Today, Halo Infinite is four years old, and that makes me very sad. An announcement shared today from the official Halo account on X was meant to be celebratory, but I found it depressing. How can you feel optimistic about Halo in 2025?

Four years of Infinite memories, Infinite friendships, Infinite fun 🎂

Happy birthday, Halo Infinite! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/7gxwl6ZVhH

— Halo (@Halo) December 8, 2025

Halo Infinite is the most recent entry in the iconic Xbox franchise, and it was predictably hyped up before launch. Its open-world campaign offered a unique take on the franchise formula and seemed poised to crack open the Halo universe, with plans for it to be the central hub of new *Halo *content for years after its launch. But as its release date crept closer, the sixth mainline entry in the Master Chief saga strained under the pressure. A 2020 gameplay reveal unintentionally created a meme factory, and a month later, Halo Infinite was delayed.

*Halo Infinite *finally launched in December 2021 (though the multiplayer released a few weeks earlier), and did so without split-screen co-op and Forge, the series’ map creation suite. Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) never added the additional story content we were promised—instead, it’ll be neatly tied up in a book releasing next week. I held out hope that Infinite would eventually become the massive Master Chief universe we were promised, but it never did.

Just last month, it was announced that the studio would cease development on the sci-fi shooter, shortly after Halo: Campaign Evolved, a ground-up remake of the original game’s campaign, was revealed.

Though there are, reportedly, other Halo games in development at Halo Studios, the current state of the franchise is a massive bummer. Campaign Evolved, due out next year, may bring Halo to PS5 for the first time, and it may look damn good, but we all know it’s just a nostalgia retread of a 25-year-old game. It won’t include multiplayer, just the first game’s campaign and a few new missions. It will offer four-person co-op for the first time ever. But aside from Campaign Evolved, there’s no news on what to expect next from Halo Studios.

So we return to Infinite, the most recent game in the franchise. Sadly, Infinite’s open-world campaign is not worth a revisit, especially without couch co-op or a continuation of Master Chief’s story (the story DLC was confirmed canned back in 2023). Infinite’s multiplayer has that Halo special sauce—it feels great and can be a chaotic blast, but there just aren’t that many people playing anymore. So if you’re like me and only play a handful of modes, you’ll quickly find yourself stuck in a loop: the same few maps, the same few players. You can only get sniped across one of a few Big Team Battle maps by EliteLover6969 so many times before it grows old.

Plus, Xbox’s recent refusal to condemn the White House’s use of Halo imagery in its spate of racist propaganda further sours the taste in my mouth.

Halo is the franchise that shifted my gaming world, taking me from a casual gamer playing at her cousin’s house to a young woman buying an Xbox 360 and Halo 3 on launch day so I could continue the story on my own. I hope it can find its footing once more, but on the fourth anniversary of Halo Infinite, I’m mourning what could have been rather than celebrating what we got.