343 Industries have certainly had plenty to share on Halo Infinite these last couple of weeks, especially with all the new details being revealed about the game’s free-to-play multiplayer component, but the one thing that there hasn’t been quite enough clarity on is its release date. At E3 2021, Microsoft confirmed that Halo Infinite will be launching this Holiday, but with no specific release date being shared, there have been some concerns about whether the game is going to get delayed again.
If you’re worried- don’t be. Xbox boss Phil Spencer was recently asked about the same on the Dropped Frames podcast (via ResetEra), and he said that 343 Industries and Microsoft are “very committed” to Halo Infinite’s Holiday 2021 launch window, and are feeling good about it. According to Spencer, though they have an idea of a four week window within which the game is going to be released, Microsoft is waiting to have a clearer, more specific date locked down before sharing the game’s exact release date.
Interestingly enough, Spencer also said that other factors such as release dates of other games are also a consideration- which makes sense, since Call of Duty is bound to launch in that same timeframe as well, and Microsoft is probably going to want to avoid going head-to-head with it.
“We know kind of our range in the 3-4 week range,” Spencer said. “We don’t have yet the exact day. There’s some other things with some other game timings that we’re trying to look at. We’ll have better clarity over the Summer, but this isn’t a months thing. This is just down to a few weeks. And so we’re like, okay, instead of picking this date and having to move it by a week, which at this point would feel like a fail- we don’t want to do that. Let’s wait until we’re really solid on what the date is. But the team’s very committed to Holiday. We feel good about that.”
Spencer does say that there’ll be more clarity regarding the game’s release date over the Summer, so hopefully, we’re not going to have to wait too long to find out exactly when Halo Infinite will release.
Whenever it does, it will be available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. Limited technical previews are also planned for the Summer.
