Leak Suggests That Halo Infinite Might Have F2P Multiplayer (UPDATE: Confirmed)

UPDATE, Friday afternoon: 343 Industries confirmed via Twitter that Halo Infinite "multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X," with more details to come. Given the brief statement, one has to think that this was not a planned announcement but was instead prompted by today's leak.

Original story: We've already had one big franchise announce a free-to-play move this month, so why not another? MassivelyOP (via The Verge) is reporting that Halo Infinite will have a free-to-play multiplayer option, thanks to a leak from -- of all places -- Smyths Toys Superstores.

The best view of the listing for the game, which was quickly taken down, can be seen in a Tweet from noted Xbox leaker Klobrille:

Since everyone is covering this topic, I might just go ahead as well.

- Halo Infinite multiplayer will be free-to-play
- Arena aims for 120fps on Xbox Series X
- Battle Pass system
- Customization options completely new to Halo

Halo will be *huge*.https://t.co/5py6tOeids pic.twitter.com/i7HOnsLH1D

— Klobrille (@klobrille) July 31, 2020

343 Industries produced a long blog post yesterday that talked at length about story, graphics, and various characters, while also touching briefly on multiplayer. It said that "original plans for large-scale flighting aren’t where we originally intended," thanks to COVID-19, and that the dev team is "honestly not sure what is going to be possible." There was no mention of a payment model.

We'll make sure to keep an eye on this over the coming weeks to see if any official word comes from 343 Industries. In my opinion, though, well-produced copy like what's seen above doesn't happen by accident, and I think that there's definitely something F2P-flavored coming in Halo Infinite.