Halo Infinite officially launched last December, receiving rave reviews from critics and fans - including Brendan’s review here at RPS. It peaked with over 200k viewers on Twitch. And for many content creators like Kevin Lynch, aka KevinKoolx, December marked their best month ever in terms of engagement on YouTube and Twitch. Halo, after a decade of somewhat divisive releases, was back. It’s hard to overstate how impressive a feat this was, since the Halo fanbase is almost as divided as the Star Wars one - a seemingly trivial topic like the inclusion of sprint is just one of many decade-long points of contention. But somehow with Halo Infinite 343 Industries created an experience that almost every type of Halo fan could rally behind. But now, just four months after launch, Infinite is struggling to retain its playerbase.
Now the Twitch peaks are below 10k and dropping, with the averages even lower. Lynch says February was his worst month views-wise in over a year. You'd expect some tail off after launch for any game, but every content creator I’ve spoken to echoes this sentiment: engagement for Infinite is abnormally low for a live service-game at the beginning of its multi-year journey, especially for a franchise as big as this. The game plays great, so what’s the problem? I spoke to a number of different streamers and content creators to get their point of view.