While it was previously leaked that Xbox’s upcoming flagship title, Halo Infinite, would have the ability to run at 120 frames per second and will include free multiplayer support, Xbox has recently confirmed this as being official.
Halo is for everyone. We can confirm #HaloInfinite multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X. More details will be shared later! pic.twitter.com/9bIrppFiON
— Halo (@Halo) July 31, 2020
Both pieces of news are huge for the title, yet at the same time, it’s odd that Xbox didn’t just mention this during last week’s Xbox Game Showcase. None the less, this is some good news for Xbox and its fans. Especially since Halo Infinite has come under fire due to the visuals shown recently, followed up with the confirmation that the build shown off to the world was an older one.
The build used to run the campaign demo was work-in-progress from several weeks ago with a variety of graphical elements and game systems still being finished and polished. While some of the feedback was expected and speaks to areas already in progress, other aspects of the feedback have brought new opportunities and considerations to light that the team is taking very seriously and working to assess. We don’t have firm answers or outcomes to share yet but the team is working as quickly as possible on plans to address some of the feedback around detail, clarity, and overall fidelity. The team is committed and focused on making sure we have a beautiful world for players to explore when we launch.
Let’s talk about that 120FPS Support
It’s worth mentioning that not everyone has a TV that supports 120Hz….. for 4K. To my knowledge, the only TVs that can support 120Hz at that resolution are those that include HDMI 2.1. A feature that has been available on 2019 – 2020 TVs, those that are typically priced at $1000 and more. You can always pick up a monitor with Displayport which does 120fps and beyond, but neither the Xbox Series X nor PlayStation 5 will support that technology. Now, if you’re talking about 1080p 120fps, then yes, HDMI 2.0 can handle that. Xbox hasn’t come out and stated if the 120fps is for 1080p, 4K or even, yes, 1440p. More to come later.
Lastly for my PC friends, of course, we’re also going to see 120FPS support when the title is also released for Windows 10 and Steam.
With the news of Halo Infinite including a free multiplayer mode, we still don’t know it is going to ship with the game or not. While Halo Infinite isn’t due to another few months, releasing alongside the launch of the Xbox Series X, Xbox still has time to finalize how they’re going to present this. Depsite this, we’ve already seen the frustration from those running under the assumption that the game won’t have any multiplayer during its launch.
The other question is that the multiple is going to be free to play, but does that mean that the current Xbox Live Gold requirement to play multiplayer games on Xbox Live is going away? As it was noticed and confirmed by Xbox, the company is no longer selling yearly Xbox Live Gold subscriptions. Sure, this could be a move to retire Xbox Live Gold and get everyone on board with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which bundles Xbox Live Gold, or it could be something completely different.
As mentioned on the tweet, more details to come later, possibly in August. Here’s to hoping my questions, and yours, get answered then.
What do you think about the recent news? Are you still looking forward to Halo Infinite, or are you on the fence still? Let us know in the comments.
