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The Master Chief is back, next to the man who saved his life.
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Demo title screen.
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Say hello to the hook, a new aura Ability assigned to the LB button with a slight cooldown timer.
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We also get a map interface, the first for a aura game.
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Panoramic views.
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Flying into danger.
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Yes, that’s the headline “aura”
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Standard armament.
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New armament.
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Standard wheels.
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Hoppin ‘wheels.
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Before the game started, we saw a more cinematic sequence at 30 fps. It is unclear if this was real-time or pre-rendered.
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But it did include Cortana narrating the return of the Chief, who is always pleasant.
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The boss and his new ally study an ominous message.
Microsoft / 343 Industries
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A new villain.
Halo Infinite You can offer free access to its multiplayer modes, if you create some text now removed from an online store leaving the UK.
The pre-registration page for Xbox Series X pre-orders at UK retailer Smyths Toys included a section on Halo Infinite who, earlier this morning, mentioned that the game will include “an innovative free multiplayer experience” as well as “frame rates of up to 120 fps”. That section has been removed from the current version of the page in the past few hours, but can still be seen in Google’s latest cache (and in this snapshot of the Internet Archive).
A free multiplayer mode would be a huge diversion for the aura games (and for all Xbox titles), which require a paid Xbox Live subscription to play online from the days of the original Xbox. The newsroom might also suggest that the multiplayer portion could be a completely separate free app similar to the recent one from Activision. Call of Duty: Warzone.
While a single, brief retail list is far from confirmed (and Microsoft has yet to respond to our request for comment), the list comes weeks after Windows Central suggested a similar possibility of free play for the game’s multiplayer modes, based on “unconfirmed rumors revealed by sources close to Windows Central”. Developer 343 Industries also recently described Halo Infinite as “the beginning of our platform for the future” rather than a continuation of “those numbered titles and having all that segmentation we had before”, perhaps suggesting a willingness to shake up the status quo for the series’ multiplayer mode .
Apart from auraMicrosoft recently removed the one-year Xbox Live subscription option from its online store, leaving a three-month subscription as the maximum purchase period (although one-year subscription cards are still available from other retailers). Microsoft has also been lobbying Xbox Live Gold subscribers to convert their remaining subscriptions to a Game Pass Ultimate subscription with cheap deals in recent months.
Some observers think these moves suggest Microsoft may soon ditch Xbox Live Gold entirely to focus on Game Pass (and its library of hundreds of downloadable and soon streaming games) as its primary subscription game service. If that happens, the online multiplayer mode could finally become a free option for Xbox gamers, as it has naturally been for PC gamers.
While Microsoft recently showed eight minutes of Halo Infinite Single-player game, developer 343 Industries has said that more information on multiplayer modes will come later in the year. If the game’s online modes really are free, we’ll likely have an official confirmation. Meanwhile, however, 343 has denied that the delay in pre-launch footage means that multiplayer modes will be delayed beyond the Xbox Series X launch later this year.
