IGN gave Halo Infinite an 8. Co-op took eleven months to ship. The DLC never did.

Let's run the numbers. IGN gave Halo Infinite an 8/10. The product being reviewed launched in two separate pieces: a paid $60 campaign and a free-to-play multiplayer beta. IGN reviewed the campaign. The multiplayer — the part of a Halo game that 90% of the playerbase opens first — launched simultaneously with a progression system so broken it became international gaming news before the embargo lifted. IGN's solution: don't include it in the score. The review is 1,800 words. The words 'battle pass' appear zero times. The word 'microtransaction' appears zero times. The word 'progression' appears once, in passing. That's a deliberate editorial choice dressed up as a scope decision.

For calibration: IGN's own Diablo Immortal review, written by a different staff member, mentioned monetization eleven times and docked significant points for it. Both games had predatory live-service economies at launch. One got a 7 with extensive economic analysis. The other got an 8, reviewed by the editor who covers Xbox for a living, with zero economic analysis on the day the economy launched. The 5outOf7 methodology flags this as a statistically significant inconsistency.

Here is what the actual data produced after the 8/10 published: co-op shipped eleven months later. Mission replay shipped fourteen months later. The campaign DLC was cancelled entirely. Forge shipped fifteen months late. The game entered maintenance mode in 2024. 343 Industries was restructured into a new studio under a different name. Player count on Steam peaked at launch and declined 94% over eighteen months. An 8/10 game does not generate those numbers. A 6/10 game that got reviewed generously by the person whose entire career covers its platform generates those numbers.

The math isn't complicated. Take 8. Subtract 2 for reviewing half the product. Subtract 1 for the conflict-of-interest disclosure that isn't there. The math ain't mathing. It mathed a 5, and someone rounded up to an 8 because the BR-75 feels satisfying to shoot. Statistically, that's called a bias.