Halo is back in the spotlight with over 5 million players this December

Halo has once again become one of the biggest franchises in gaming this month, as the combined numbers from the Steam and XBOX platforms show the game exceeded 5 million players this December.

On PC, it seems the series has not faded from PC gamers' hearts as the launch of The Master Chief Collection, starting with Halo: Reach, is one of the biggest Steam launches of the year and one of the biggest multiplatform launches of the year overall.

According to PlayTracker Insight data, Halo: The Master Chief Collection has settled at above 1.5 million owners, and the game peaked at around 140,000 concurrent players on launch night. These numbers put the game firmly ahead of most Steam releases this year.

The last mainline game in the Halo franchise to be released on PC was Halo 2 back in 2004. Microsoft has already confirmed that their next major title in the series - Halo: Infinite - will launch simultaneously on XBOX consoles and PC late next year.

The numbers aren't just good on Steam. The PC version of the Master Chief Collection also launched via XBOX Game Pass for PC, and Halo: Reach was added to the console version of the game, both of which connect to the same XBOX platform app. This launch resulted in the XBOX version of the game doubling in Popularity Score - a metric on PlayTracker Insight that is derived from stats like owners and active players.