It’s only 6.5 hours to wait, but what a weird system. The disc doesn’t even install anything so it’s not like I can preload anything either.
I’m in the UK so I booked the day off work to play today and the game doesn’t launch until 6pm.
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we don’t live in a world where you bring home a disk and expect a working game anymore.
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wow the disk is just a key?
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This is the first disc I’ve ever bought where I couldn’t play the game at least.
Even if it’s a buggy mess ha every other game I’ve bought could be played right away.
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I don’t even know dude, I assume so.
Which means the game probably won’t be playable offline. So there’s almost zero reason to own the disc outside of being a collector.
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Can you check the amount of gigabytes on the disk?
And have you tried turning your PC/xbox offline and editing the system clock to tomorrow?
Just curious.
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The disc automatically loads the game, you can’t open the Halo campaign from the menu as it just asks you to pre-order.
Basically the disc loads what we see when we load up the multiplayer.
I did the same this morning, feel like a right sucker for getting my hopes up. Ah well, not the end of the world, but it does show just yet another minor fumble on 343’s end I think when considering the smooth launch of Forza horizon being able to preload and actually be playable if you bought from a shop in the morning. Why bother releasing the disc copy today and not tomorrow instead?
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I agree, would have preferred that lol.
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Now i am imagining a glitch with the disc license not being recognized later and us just being directed to the preorder page 
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What are they afraid of honestly? Several dozen youtubers have played the campaign and are uploading footage/spoilers anyway, but nooo, you don’t get to play until we say you play…
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It doesn’t even stagger download times like a midnight launch would or just allowing disc users to play. 
Very strange indeed.
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I was fearful we couldn’t play the game earlier then US so luckily decided to book the Thursday & Friday off figuring December 8th probably meant somewhere end of the evening for us.
Too bad buying the disc doesn’t even give you some pre-load advantage
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I think I read something like because the multiplayer is free they couldn’t launch the game in the traditional way. So basically it’s launching when someone is going in to the office and can “flip a switch” is what I took from it.
Because it isn’t two separate downloads. We may already have the campaign downloaded pending an update. I dunno I can’t play at 6pm anyway so I’ll be initiating whatever I need to at 6pm (if it even works then) and then playing around 7/7:30.
My plans of a 12 hour Halo session are very much out of the window ha.
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Yes, the disc is just a key, no game on it at all.
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Ya this is easily the dumbest launch system I can think of.
I.know that isn’t really the most constructive thing to say but its the truth. I dont understand why every opportunity they get to please folks they opt to shoot themselves in the foot.
Come on theres South negativity least they could do is let us play on the launch day.
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The only case where this would be understandable is if the actual release date was in January.
That way Dads could give their kid a wrapped case with the physical disk as a xmas present at least.
And here I was, low-key thinking they might release early in the 7th. because nostalgia. 
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This is absolutely bonkers. I definitely haven’t had enough tea to process this nonsense yet.
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Nah I mean realistically the difference is we could get the game at 6pm today or 12pm today. I can’t imagine we would have got it at 12pm yesterday.
So we are technically getting it 6 hours early, but it would have been nice for this to be communicated at some point as I’ve been under the illusion today would be a big day of gaming, but instead it’s morphed into a big day of daddy day care.
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I don’t see the point in buying discs anymore, because where back in the day you could download and play the game from them, offline, now it’s actually worse to have a disc cause you can’t play offline anyway, and online you can only play if you have the disc in, whereas if you buy it online or have gamepass you can just play.
The only instance it is useful is for trade ins / passing the disc around. But I’m an adult now so I don’t have school friends to share games with nearby lol, my friends live all over the country.
P.S. if you do the home Xbox thing with your best mate you can both play the same game even if only one of you own it, because you get 2 game licenses per purchase, one for your home Xbox & one for your profile.
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