Halo Reach becomes one of the biggest games of the year on Steam

The thirst is real

Halo Reach is out now on PC and Xbox One as part of the Master Chief Collection. While Xbox users will be able to replay Bungie’s on the Xbox One finally, it’s the first time Halo has made its way back on PCs since 2004’s Halo 2. And the reception couldn’t have been better. On launch day, Reach instantly became the best-selling game on the service and managed to amass more than 160k players, making it the third-most-popular game of 2019 on Steam. A mighty feat for what’s essentially a nine-year-old last-gen game.

When Microsoft announced that the Master Chief Collection was coming to PCs early on this year, we finally get to witness how much mind share the Xbox mascot still manages to create. To the surprise of many, Microsoft also unveiled that Halo would be both available on the Microsoft Store and Steam. As a staggered release, Halo Reach is the first game of the collection to come out and at a very nice budget price of just $9.99 it marks a great entry point for PC gamers to see what the fuss is all about.

One could think that at that low price it’s no wonder that Reach’s launch got so huge but that’s only half the story. The Master Chief Collection is concurrently available Day-1 on the newly opened PC Game Pass. So, PC gamers could have easily shelled out $4.99 for a month of the gaming subscription and get access to Halo Reach. This even cheaper option makes the game’s success on Steam only that more impressive. Despite gaming subscriptions gaining steam steadily, the number of users who pay to indefinitely own a game is still substantial. Furthermore, it’s hard evidence just how big and popular Steam as a service itself is.

Halo Reach can be bought right now on Steam.