Halo Infinite multiplayer now live, Campaign still set for December launch

In a surprise move, Microsoft has made Halo Infinite multiplayer live as part of the Xbox 20th anniversary celebrations.

Way ahead of the game's planned release date of December 8, Microsoft has shadowdropped Halo Infinite's multiplayer portion, allowing fans to log in and play the already-hyped multiplayer mode almost a month a head of schedule. Happy birthday indeed, Xbox.

It's a pretty big deal, this early launch – Xbox is no doubt expecting Halo Infinite to be huge on Xbox Game Pass, and if it's anywhere near as popular as Forza Horizon 5 (which managed to attract 4.5 million players in its first day on the service), then the company is going to enjoy a bumper November, for sure.

Given that Halo Infinite supports multiplayer cross-play and cross-progression between PC, Xbox Series X/S, this is a surprise drop that a lot of players can enjoy – or at least start enjoying ahead of the full release of the whole game next month. This early launch lets you play on all the game's maps, enjoy all the weapons and get a look at the full Halo Infinite Battle pass, too.

The reveal isn't quite as shocking as it could have been, though; over the weekend, curious internet sleuths dug into Halo Infinite’s official store page and found references to a November 15 'release'PreOrderReleaseDate' date' tag.

Once this got around the internet, the release date on the store was quickly and quietly changed back to Halo 5's proper release date of December 8. Hmm.

Both Tom Henderson and Jeff Grubb chimed in on social media, saying the rumours about a planned early launch of the multiplayer were – indeed – correct.

Halo Infinite was initially set to launch alongside the Xbox Series X/S in November 2020, but it was pushed into 2021 after a less-than-stellar gameplay showcase in July last year.

Let's hope this little fun flourish from Microsoft gets the series back on track a little bit and gets the game in consumers' good books once again.