Halo Online Has Been Cancelled
If you were hoping for a wider release of Halo Online, the kibosh has been put on it. It has been cancelled in its early alpha phase. Per Gamasutra, it looks like Microsoft has cancelled the free-to-play online shooter Halo Online. The game had not yet been fully released in the states. It was previously released as an experiment and was only launched in Russia and only in an alpha test phase.
The cancellation was announced on the game’s Russian VK social media page. The project was only quietly announced in 2015. It was reported as a collaboration between Halo: Master Chief Collection’s Saber Interactive and the Russian publisher Innova Systems.
It seems concepts like this might work elsewhere. I recall there is a Call of Duty Online game that’s available in China. It doesn’t seem there is any plans for Call of Duty Online to ever get a US release. Though I wonder if the will was there to bring Halo to the western hemisphere at some point.
The game featured micro-transactions. Unfortunately, the concept never took off. You can check out a trailer for the Halo Online concept in the player below. In addition, Russian hackers reportedly went through the game and stripped out its in-game purchases at one point (via Eurogamer)