Halo Infinite's multiplayer was released early yesterday and Xbox Game Studios' decision to launch it on Steam alongside the Xbox PC App seems to have worked out very well already.

As per SteamDB, the game has seen a huge influx of players within the first day since its release. Across the period, Halo Infinite's peak number of concurrent players eclipsed the quarter of a million mark at 272,856 – instantly ranking it at 22nd in the platform's all-time peak player count rankings.

This places the game above the likes of Payday 2 and Rust, and just below Skyrim and Destiny 2. Given the game reached this peak on a Monday, it's entirely possible it will climb those charts this week.

Although statistics surrounding the Steam version of Halo Infinite are impressive enough on their own, the game's release on the platform was made all the more significant as a number of other platforms running the game experienced launch issues in the hour after announcement.

Many of the players attempting to access the game on the Xbox PC App yesterday experienced problems where the game wouldn't appear to launch properly. This seemed to be down to an issue with an update not appearing for download. While the Xbox PC App had a preinstall size of 200MB, the Steam version instead had a file size of around 26GB and was allowing players to run the game as intended.

Issues with the Xbox PC App version of the game have since been resolved, though whether or not the problems caused a further influx of players to opt to jump into the Steam version of the game is still unclear.

While Halo Infinite's multiplayer seems to be experiencing a hugely successful launch, there are a number of factors that have likely contributed to this. First and foremost, Halo Infinite's multiplayer is free, meaning that fans have nothing to lose by joining the action.

Even before yesterday's release though, anticipation was high. Many players have been waiting to play Halo Infinite for months following the game's delay last year. While delays can sometimes indicate bad omens for a game at launch, many fans were excited to jump into Infinite's multiplayer following positive reports from previously ran technical previews of the game.

With Infinite already amassing a huge number of players since its release, it will be interesting to see how the game performs across the weekend. This is usually a time where games experience higher volumes of players and Microsoft will surely be hoping that Infinite continues to push higher in charts across a number of platforms.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Halo Infinite's head of creative, Joseph Staten has clarified why the early release of the game's multiplayer mode is being treated as a beta until the full game's official release date on December 8. 343 has also extended the multiplayer mode's first season Battle Pass until May 2, 2022.

On the Halo Waypoint blog Staten explained that the surprise launch of the game was being treated as a beta – meaning you could potentially run into bugs, see changes, and more – because the team expects an even larger influx of players next month and wants to be able to prepare.

"Our previous Multiplayer Technical Previews went a long way to battle-testing our services and infrastructure," wrote Staten. "But as we prepare for a significant increase in the number of players jumping into Halo Infinite on launch day, December 8th, we want to ensure all our systems are good-to-go. While you may experience some bumps and bugs during this beta period, it does mark the official start of Halo Infinite Season 1, with all day-one maps and modes enabled as well as the full Season 1 Battle Pass."

While those past Technical Previews didn't allow participants to keep their progression, Staten made clear that that was not the case for the beta: "All the Battle Pass and customization items you earn or purchase during the beta will stay with you after December 8th."

Staten also pointed out that multiplayer's Season 1 content, including its Battle Pass, has been extended until May 2, 2022 – much longer than the three month lifespan 343 originally announced.

"We made the decision to extend Season 1 to give ourselves more time to ensure Season 2 meets our high quality bar and so we can finish development for Season 2 in a healthy and sustainable way for our team," wrote Staten.

Staten says that Season 1 will see more content added as a result, including events, cosmetics, and more. The game is currently giving all players who start the game before November 23 a set of free items (see gallery above), after which the game's first event, Fracture: Tenrai will begin. After the game's launch on December 8, 343 will announce more Season 1 events.

That Battle Pass extension will make it a little easier to reach the higher-level rewards, but it won't solve the community's biggest concern right now, which is that progressing up that Pass is something of a grind at the moment.

Looking further ahead, Season 2, campaign co-op, and Forge mode will all be discussed in January.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.

Call of Duty is ramping up its anti-cheat effort in a big way when its kernel-level anti-cheat, Ricochet, in December and with it is updating its permanent ban policy to include all Call of Duty games past and future. That’s right, if you earn a permanent suspension now, you may be barred from playing future games in the series.

In a new Call of Duty blog post, the Ricochet anti-cheat team announced it is getting ready to deliver the kernel-level driver alongside the Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific update in December. As part of a policy update, the team announced that permanent suspensions will be more severe.

“Permanent suspensions for security infractions may now apply franchise-wide, including Call of Duty: Vanguard as well as any past, present, and future titles in the Call of Duty franchise,” states the blog post.

The Ricochet team could issue a permanent suspension for “extreme or repeated violations of the security policy,” as well as “any attempt to hide, disguise, or obfuscate your identity or the identity of your hardware devices.”

Cheating in the popular Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale game has been a serious problem, and Activision is taking a page from Riot’s book by introducing a kernel-level defense. Despite some potential security concerns, kernel-level anti-cheat like Riot’s Vanguard has proven effective and popular.

Activision looks to prevent serious offenders from even attempting to cheat with its new policy, especially since it could prevent a cheater from playing any Call of Duty game past or present.

For more, check out IGN’s review of Call of Duty: Vanguard or find out more about the upcoming Pacific update for Warzone which will include a brand new map.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

For Black Friday, Microsoft is currently offering 3 months of Xbox Game Pass for PC for only $1. Both new and existing subscribers are eligible for this deal. There is no loophole required to take advantage of this deal. Now there's a trick to convert these 3 months of Xbox Game Pass for PC into 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It will require you to pay for an additional month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. That means that new subscribers will pay a total of $2 for 4 months of Ultimate while existing subscribers will pay a total of $15.99. Follow these steps to get in on this deal.

If you're new to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate:

1. Sign up for Xbox Game Pass for PC for $1 (3 months)
2. Upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $1 (1 month)
3. Total cost for 4 months will be $2

If you've had Xbox Game Pass Ultimate:

1. Sign up for Xbox Game Pass for PC for $1 (3 months)
2. Upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $14.99 (1 month)
3. Total cost for 4 months will be $15.99

The sheer amount of value you get is impressive. Your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership includes both Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass for Xbox and PC. You'll need Xbox Live Gold in order to play games online, and as a bonus you'll be privy to exclusive discounts on select games at the Xbox store. Xbox Game Pass lets you play a huge library of games for free as long as you maintain your membership. That includes the biggest titles like Forza Horizon 5, which is already playable, and Halo: Infinite, which will be available at launch. The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership is so good that you may never buy an actual Xbox game and still not feel wanting.

Adam Driver says he didn't enjoy his one-and-only Comic-Con experience.

Speaking on BBC's The Graham Norton Show as part of the House of Gucci press tour, the Kylo Ren actor jokingly recounted the stressful experience he had at a Comic-Con he attended ahead of The Force Awakens release where Driver revealed he wasn't even allowed to leave the hotel to get a coffee during the event.

“I didn’t know the rules of a Comic-Con.” Driver said. “And they’re like, ‘Oh no, you can’t get a coffee.’ I’m like, ‘Maybe I’ll get a coffee in the hotel.’ They’re like, ‘No, you can’t get a coffee in the hotel. We have some masks in a bag if you want to put a mask on in a bag.' They had an option of like an Iron Man mask or a Darth Vader mask. If you want to go outside, they’re like, 'Put a mask on so nobody knows who you are.'"

Driver said the event was full of energy because fans were anticipating the return of Star Wars with The Force Awakens,

“I opened my window because I’d been in the room for 24 hours before this thing we were supposed to do,” Driver said. “And then there was a band at the bottom of the building playing the ‘Star Wars’ theme on repeat because we were all staying in the hotel. It was scary. You show up and it's like 2,000 people who are very devoted. It's just a lot of energy, as you can imagine."

When asked if that was his only Comic-Con experience, Driver said he doesn't plan to attend another in the near future.

"Only the once," Driver said. "I saw what it was. I mean, it’s nice. I’m not anxious to go again.”

Driver played Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy from 2015 to 2019, which included The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker. Besides Star Wars, he hasn't appeared in any projects that have caused him to return to Comic-Con, but the actor has kept himself busy in projects like Marriage Story, BlacKkKlansman, and more.

He most recently appeared in The Last Duel, which we called "great", saying it, "offers several bloody, brutal battle scenes and a fierce final duel that’s up there among director Ridley Scott’s finest fight scenes."

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.