Halo: The Master Chief Collection finally made its way to PC in 2019, five years after its initial Xbox One launch. It's safe to say the re-launch has been a hit, so much so that right now, its playerbase seems to be healthier than Halo Infinite's.
Looking at Steam's database numbers, just over 9,000 players online at once is MCC's recent 24-hour peak player count. That number is about 7,800 for Halo Infinite, at the time of writing. This is even more stark when you notice that Infinite's all-time concurrent record is 100,000 higher than the Master Chief Collection.
Of course, there are a few notable reasons for this. A huge update has just arrived for Halo: MCC, adding cross-play for Halo 3 and a new Flood Firefight mode to the collection. Comparatively, Halo Infinite is still awaiting its first major post-launch content drop.
However, it's still a little troubling that the player count for a collection of old games is surpassing that of the first proper Halo game in over six years. This is all Steam-based though, so console player counts could tell a hugely different story, if we had that data. Remember, the majority of MCC's games weren't available on PC at all, before 2019's launch.
Still, this highlights how desperate the wider community is for new Halo Infinite content. Thankfully, we won't have to wait too much longer, as season 2 launches in less than three weeks, on May 3rd.
Do these numbers surprise you? Are you still playing Halo: MCC as well? Let us know in the comments!
[source gamespot.com]
Comments 8
Well the experience is radically different for a start and has so much more variety of maps, modes etc so I'm not surprised. CoD: Vanguard and BF2042 are also not the 'most' played CoD/BF game this past week/month too...
Personally, I played Halo: Infinite's Campaign - completing everything to 100% on Legendary over the first months and having done 'everything', I stopped playing because I don't really like Halo's MP. I bought Halo:CE, Halo 2 etc - even the MCC collection because of the Campaigns - the MP was originally a bolted on 'extra', something for the 'Gold' subscribers. Therefore, when the Campaign is 'finished', then I (and I'm sure 'others' will) stop playing Halo so the numbers will 'fall'!
I don't think I can go back to old school Halo multiplayer after Infinite. I also never was a big Firefight fan so I wasn't tempted to go back for this update. Good for the folks that are enjoying it though.
It's all about content, MCC got a massive update this week (Flood Firefight, Halo 3/ODST crossplay campaign co-op, Customs Browser for Halo 2/2 Anniversary/4, etc.) meanwhile the last significant Infinite content was Attrition being a limited time mode back in January for 2 weeks which completely disappeared after February 1st.
People will return to Infinite when new content arrives (Season 2 in May).
I can’t blame them. MCC had a huge update and Infinite is seeing its first lacklustre season. There’s really nothing more to see in Infinite Until season 2.
I personally can’t go back either. Infinite’s gameplay is where it’s at for me now. I tried going to back to Halo 3 after playing games like Apex Legends and it just didn’t click any more and I played a tonne of Halo 2 & 3 back in the day.
You know, I've long said that Halo's productions should have been reduced to a B grade scale. Focusing on classic gameplay, no micros, and free updates. It's all the community needs. So I'm hardly surprised at this.
Despite part of the community's and MS' insistence that Halo "modernise" and remain a AAA juggernaut, its never worked out for 343i or the franchise since they took over. I think it speaks volumes to people's misunderstanding of what Halo is if the most praised 343i Halo, that launched against BF2042, is essentially dead after 6 months.
It's also worth noting that much of the MCC content is a decade or more old at this point, and people still like playing that old content. If your model requires constant content and endless cosmetics to keep your community happy, you don't really have much of a game.
Seriously, can we finally admit that GAAS doesn't create quality content, just filler?.
Master Chief Collection as been more played than Infinite for weeks now. Particularly because you can get in low latency game, fewer bugs, and nearly none of the desync Infinite is famous for.
The update just brought even more people back over.
@Rural-Bandit
For sure I agree. Single player campaigns are still as great as ever in MCC. And I'd also love to see a Gears version of MCC. It would also be pretty cool to play horde mode in Gears 2 as well again!
@Richnj "Seriously, can we finally admit that GAAS doesn't create quality content, just filler?."
Well put. It's a series of sugar highs tacked onto a game that's not as good as its predecessors.
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