Halo statistics

The Halo series has sold 81 million copies.

(Source: VG Chartz, VG Sales)

• The series went from 65 million units sold in 2015 to 81 million units sold in 2021.
• The highest-selling game is Halo 3 with 14.5 million sales.
• Halo: Reach sold 9.87 million copies.
• Halo 4 sold 9.75 million copies.
• The Master Chief Collection sold over 1 million copies in 2019.

The Halo series is definitely in the gaming hall of fame based on total copies sold as it sits alongside other global franchises such as Tomb Raider, Monster Hunter, and Resident Evil. Given that it is the most successful Xbox series to date, Halo has made a name for itself in the gaming industry and is here to stay, based on reports by 343 Industries.

Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion

(Source: The Verge, Variety)

• Bungie will continue to operate independently of the acquisition, acting as a subsidiary of Sony.
• Any games developed by Bungie after the acquisition will not be PlayStation exclusives.
• Aside from the games it produces, Sony is also looking to lean on Bungie’s expertise in live game services.

Acquisitions happen frequently in the world of gaming and further, where companies will buy smaller studios to add to their arsenal as subsidiaries that work independently under them. That happened with Bungie, the developer of some Halo games as well as the destiny series. Different people will have different reactions to an acquisition, but the Bungie one was fairly positive since Bungie is still acting as a subsidiary of Sony, working independently on their projects.

More than 20 million people have played Halo Infinite.

(Source: Eurogamer)

• This was the biggest Halo launch in history.
• One of the reasons for such success is the free multiplayer and the availability of the campaign through the Xbox Game Pass.
• The only challenge this game, and the series in general faces, is maintaining interest for the future.
• The game went from a peak player count of 270,000 during its launch to 32,000.
• It’s lagging behind other popular games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, and even Roblox.

Halo Infinite had the biggest launch in Halo history and achieved a massive player count within a short time of its release. This is largely due to the improvements the developers made to the format of the game, as well as the rich story that the players get to embark on. We won’t spoil anything in case you haven’t played the game, but the story concerns itself with some old faces turned sour. When it comes to the appeal of the game, the player count has decreased, but it is all liable to change in the future.

The Halo TV show cost $10 million per episode.

(Source: GameSpot)

• This puts the show’s overall spending to $90 million for the nine episodes it released.
• Another show with a similar budget was Game of Thrones, which went from $10 million per episode to $15 million.
• The developers of the show did not want to base it on the game.
• Instead, they tried their best to stay loyal to the characters and the rich story of Halo.
• This was cemented by the fact that the producers decided to implement a new timeline called the “Silver Timeline” which was not present in any of the games.
• This timeline is also supposed to show Master Chief’s face for the first time ever.

Video game adaptations in visual media are something that is appearing more and more often as gaming is becoming extremely widespread, so people love the idea of seeing their favorite characters presented on the silver screen. However, video game adaptations are notorious for being… less than ideal, but the Halo series has seen some favorable reviews, although you do have some elitist outliers that will rate the series poorly simply because it doesn’t tick all of their boxes for what they want to see.

Halo Infinite will not get a story DLC.

(Source: Kotaku)

• The developers of Halo Infinite have stated that the game will not receive a story DLC, and they announced that the series will switch to Unreal Engine 5.
• 95 employees were laid off from 343 Industries.
• Reportedly, 343 Industries is starting the Halo series from scratch.
• Following the switch to Unreal Engine, 343 Industries have announced a completely new Halo game codenamed “Tatanka”.

Given that Microsoft has announced that there are to be some major layoffs within the company, it was expected that 343 Industries and many other studios would suffer because of that, but the Halo developers confirmed that Halo is not only going strong but is also switching over to a new engine in Unreal. This is a huge step for the Halo franchise as Unreal Engine is extremely advanced and offers many capabilities that will help the new Halo game prosper and follow the steps of its predecessors.

Halo 5’s campaign lasts 8-12 hours.

(Source: Reddit)

• The game has a 12v12 warzone mode, 4v4 arena multiplayer, and a 4-player drop campaign.
• The length of the campaign is 15 missions.
• There are 117 intel items and 13 hidden skulls in the campaign.
• There are 8 playable characters in the campaign.
• There were 21 multiplayer maps at launch.
• There were 1000+ REQs and 175 armor sets/helmets.
• There are 30 vehicle variants and 53 visors.
• There were 1600+ forge objects.
• There are 218 player emblems.
• The Halo Championship had a prize pool of $1 million+.

Infographics are one of the best things for getting a clear perspective on how a game is doing and how dedicated its community is to play it. Halo 5 was a fairly popular game at launch, but its quality drastically decreased over time. Nevertheless, the community accumulated many accolades during this time and they are extremely admirable, because this takes time, dedication, and skill.

There were 181.3 million kills in the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta.

(Source: Xbox)

• 92.2 million assists were made.
• There were 565,902 ground/pound kills.
• 2.5 million gameplay hours were recorded.
• 6.49 billion shots were fired.
• 1.2 million Spartan Charge kills were made.
• Blue had a 52.55% win rate compared to Red (47.45%).
• Battle Rifles were carried for 207 days.
• 11.5 million frag grenade kills were made.
• 20 million matches were played.
• 1 Killpocalypse Medal was earned by Omnipression.
• 44.6 million multiplayer beta hours were streamed on Twitch.
• The most-viewed streamer during this time was Ninja with 7.8 million hours watched.

Halo 5: Guardians also had a multiplayer beta where players could experience the intensity of the Halo 5 multiplayer mode for a limited time, and the players loved it. The community managed to gather a considerable amount of achievements, from a massive number of kills to even one Killpocalypse, which is killing nine enemies within four seconds of each other. Other than that, these were just some well-rounded stats that tell us the game was quite popular at launch.

Following Microsoft’s major layoff announcement, 343 Industries confirmed that the Halo series is here to stay.

(Source: Engadget)

• Microsoft said that they would be laying off over 10,000 employees.
• 343 Industries was also affected, losing some key Halo developers in the process.
• These issues and layoffs were blamed on the incompetence of the people running things in the upper reaches of the hierarchy.
• Halo Infinite has good reviews, but it struggles to keep a consistent and high player base.
• The official Halo Twitter account said that the Halo series is continuing strong.

We’ve touched upon this subject earlier, but it can’t hurt to talk about it more. Microsoft is downsizing, having announced that it would be letting go of over 10,000 employees, the reason being economic uncertainty and trimming costs to be able to focus on other areas of tech, like AI. Because of these cuts, the studio running the Halo franchise has gotten smaller, but they are adamant about continuing the series and making it better than it has ever been.

A player recreated Skyrim’s Whiterun in Halo Infinite’s Forge.

(Source: Rock Paper Shotgun, Twitter)

• Forge is a level editor developed by Bungie that allows players to design their own levels.
• Players are able to alter the base maps of the game or create completely new ones.
• The forger that made Whiterun also made Riverwood.
• Other forgers have come up with excellent maps in the Forge, such as McDonald’s and Waffle House.

The creativity of gamers is nothing to be trifled with as they will put the time and dedication in to create things that you would have never even thought of, just like this Halo forger saw a level editor for a sci-fi FPS game and thought: “Yeah, imma build a medieval village here.” The Whiterun that Bullet2thehead9 built is extremely detailed and can be confused for the real deal at first glance, and it just goes to show the length to which some creative gamers will go to create something unique.

Halo 5: Guardians had the biggest launch of any Halo game before Infinite.

(Source: Bloomberg, GameSpot, Xbox)

• Bonnie Ross, the head of 343 Industries, lead the development of the game.
• The future of Xbox, at the time, rested on the success of Halo 5: Guardians.
• At launch, Halo 5 has the most success out of any Halo game in history, amassing over $400 million in global sales.
• Halo 5 generated $1.5 million in microtransactions, bringing the Halo World Championship prize pool to $2.5 million.

Although Halo Infinite blows Halo 5 out of the water when it comes to community reception, you can’t deny that Halo 5 had a very promising launch at the start, amassing global popularity before it devolved into the background of mediocrity compared to the glory games of the series.

To sum up

Alright, now you know everything you need to know to start enjoying the Halo series from any game you want! If you’re a subscriber to the Xbox Game Pass, you can also enjoy a vast majority of the Halo games as well. Either way you look at it, the Halo series has established itself as one of the cornerstones of the modern FPS genre and has created some of the best memories for millions of gamers around the world. We are very glad to be able to talk about this iconic series and we sincerely hope that you have enjoyed the content presented here. If you want to learn more about the gaming industry or your favorite games, check back and read some more!