With the strongest launch of any game in the franchise,Halo Infinitewas set to succeed from the start. Over 20 million players tuned in to the surprise launch ofHalo Infinite’s multiplayer, with many more tuning in over the following months.
However, recentlyHalo Infinitehas been dropping in popularity, placing it outside of Xbox’s top 5 most played games as well as outside of Steam’s top 100 most played games. There is no single reason for the game’s decline; instead, the decline may have been caused by numerous smaller issues.
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From monetization practices toHalo Infinitedesync/connection issues, the small issues of the game have added together over time, creating quality of life issues. Among these issues, one in particular has stood out to players when queuing up for games, making for a boring experience while waiting to get into a game; the issue is that many players dislike the loading screen image.
A Reddit post by user AquaBlader displays the loading screen image, and to their point it is important to stress the fact that the image shown is the only loading screen image displayed for all game modes. It does not matter whether a player is jumping into free for all or big team battle: the loading screen is the same each time. Much likeHalo Infinitepotentially cloning rewards fromHalo 5, the game has also cloned its loading screen, making for what users have called a monotonous and boring background.
Although this issue is most likely not the main reason thatHalo Infiniteplayer counts on Steamand Xbox are declining, it is a feature that players have taken issue with regardless. One user pointed out that loading screens inHalo 5used concept art created by the art team on the game, making an otherwise boring wait into an art gallery of beautiful pieces. Another user said that in past games the map that players were about to drop into would be displayed from multiple angles, noting that while it wasn’t as cool as concept art, it was still a major improvement from the currentHalo Infiniteloading screen.
At the very least,Halo Infinitedevs are working on fixing desync, and once that issue is removed the game will be in a much better state. However, moving forward 343 needs to look towards other smaller quality of life changes such as the loading screen; sometimes it is hard to know how much a small change like a monotonous loading screen can make a huge difference for the feel of a game.
Halo Infiniteis available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
