The Halo franchise has been relatively quiet for the past several years as developer 343 Industries has been busy making Halo: Infinite, but they have taken up a respectable effort to provide a proper PC port for the Master Chief Collection (MCC) and with the new addition of Halo: Reach.
I’m going to be honest. It’s been really slow, and 343 has been very vague about any form of release date for the project, but they have been transparent enough to offer a string of playtests to showcase the progressive functionality of their project. MCC originally launched in 2014 and was plagued by an obscene amount of problems that rightfully earned it a “broken” designation. This time around, they seem committed to a smooth launch.
Several smaller playtests have already occured, but there is a larger playtest expected to come to PC in the next several weeks. The playtest will include two campaign missions, Firefight (PvE enemy wave-based combat) matchmaking, and multiplayer with 2v2, 4v4, and 8v8 modes available to play. Read the full community update here. This is a diverse sampling of Halo: Reach content and a great FREE opportunity to play a popular and well-loved Halo game with the added splendor of modern graphical performance.
The full release of MCC PC will include all kinds of customizable graphics options, and include things like a custom FoV, 4k support, and uncapped frame-rates to name a few. Details on what features will be available in the flight remain unconfirmed.
To participate in the upcoming pc flight, sign up with the Halo Insider Program here. This flight will be limited in participation, but estimates suggest there will be 50k or more invites sent out so there’s a pretty good chance of getting an invitation. Flights usually run for a weekend, so be prepared! 343 has also announced that flights will eventually expand to MCC as a whole if Reach just isn’t your favorite Halo title, so look for future updates from me here about when you can get into some classic Halo.
Halo: MCC PC will eventually launch on Microsoft Games online platforms and Steam.
-OPA