Halo 4 came out one year ago today, marking the first time in the series’ history than an FPS title was developed by a studio other than Bungie (who had, at that time, moved on to making Destiny).
343 Industries, the studio that Microsoft created to keep the Halo train rolling, brought forth an admirable effort (we liked the game a lot), but one year after launch, how is Halo 4’s multiplayer user base doing?
According to this NeoGaf thread by user FyreWulff, not very well. Halo 4 had a peak population of just over 400,000 gamers shortly after launch and that number has dropped down to about 50,000. In this thread he lists 343i and Mircosoft’s various missteps with Halo 4, including the early map pack debacle and the weapon tuning and balance changes that occurred six months after launch (Black Ops 2 also sucks up half of Halo 4’s players, but we won’t count that against 343i or Microsoft).
The number tell the tale of Halo 4, it seems. Despite the game impressing critics, it failed to retain the long legs that made Halo 3 and Reach such contenders throughout swaths of Call of Duty releases. What do you guys think of Halo 4’s one year decline? Does this mean bad news for the future of the series?
Source – NeoGaf
It’s never the size of the community, it’s always the loyalty. I prefer tight knit communities who enjoy the game rather than the hordes of temporary adopters. I remember CoD4 becoming much more enjoyable after WaW came out, and BFBC2 after whatever the next CoD was (or when people went back to the current). Granted I’m speaking completely out of my ass here, I’ve not really played Halo multi since Halo 3, but I can still envision Halo pulling in decent numbers and making it a financially viable investment for MS to keep servers up. They’re still fun, right? Anyone who actually has a clue is very welcome to put me in my place.
It’s not bad news for Halo by any means. Even if Halo’s multiplayer droops, it still has very strong singleplayer and/or coop campaigns going for it, something Activision still hasn’t done proficiently. Maybe Halo’s just finished its time in the multiplayer limelight is all. I don’t think people were afraid Counter-Strike was doomed once Halo 2 took the industry by storm. Right now it’s just CoD’s time to shine in online play.
I don’t think this is too much of an issue as most of the Halo series still remains strong in players even with the earlier ones. There’s still a TON of folks who hop on to a round on Halo 3, and I liked Halo 4 when I had my 360. I thought it was a lot of fun to play and the multiplayer had some decent depth. Plus, Halo 3 became free awhile back for XBL members to download. Not sure if it was for a certain time or if it was free all the time.