game's primary enemy, some new abilities for Cortana, and a real sense of the new enemy's level of power. None of those details are going to be fleshed out on these pages for the sake of avoiding inflicting accidental spoilers, but interested parties can find them all on the original NeoGAF post, along with some more speculation driven by a currently unreleased (but heavily previewable on Amazon) Halo novel.

Microsoftconfirmed todaythat players who wish to access the multiplayer component of Halo 4 will need access to 8GB of storage space on their Xbox 360. That can be either on an official Xbox 360 harddrive or on removable flash memory.

However, this will leave some Xbox 360 owners out in the cold, with Core, Arcade, and 4GB console owners left to find more data storage in order to play online.

It will even spell trouble for launch day Xbox 360s (the few that are still left) as freeing up 8GB of space on a 20GB drive is pretty difficult, and essentially renders your HDD into a Halo 4 accessory.

Halo Reach also had a installation requirement, however that was only for Firefight and cooperative play. After release, 343 Industries patched the game to remove the requirement.

Besides getting a chance to see the genre-defining Spartan Ops at E3 2012, we also spent some time exploring Halo 4's competitive side, playing a few matches of Team Slayer on the newest entry in the series that changed the way gamers viewed console FPS. After bashing in some heads, shooting some dudes, and teabagging some enemies, we're confident that... yup, it's more Halo.

Prettier more Halo. More weapons more Halo. New items more Halo, but... more Halo. Your enjoyment of Halo 4 's multiplayer is going to be directly coordinated to how much you think you'd enjoy more Halo - if you're interested in a slightly expanded, slightly modified version of one of the most popular FPS of all time, then Halo 4 is going to be exactly what you’re looking for.

In only a few minutes, we were right back in the Halo groove; after throwing a few grenades at our own feet in desperate attempts to activate iron sights, we were ready to go. Before long, we were doing exactly what we always do in Halo: throwing grenades at enemies as soon as we see them, running at opponents and trying to bash them with our weapons in a game of joust, and praying that we find a rocket launcher to score some lucky kills.

The controls felt mostly the same, save for the ability to use different active skills, like alternate vision modes and shields (actual shields, not passive energy ones). But even that felt like an enhanced version of the same feature from Halo: Reach. Sprinting (which is mapped to clicking the left stick, and something everyone can now do), obviously makes things move a little faster, but there were no other major updates to the actual act of running around and shooting the other guys. There's no cover and there are no iron sights, which keeps the game's arcadey style intact. 343 Industries isn't taking any gigantic risks with Halo 4's multiplayer - it's just cleaning up some of the rough patches.

That's not to say that this post-Bungie Halo doesn't change things at all. On the contrary, some elements have been updated to stay competitive with contemporary shooters. Loadouts of different weapons, grenades, and abilities make the experience more personalized, and less focused on memorizing weapon locations on the map. It creates a more skill-based experience, and one that'll click with Call of Duty and Battlefield players without betraying what makes Halo so popular.

There are other changes, too, including the addition of different weapons, some of which still spawn dynamically into the world. The Scattershot, for instance, was an awesome Forerunner shotgun that tore through enemies, and there was also a gun that essentially shot remote mines, making quick work of our foes. They both folded easily into the typical Halo experience in a way that felt totally natural.

Other elements we heard about (but didn't see) included some loose story elements surrounding the game's multiplayer, and a shared experience system that keeps your character persistently leveling through both multiplayer and Spartan Ops. But we've got a feeling that, even with those additions, it's still going to be more Halo.

And you know what? We're absolutely fine with that. Please, the more Halo the better - sign us up.

If Max Payne 3 taught us anything, it's that there will always be work for alcoholic nihilists and a developer switch can be the shot in the arm a franchise needs to get back on its feet or stay at the top of its game. True, Remedy's bullet-timey renegade had a huge advantage in that he was adopted by Rockstar, but video game history is marked with developer swaps that have been equally successful with far less muscle.

Stick around as we review the video gaming hand-off that worked, and a few that dropped the ball...

There was once a time when Lara Croft could do no wrong. From 1996 onwards, Core Design's busty raider of tombs was the talk of pixeltown until 2003, when Ms. Croft's fame took a swan dive with the release of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, her first entry for the PlayStation 2. While far from terrible, Angel of Darkness's stiff controls and dated presentation confirmed what fans had long suspected: after pumping out six games in seven years, Core Design's crush on Lara was starting to fizzle.

Realizing the honeymoon was over, Core Designs gave its digital baby to Crystal Dynamics, a studio that was best known then for its Legacy of Kain series. Over the following years, Crystal Dynamics put Lara Croft through her paces; redesigning her looks, moves, and backstory. Even Tomb Raider creator Toby Gard returned for Lara's resurrection. In 2006, their efforts paid off in Tomb Raider: Legend, a game many considered a true return to form.

Hand-off results: Like the freshly rendered Lara herself, Crystal Dynamics dusted off the once-great franchise and made it exciting again. Tomb Raider: Legend became the fastest selling game in the series and remains one of the highest rated games in the Tomb Raider empire. More importantly, it reignited Lara's career, and is one of the reasons we're excited to see where Crystal Dynamics plans to take her next in her second reboot later this year.

Irrational Games broke (drilled, smashed, and shocked) new ground with BioShock in 2007. Designer Ken Levine and his team (then 2K Boston) created an FPS that focused as much on gunplay as it did on creating one of the most compelling worlds in gaming. Rapture and its inhabitants set a new bar in video game storytelling, and the variety of plasmid options and moral dilemmas scattered within gave players a reason to plunge its depths for multiple playthroughs. By the time BioShock sold its 2 millionth copy a few months later, rumors of a sequel were already starting to surface. Trouble was, Ken Levine had other plans.

Now richer from BioShock, 2K opened 2K Marin and approached Ken Levine's 2K Boston crew for talent. Levine agreed to give up members of the BioShock team, but opted to stay back to pursue other projects. As such, 2K Marin went on to continue Rapture's story, eventually adding multiplayer with help from Digital Extremes (among other developers). Meanwhile, Levine and 2K Boston reverted back to its Irrational Games moniker worked in secret on its infinite plans.

Hand-off results: You remember BioShock 2, right? The game we assigned a perfect score and the one that went on to make Take Two Interactive scads and scads of money? It's safe to say the BioShock vets at 2K Marin did Levine's vision proud, and that the Big Daddy and the Little Sisters suffered very little from the hand-off. In the time since, Levine has rededicated Irrational's efforts to the BioShock universe with BioShock Infinite, while 2K Marin has been working on an FPS reboot of PC classic XCOM, a development that hasn't gone all that smoothly.

Supernatural kids are creepy. It's a fact (look it up). And in 2005, Monolith Production played on our collective fear of ghostly underage girls in the freshman chapter of its F.E.A.R series. Inspired by decades of Japanese horror films, F.E.A.R injected a sense of genuine terror to the FPS genre, much of which was owed to a psychic ankle-biter named Alma who (spoiler) turned out to be the leading man's mother. Again... creepy. But also, effective. So effective, in fact, that Monolith Productions was motivated to port its PC creeper hit to PS3 and Xbox 360 with the assistance of Day 1 Studios, the indie team that would later adopt Alma and the F.E.A.R franchise completely one sequel later.

Hand-off results: Day 1 Studio's F.E.A.R 3 is generally regarded as the weakest of its kin, but in all fairness, the F.E.A.R franchise was already losing its edge by the time Day 1 took over. The creepy kid fad was loosing its shock value, and F.E.A.R 3's scare tactics were becoming old hat. Left to rely on its FPS merits and multiplayer tricks alone, F.E.A.R 3 turned out to be an average time-waster; and in the FPS genre, average is a death sentence. In the end, Day 1 Studios didn't sully F.E.A.R's good name, but it didn't help it much either.

2006's Dead Rising was an undead love letter to zombie pop culture. It offered a genuine Romero nightmare in in a morbidly entertaining sandbox that rewarded creativity, quick thinking, and a strong stomach. Capcom's (then) newest IP - starring everyman photojournalist Frank West - became North America's fastest selling next-gen title on the Xbox 360 in a matter of weeks, so it was a surprise to absolutely no one that a follow-up was announced in February 2009. To the surprise of some, however, the honor of continuing Capcom's undead phenom fell to Blue Castle Games, a studio largely known for cracking out baseball titles like The Bigs for 2K Sports.

Fears of a shoddy sequel were quickly put to rest by news that Capcom's Keiji Inafune and other Dead Rising alumni would be working closely with Blue Castle Games. Their efforts gave rise to 2010's Dead Rising 2, a sequel that succeeded in expanding the Dead Rising concept with a larger playground, tweaked mechanics, and a weapon-crafting system that made zombie killing the new national past time.

Hand-off results: Dead Rising 2 didn't have Frank West's star power, but it didn't need it. The sequel sold more than its predecessor, and made a killing on DLC expansions; one of which brought Frank back into the fold in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Capcom was so pleased with Dead Rising 2 that it adopted Blue Castle Games as one of its own, renaming the studio Capcom Vancouver. It hasn't been confirmed yet if Blue Castle is attached to Dead Rising 3, but it's a good bet.

John Romero's Ion Storm studio was supposed to change the industry; and for a brief moment in 2000, it did. Shortly after its notorious Daikatana fumble, Ion Storm brought Warren Spector in to head the studio's expansion in Austin, Texas, trusting the new studio with the development of a new IP called Deus Ex for its publisher, Eidos. Spector and his team delivered in spades, introducing PC gamers (and later, Xbox'ers) to a cyberpunk action title that blended elements of stealth, role-playing, and traditional first-person shooter elements to massive cult success. Soon, fans wanted more, and Ion Storm's Austin team answered the call with Deus Ex: Invisible War, the sequel that nearly put a bullet in the head of the Deus Ex franchise.

Seven years later, both Ion Storm offices had shuttered, Spector had moved on, and the future seemed bleak for Deus Ex. Then, like an augmented super-spy, Eidos crept out of nowhere to announce it would be handling development of a brand new Deus Ex: Human Revolution out of its Montreal studio. Fans rejoiced for a split second, before proceeding to pick apart every new image and gameplay detail until its release. In the end, Eidos held its own. Deus Ex: Human Revolution became one of the top games of 2011 and arguably the best title in the franchise.

Hand-off results: Save for the bland boss fights, Deus Ex: Human Revolution did everything it was meant to do. It re-introduced the franchise to a new generation, while retaining the series' moody, cyberpunk feel and emphasis on personalized play. It earned perfect review scores across the board and boosted profits for its publishers at Square Enix. More importantly, it resurrected a franchise many thought dead, and all but secured a sequel down the road. A good one, this time. We hope.

Black Isle Studios's first two Fallout games were groundbreaking on a number of fronts. For one, they proved role playing games could be badass, and they made a generation of gamers yearn for a nuclear war that would turn them into power-armored, Mad Max cowboys. Fortunately (sadly?) those nukes never came; however, the Fallout series put Black Isle and their Interplay overlords on the map. In the early 2000s, Black Isle went back to its radiated well for a new Fallout sequel, codenamed Van Buren. Unfortunately, financial woes forced Interplay to pull the plug on Black Isle and trade off Fallout's single player rights in order to survive. Enter: Bethesda.

Fresh from the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda set fire to the ill-fated Van Buren project, and built a its own post-apocalyptic vision from the ashes. The result was Fallout 3, an open-world RPG that combined the open-world mastery of The Elder Scrolls and Black Isle's rich Fallout universe. The franchise's rebirth was hailed as monumental success by fans and critics, and it paved the way for Fallout: New Vegas a game that would see former Black Isle developers unite under the Obsidian Entertainment banner to finally take another crack at the series that made their careers.

Hand-off results: Fallout 3 was named Game of the Year by countless gaming outlets and way more importantly awarded our top prize in the 2008 Annual Platinum Chalice Awards. It's popularity earned it a space in the Smithsonian Art Exhibition's video game display, as well as set up Obsidian's Black Isle vets nicely for their New Vegas comeback.

It takes cojones the size of Guilty Sparks to tackle one of gamedome's most respected (and bazillion-dollar making) properties, but that's what Microsoft created 343 Industries to do following Bungie's exit from the franchise after Halo: Reach. Guided by members of Bungie's original crew, 343 Industries hit the ground running with the Defiant Map Pack" for Halo: Reach, and the Halo Waypoint app for Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360's Live Arcade. However, it was only after these bit-sized projects when 343's true test began.

At E3 2011, Microsoft announced its Bungie replacement was not only developing a HD remake of Halo Combat: Evolved for the series' 10th Anniversary, but that 343 Industries would also be piloting Master Chief's return in Halo 4. Fans squirmed. Critics sniped. Then 343 Industries silenced them all (well, most of them) with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a game that was praised for its fresh look, tight gameplay, and reverence for the Halo universe. Suddenly, Master Chief's future looked bright.

Hand-off results: Halo: Combat Evolved launched to above-average reviews (read ours - now!). It also proved 343 Industries was more than capable of picking up where Bungie left off. We'll know how clean this hand-off was when Halo 4 comes out of stasis on November 6, 2012, but for now we're optimistic.

Since Infinity Ward laid a blitzkrieg on FPS gaming with the first Call of Duty in 2003, the wartime shooter has been passed around developers like a contraband porno mag, cycling through a slew notable game makers who have each added their own touch to the series while maintaining its genre-defining multiplayer and single-player experiences.

The short version of Call of Duty' s history goes like this: In 2006, Infinity Ward tagged in Treyarch for Call of Duty 3, but stepped back in to launch Call of Duty's Modern Warfare series in 2007. Activision's internal team at Treyarch brought the series back to WWII in World at War (giving gamers a taste of Nazi Zombies), then Infinity Ward went modern again with the real sequel to its hit, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Following a legal dust-up between publisher Activision and former Infinity Ward heads, devs Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software were called on to help the MW series running, eventually completing Modern Warfare 3 last year. Meanwhile, Treyarch went to Vietnam with Black Ops, which continues this November.

Hand-off results: Call of Duty games continue to set new sales records and gushing reviews with every yearly installment, despite the the regular cycle community bitching and moaning over the lack of originality that precedes every sequel. It's likely the Call of Duty franchise will outlive us all no matter which developer takes control.

You know it's a successful hand-off when fans barely notice the switch. Case in point: Capcom's string of Zelda games for Nintendo's portable systems, which began in 2001 with dual release of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages for the Game Boy Color. The interconnected chapters were developed by Flagship Co., a Capcom subsidiary headed by Final Fight creator Yoshiki Okamoto. Their retail success led to Capcom's official stamp on the port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords to Game Boy Advance in 2002; and its direct involvement in the creation of the critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for Game Boy Advance in 2004.

Hand-off results: Though the styles may be subtly different, most everyone who's played at least one of Capcom's handheld Zelda games would agree they deserve a place in Link's library as much as any other. True, Nintendo jumped back in for the next portable adventures with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS, but that was more about The Big N overseeing Zelda's next-gen debut than reacting to Capcom's work. In the end, Capcom's official run may have been brief, but it was memorable.

It's hard to tell now, but Nintendo's original Star Fox for the Super Nintendo was something of a graphical wunderkind back in 1993. It was one of the first console games to utilize 3D polygonal models, and it made Nintendo's Super FX chip look like a miracle worker. It's next-gen follow, Starfox 64, performed equally well for Ninty, doubling as a showpiece for its 64-bit system. All was looking good for Fox McCloud and his barrel-rolling crew... and then came Star Fox Adventures.

Alright, we're being a little dramatic. Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't really a Star Fox game either. As the story goes, Rare was working on an action-adventure title called Dinosaur Planet for the GameCube, before Nintendo stepped in and requested nay, demanded! - it be reskinned as a Star Fox title. As a result, Star Fox Adventures was born looking more like a Zelda game than a traditional, high-flying Star Fox adventure. Thankfully, fans later got their genuine Fox McCloud fix in 2005 with Star Fox Assault, Namco's own take on the series which returned it to its rail-shooter roots, albeit to mixed critical success.

Hand-off results: Under the care of Rare and Namco, the Star Fox series has flexed its wings, but it's never really been able to regain the level of fame it had under Nintendo's reign. Retro Studios is rumored to be working on a Metroid and Star Fox cross-over game for the Wii U, so maybe the third hand-off will be a charm?

Jamming on plastic guitars and pretending to sing at parties was all the rage back in the 2000s thanks in large part to Harmonix and RedOctane who made the rock and roll rhythm game genre famous with the first Guitar Hero game back in 2005. Then, in 2006, Activision stepped in and Yoko Ono'd the duo, taking RedOctane for its own, and sending Harmonix into the arms of MTV Games and publisher EA, where it started its own revenge franchise, Rock Band.

Eager to cash in on the music game craze (and justify the millions it spent on RedOctane), Activision called up its own Tony Hawk developer Neversoft to control the retail beast Harmonix had released for PS3 and Xbox 360, signing on Vicarious Visions, Budcat Creations, and Aspyr Media to spread the Guitar Hero mojo to Wii, DS, PS2, and PC, respectively. Neversoft accepted its most sacred task, and proceeded to clutter living rooms with fake instruments through the release of an estimated 2.9 billion sequels and iterations of the Guitar Hero brand. By 2010, player tastes had moved to the dance game genre (in which Harmonix was already killing it with Dance Central), and Guitar Hero had become a washed-out, drug-addled husk of its former self. One year later, Activision pulled the plug on its once legendary performer, and Guitar Hero has been playing small town bars ever since.

Hand-off results: Under Neversoft's watch, Harmonix's creation went on to become one of the hottest selling properties in Activision's stable. The games sold tens of millions, and the downloadable song market became one of the hottest and most lucrative trends in DLC. As such, it's difficult to lay the blame for Guitar Hero's demise on Neversoft's performance, when Activision's ceaseless milking of the franchise seems a more likely suspect. Could Harmonix have kept the flame alive? We'll never know, but the company is at least trying to reignite it with the upcoming downloadable Rock Band Blitz.

Up until F-Zero GX, Nintendo and Sega were the Coke and Pepsi of the gaming world. That ended in 2000, when Sega announced it was making the switch to third party development. Suddenly, it wasn't so taboo for the two video game juggernauts to be seen in the same room, and soon after Nintendo assigned Sega's subsidiary, Amusement Vision, to the next installment of its futuristic racing series, F-Zero. So began the first official collaboration between the two former rivals.

F-Zero GX was developed by Amusement Vision around the same time as F-Zero AX, an arcade racing game which resembled its GameCube counterpart, and even connected to the game via memory card. Both F-Zero properties were overseen by F-Zero designer Takaya Imamura and Nintendo co-producers Shigeru Miyamoto and Toshihiro Nahoshi, but it was still Sega's Amusement Vision that did most of the heavy lifting. Granted, it may not have been a complete hand-off, but considering the companies' histories, it was valiant first step.

Hand-off results: Despite criticisms (including some from Miyamoto himself) for its steep difficult curve, F-Zero GX released to much acclaim and strong sales. It was the first F-Zero game to feature an actual story, and it succeeded in making Captain Falcon a recognizable face in Nintendo's roster. More importantly, it laid the foundation for an unlikely friendship between Nintendo and Sega that carried forward into other collaborations.

Midway's NFL Blitz series was an arcadey alternative to the more sim-oriented football games of its time. Sporting fewer rules, bigger hits, and exaggerated gameplay, Blitz was a breath of fresh air for gamers who wanted to chuck the virtual pigskin without the hassle of having to become an expert on the actual sport. The series continued to tweak its over-the-top formula for over a decade, until Midway caught a permanent injury in 2008, and the series was benched.

Enough hamfisted football analogies for ya? Here's one more. While Blitz fans feared the series was on a permanent delay, EA later picked up the ball in 2012 with a rebranded NFL Blitz downloadable title for PS3 and Xbox 360, treating Blitzers to an all-star follow-up.

Hand-off results: In addition to giving us a game that actually fits our hand-off analogy, EA gave Blitz fans a taste of their past without tainting it too much with Madden NFL sensibilities. As we found in our NFL Blitz review, the pseudo-reboot was instantly recognizable to Blitz aficionados, if not slightly more mature than it's ancestors. Still, better there be a slightly watered down Blitz than none at all, no?

We don't want to say anything untowards about Nintendo's spacefaring bounty hunter, but for the last 10 years Samus Aran has been stepping out with more than one developer. The first hand-off occurred after producer Shigeru Miyamoto paid a trip to Retro Studios, which had been commissioned to work on four unrelated titles for the GameCube. Miyamoto was so smitten with Retro's first-person shooter engine that he suggested the studio scrap everything it was working on and begin anew on a first-person Metroid sequel. Retro Studios obliged (begrudgingly, we assume) and went on to produce an entire Metroid Prime Trilogy; a chain of games that marked a new era for the franchise, which had not seen a true sequel since Super Metroid for SNES.

The second hand-off took place in 2008. This time, it was Metroid designer Yashio Sakamoto who shopped Samus Aran around, settling on Team Ninja thanks to its proven skill with 3D gameplay and success with the Ninja Gaiden series. The pairing led to the development of Metroid: Other M for the Nintendo Wii.

Hand-off results: While not the bestselling chapter in Samus's career (in fact, it's one of the worst), Metroid: Other M gave the long-running series a new flavor. It was the first imbue Samus with a melee system and a unique blend of third-person and first-person controls. Ultimately, Team Ninja's vision failed to set the Metroid community on fire, but it kept the brand alive all the same. Conversely, the Metroid Prime Trilogy, earned Retro Studios a shinier place in Samus Aran's history.

Look, we know it's become de rigeour to shoehorn Gearbox's Duke Nukem Forever into every article about games that broke our hearts, but you have to admit it fits the theme. We'll spare you a retelling of Duke's belabored comeback, but the short story is Duke Nukem Forever was stuck in development purgatory long before Gearbox took its shot. As such, this wasn't so much of a developer hand-off as much as it was an 11th hour attempt to save the great Duke before he expired for good. And the result? Well...it's a matter of perspective.

Hand-off results: We'll save you the mystery: Duke Nukem Forever was not a great game. We gave it a decent score, but even that was being generous. After nearly a decade and a half out of commission, Duke Nukem Forever's linear structure, uninspired sequences, and baffling long load sequences made the whole thing feel like it had arrived late to its own party. But less we crap over Gearbox for its misstep, it's only fair to say it did the best with what it had. That all said, the game also sold pretty well (thanks in part to 14 years of hype), so Duke Nukem loyalists may still get a true, modern sequel down the road.

This is the part of the feature where we pass it off to you. Tell us what gaming hand-offs we missed, and which we fumbled. Just be civil about it we don't want to have to do some replacing of our own...

As box-art reveals go, Microsoft recently e-mailing 32 separate pieces of a single image to Xbox Live members is a pretty novel idea. Of course, given the Internet's impressive track-record at solving some of the most insanely oblique and cryptic puzzles ever devised, it's no surprise that putting the pieces together didn't take too long. The following Halo 4 image was swiftly assembled and has since been confirmed by developer 343 Industries as the 'key art' which will be used for the game's packaging.

So while this is not exactly how the Halo 4 box will look (it needs all the logos and the Xbox 360 banner at the top), it is the art that will feature when the game is released later this year, on November 6. Have a look:

So what do you think - love it or hate it? Or are you somewhere in the middle? When you've decided, have a vote in the poll below. It's just for fun. So don't sweat it.

Halo 4 box-art: Love it or hate it?

If you have anything more to say about the Halo 4 box art and you would like to share it with the group, please feel free to take advantage of our highly advanced commenting technology.

Here's a goodly heap of leaked image and concept art from Halo 4 (via All Games Beta), whose development some of you might be following as it's an interesting-looking sci-fi game from a promising new studio. Oh yeah, and because it's the fourth in one of the biggest series of the last decade, the return of one of gaming's most iconic faceless ciphers, and apparently the first installment in what 343 hopes will be a decades-long future for the franchise.

With the Halo 4 release date announced for November 2012, expect to see plenty more glimpses of the reborn Chief and Cortana. And rest assured that there's no shortage of Halo when you're done with this one. 343's Josh Holmes explains that the game has no plans to enter into the pantheon of gaming's grittiest reboots, calling the title “a very deliberate continuation of a story that's already in motion.”

Franchise director Frank O'Connor echoes this theme, telling the Toronto Sun it's his hope that the series can last into the 2030s: “The technology will change, people's habits will change, we will kill off characters and resurrect others.” O'Connor says the series, whose emotional linchpin involves a walking tank and his imaginary girlfriend, will continue “for as long as it makes sense.” We're looking forward to following the games' progress well into our twilight years.

Conan O'Brien paid a visit to the makers of Halo 4 last night in a segment that showed off brief scenes from the Master Chief sequel and O'Brien's (fictional) role within it. The sketch, hinted at yesterday in Halo 4 release date announced for November 2012, took the ginger host to 343 Industries, where he met with Halo's franchise director Frank O'Connor and executive producer Kiki Wolfkill to voice bit parts with co-host Andy Richter for an in-game sequence we sincerely hope makes the final cut.

Skip to the final minute for actual Halo 4 gameplay:

Following up on last night's sketch, Conan's staffers (aka TeamCoco) posted an exclusive behind-the-scenes video from 343 Industries. Pay attention to Conan's debriefing for clues on Halo 4's locations:

Two more behind-the-scenes videos from Conan and Andy's voicing session were posted last night. Watch (and listen) to the hilarity ensue in Halo Soundbooth BTS Part 1 and Part 2.

It wasn't clear if Conan will actually have a cameo in Halo 4, but you can bet we'll be looking for him when the sequel drops for Xbox 360 on November 6, 2012.

343 Industries is prepping Halo 4 for a global launch on November 6, 2012. Microsoft announced the official date for the highly-anticipated sequel in a press release this morning, stating the new chapter in Master Chief's saga will represent a “new beginning for the landmark entertainment franchise.”

“We are beginning a new saga with ‘Halo 4’ and embarking on a journey that will encompass the next decade of ‘Halo’ games and experiences,” said Phil Spencer, Microsoft Studios's corporate vp. “Millions of fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to step back into the boots of Master Chief, and with ‘Halo 4’ leading the charge, we’re confident 2012 will be the most successful year in Xbox history.”

Halo 4's early November release date puts it on a direct intercept course with Assassin's Creed III (October 30), Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and Grand Theft Auto V (if you believe the rumor in GTA V release date spotted on Rockstar resume).

More Halo 4 news is slated to drop tonight on late-night cable, according to Microsoft's Major Nelson, who tweeted instructions to followers to keep an eye out for Master Chief on Conan O'Brien's talk show. That said, now that Microsoft and 343 Industries have revealed Halo 4's launch date on its own, it's likely tonight's reveal will be a recap of the release plans for everyone else who didn't spend all morning refreshing their news feeds.

While you're waiting for Conan's broadcast, see what we've already learned about Halo 4 from the latest screenshots in Halo 4: New screens show campaign, multiplayer, enemies. Will scorch your eyes with shiny visual joy, and listen in to the sequel's soundtrack in Halo 4 trailer introduces series' new composer: hear tracks from the game.

Microsoft and 343 Industries' latest Halo 4 trailer takes you behind the scenes on the game's soundtrack. The fourth title features the series' first new composer since Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatore began work on the original Combat Evolved's score. This time, Massive Attack producer Neil Davidge lends the series' signature aural palette a touch of the trip-hop sensibilities he's previously brought to releases such as 1998's Mezzanine.

If this trailer's look into the score leaves you wanting to hear more, Rolling Stone has a stream of Arrival, one of Davidge's tracks composed for the game. Davidge says he's been playing Halo since the series' inception, with the first game a regular fixture in the Massive Attack recording studio. And you wondered why that band's output had become more minimalist even as the Halo series grew progressively more expansive...