343 shoots down the rumor that Halo Infinite will launch without multiplayer

Thursday's Halo Infinite reveal had a rough landing. Criticism of the graphics spawned a pile of new memes. Some fans called for a delay; others searched for an explanation, pinning their hopes on the idea that it was a six-month-old build. That upset and confusion made it a little easier to believe a rumor that popped up Friday claiming Infinite might not be launching with multiplayer alongside its singleplayer campaign.

"One source is telling me that multiplayer isn't going to be shipping with singleplayer this fall," said Brad Sams, who regularly covers Microsoft games and other products, in a Friday morning livestream. But 343 has already issued a flat denial. "Nothing to see here folks, this is not true," tweeted Halo community director Brian Jarrard.

Nothing to see here folks, this is not true.July 24, 2020

And that's that. It was implausible that a new Halo game would launch without multiplayer, though 343 did say on Thursday that it's approaching Infinite as a platform, which will be updated significantly over time.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).