Daily Briefing: Tuesday 16th November

Halo Infinite's multiplayer is out now

The surprise confirmation of Halo Infinite's multiplayer component going live was the biggest reveal of yesterday's Xbox 20th anniversary showcase. The announcement really was something special, beginning with a wonderful orchestral rendition of the main Halo theme and finishing with the staff of 343 Industries happily announcing that the game was available for download now. Fans promptly went crazy as they rushed to download the game, effectively doubling Steam's bandwidth usage to a massive 23.5TB. Steam held firm though, going on to host over 270,000 concurrent players in what has already become the biggest Xbox Game Studios launch of all time on Steam.

• Things went really rather smoothly as well, considering this is a modern gaming release targeted at what must be a massive chunk of the gaming community. There were a few issues over on console where the multiplayer pre-load didn't roll into the full download quite as smoothly or immediately as intended, but Microsoft had that all sorted pretty sharpish and people were just free to play the F2P game and have fun. It's almost surreal that everyone was just having a nice time. Good job all around.

Microsoft close the book on Xbox backwards compatibility

The other standout announcement of last night's celebratory showcase was the surprise revival of the Xbox backwards compatibility program. Microsoft closed it back in 2019 amid uncertainty surrounding the technical and legal feasible of further backwards compatible releases. It made a brief comeback last night though, adding a whopping 76 new titles as part of one final birthday blowout. The full list is worth looking up, but highlights include Max Payne, F.E.A.R, TimeSplitters, and Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

• Microsoft weren't done there, though, announcing that their impressive FPS Boost functionality has been added to 11 of these 76 new games, as well as an additional 26 existing backwards compatibility releases. The functionality has also been added to 33 titles currently available on Xbox Cloud Gaming. With the anniversary showcase, Microsoft really showed the correct way to bank on nostalgia, preserving the biggest parts of their gaming history while simultaneously bringing it into the modern world. I'm a little salty that 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is now backwards compatible while Lollipop Chainsaw isn't and never will be, but ah well. Guess I'll just have to keep my dangerously loud Xbox 360 until the end of time, then.

Outriders just got a massive (free) expansion

Outriders was one of the biggest gaming hits of earlier in the year, releasing at a time when seemingly everyone was desperate for something new and shooty to get stuck into. The game had a massive launch back in April but, as is always the case with these kinds of flash-in-the-pan titles, interest soon tapered off. Things weren't helped by some persistent issues like surprise inventory wipes that developers People Can Fly took quite a while to get under control. Outriders is still a fine game, players have just seen all there is to see.

• Or rather they had, because this week People Can Fly released a new free expansion across console and PC. Titled New Horizon, this huge free update brings four new Expeditions to the game alongside a new transmog system. The update also makes "many more general improvements and updates to the game" in the form of new weapon cosmetics, balance changes, Expedition time reworks, and new skills and mods. One of the biggest criticisms of Outriders was the lack of endgame content, and hopefully People Can Fly have done a decent bit to rectify that now. Kudos.