Halo Infinite releases next month, but rumours suggest that the free-to-play multiplayer will drop much sooner, on Halo‘s 20th anniversary, Monday November 15.
According to an investigation by PC Gamer, the multiplayer campaign could release ahead of the single player, on the 20th anniversary of the release of the original Xbox and Halo: Combat Evolved. Several Halo fan accounts have taken to twitter to post evidence they believe points to a secret release.
Mining data on the Xbox Store users initially found that the pre-order release date for the multiplayer was originally set to 6pm GMT November 15, which aligns with Microsoft beginning its Xbox Anniversary Celebration. However, since then the date in the code has changed to midnight on December 8, the time when the full game is set to launch.
Pulling data from 343i’s servers, Halo fan site HaloHub.gg claims anonymous sources have verified several dates to it. They are as follows:
Halo Infinite Data Services are already online
Halo Infinite Season 1 Heroes of Reach starts on November 15th
The data it found also apparently listed start dates for the newly announced Fracture events:
Week 1: Nov 23rd – Nov 29th, 2021
Week 2: Jan 4th – Jan 10th, 2022
Week 3: Feb 1st – Feb 7th, 2022
NME reached out to HaloHub.gg to confirm the rumours and it said this in response.
“The way we get this information is very complicated. 343i have a data API that allows them to get game data from their data servers to display on the website for service records etc. However, for players/users to see this data they need to be logged into their Microsoft/Xbox accounts We (and others including HaloDotApi) have reversed engineered this system to give us access to the underlying data. This way we can replicate service records on our own site.”
Fans have also pointed to the fact that Google has now changed many dates to coincide with a November 15, release date. However, as Google automates these services, it is likely that these dates have changed as more websites report on the rumours.
Microsoft has not commented on the supposed leaks, and while some of the information seems promising, everything is far from confirmed.
In other news, consumers who purchased GTA: The Trilogy for PC are still unable to access their purchase despite the return of Rockstar Games Launcher.