Guardians smashes record with biggest Halo launch in history

Fans have logged more than 21 million hours of total gameplay, including 12 million hours in campaign mode alone. The widely praised multiplayer modes have also led to 9 million total hours played with nearly 7 million multiplayer matches played across Arena and the all-new Warzone mode. In addition, Halo fans are taking to the new Requisition System in a big way, with over 45 million REQ Packs acquired, totaling more than 568 million REQ Cards.

Last week’s “Halo 5: Live” earned a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the most watched video game launch broadcast, setting a precedent with more than 330,000 unique streams on the evening of the broadcast. In addition, content from the broadcast generated 5.5 million total views throughout the week. This resulted in a spike in digital sales of “Halo 5: Guardians,” leading to it becoming the best-selling digital game ever in the Xbox Store for an opening week.

“The success of ‘Halo 5: Guardians’ is a testament to the innovative work from the entire team at 343 Industries to bring this installment to Xbox One and the incredible community of fans who have come to love the story, characters and gameplay central to the franchise,” said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox. “The game represents all the possibilities of Xbox One and has earned its place as the anchor title in the greatest holiday games lineup in Xbox history.”

Fans around the world have discovered the pure entertainment of what The Verge calls “an absolute masterclass in how to craft a first-person shooter” and currently the highest rated Xbox One exclusive, first-person shooter game of 2015, according to Metacritic. A custom Twitter emoji of the Master Chief — the first ever for a video game franchise — is the result of Twitter’s hunt for partnerships with iconic, global brands. The buzz also extended to Twitch, where “Halo 5: Guardians” was the most streamed Xbox One exclusive game, with more than 3 million hours watched in the first week.

Just as fans are diving into “Halo 5: Guardians,” professional players as young as 13 years old are also getting ready for the Halo World Championship that begins later this year. The competition will run December through March and be divided into five regions, with the best players from the U.S. and Canada, Europe, along with the Middle East and Africa, Greater Asia, Latin America, as well as Australia and New Zealand coming together to battle for dominance. Due to the crowd funding enabled through the “Halo 5: Guardians” REQ System, the overall prize pool has reached $1.5 million and continues to grow daily. Additional information can be found by visiting halo.gg.