The upcoming Halo Infinite from 343 Industries is one of the most highly-anticipated games releasing this year. Rumored to be the most expensive video game ever made as well as a potential conclusion to the 343 Reclaimer Saga, Halo Infinite certainly has a lot to live up to. The recent flight test garnered mostly positive reception, and all eyes now gaze towards Halo Infinite's single-player campaign.
Xbox has recently announced that it would be holding a conference at this year's Gamescom, which has fans hyped for a number of interesting announcements. While it's best to keep expectations in check for entirely new reveals, there's a high likelihood that Halo Infinite will receive its release date on the stage.
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Halo Infinite has had a rather rocky lead-up to what looks to be its imminent launch this year. The original gameplay reveal at last year's Xbox Games Showcase was deemed as quite disappointing by fans, and spawned a viral meme in the form of Craig the Brute. Microsoft did get in on the joke and made the difficult but ultimately right decision to delay Halo Infinite to this year. Almost a year later since its original reveal, fans still have little to no information about the release date of the game except the vague Holiday 2021 window. What's even more troubling is that this is the case after the game has had its initial closed beta test, which does make a great case for Halo Infinite's development being close to completion.
A new and interesting bit of revelation supporting the sentiment comes in the form of Halo Infinite being rated by the Australian classification board recently. Microsoft's other big exclusive for Holiday 2021, Forza Horizon 5, also got rated a week prior. Using this information as a jumping-off point, it seems that Halo Infinite might be eyeing a November 15 release date. This marks the 20th anniversary of Halo: CE, plus this speculation lines up with a previous rumor suggesting the same.
Considering this information to be true, the Gamescom showcase is perhaps the last big event this year where Xbox would potentially unveil information pertaining to its high-profile releases. Of course, this would probably be Microsoft's opening to a conference filled with more information about mostly third-party games like Battlefield 2042 and Far Cry 6—both of which graced Microsoft's stage this E3.
Given that the game's multiplayer component has already been revealed and given to fans now, it makes all the sense in the world to shift its focus towards the single-player campaign. Rumors surrounding a potential battle royale mode have been doing the rounds lately, which would also be an integral part of the experience. This does give a bit of possibility to the Battle Royale mode being the focus of showings at Gamescom. Either case, the release date should be the closing note for Halo Infinite's showings since its Holiday 2021 release date is nearing and 343 Industries has left fans perplexed for far too long at this point.
Halo Infinite is set to launch in Q4 2021 on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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