When Halo 2 launched, it immediately became the top of the original Xbox Live pack as the most played title. To date, it’s still there and hasn’t moved. Unsurprisingly, the same situation happened again when Halo 3 hit the 360. It took over the top spot formerly owned by Gears of War. Many, including this writer, thought that’s where Halo 3 would stay.

Wrong.

For the week of January 14th (according to Major Nelson), Infinity Ward’s incredible Call of Duty 4 has knocked the impenetrable Halo from it’s peak. That’s a shocker not only because it beat Halo, but also because Call of Duty was hit hard by the recurring outages over holiday season (and can still be rough).

People apparently thought the struggle was worth it, and continued to pop terrorists in a real world situation more often that killing their armored futuristic warriors. Kudos to the team at Infinity Ward.