The Master Chief Collection Review and Reception

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a collection of first-person shooter video games that was made by working together with several other companies. This collection includes six main games from the Halo series that were released between 2001 and 2012. These games were originally made by two different groups, Bungie and 343 Industries. The collection came out for Xbox One on November 11, 2014.

The collection initially included the first four major games from the franchise at launch: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, released in 2011, alongside Halo 2 in 2004, Halo 3 in 2007, and Halo 4 in 2012. Each game got significant upgrades, including better graphics and smoother performance. Additionally, Halo 2 was completely revamped as Halo 2 Anniversary, with a brand new art style, sound effects, and cinematic scenes produced by Blur Studio to celebrate the game’s tenth anniversary. The single-player part of Halo 3: ODST was added to the collection in May 2015. The collection would be released gradually for Windows between December 2019 and November 2020, coinciding with the inclusion of Halo: Reach in 2010 and the Firefight multiplayer mode for Halo 3: ODST. When you play on Xbox One, you’ll get access to the live-action series Halo: Nightfall, as well as a chance to try out the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer game that was tested exclusively on Xbox One from 2014 to 2015.

Gameplay The Master Chief Collection brings together six Halo games: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4. Each game includes its campaign modes, multiplayer maps and modes, along with extra content that was added in future updates. This additional content is inspired by Halo Online and features elements from earlier versions of the games, such as pre-release multiplayer tests and cut scenes from the originals. The original game releases remain unchanged in terms of story and gameplay. These games are action-packed first-person shooters with vehicular combat seen from a third-person viewpoint. Each campaign has four levels of difficulty and special gameplay options known as “Skulls”.

All four campaign modes can be enjoyed by one player or with some help from others when playing together side by side on either Xbox One or Series consoles. However, playing on a Windows computer doesn’t have this option – instead, it can still work well online with friends you know, either through Steam or Xbox.

In Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 players can switch between original and updated graphics instantly. New features added to the game’s campaign mode include “Terminals” and new opening and closing cutscenes that connect the story for its sequel, Halo 5. However, only six maps from the multiplayer section were remastered, leading to two separate multiplayer modes. The anniversary multiplayer mode uses the remastered maps, while the regular multiplayer mode features all of the original game’s maps with a full graphical update but no remastering. An additional multiplayer option is “The Collection,” which includes pre-set lists of levels chosen from throughout the series.

The Extras menu in Halo 4 allows players to access a live-action video series called Halo: Nightfall via the Halo Channel and a multiplayer beta for Halo 5: Guardians. However, this feature was later removed before the game’s release, with Xbox versions instead allowing players to jump straight into the game from the Master Chief Collection. The Extras menu includes new Achievements, making all difficulty levels and game modes available right away. When it launched, Halo 4 had a total of 4,000 Gamerscore points spread across 400 Achievements, the largest amount given to any game since its introduction.

The development team at 343 Industries wanted Halo 4 to be one of the first Xbox One games released, but it ended up coming out for the Xbox 360 in 2012 instead. This meant that there was a gap between Halo 4 and Halo 5’s release dates. In the past, the company had already created a similar standalone anniversary game for another popular title, Combat Evolved, to celebrate its tenth birthday. Initially, they planned to do something similar with a standalone Halo 2 Anniversary within the first few years of the new console’s lifespan.

The collection was created by 343 Industries, Certain Affinity, and Saber Interactive, with extra help from United Front Games and Blur Studio on new cutscenes. After Microsoft announced The Master Chief Collection at E3 2014, Phil Spencer, who runs Xbox, said that the original idea for this collection started as just a fancy version of Halo 2 to celebrate its 10th birthday. Since then, 343 Industries decided it would be a great chance to release all the main Halo games on Xbox One before the new game, Halo 5: Guardians, was released in 2015. All the games run smoothly at 60 frames per second and have gotten some new lighting effects; most of them also look sharp in high definition, except for the remake of Halo 2. By October 18, 2014, the collection had been finalized and was ready to be copied onto discs or digital files for release.

The Combat Evolved Anniversary is built on top of the high-definition remake of the original 2011 Xbox 360 game. Unfortunately, some features like Kinect and Stereoscopic 3D are not available in the Xbox One collection. The developers, Ruffian Games, worked on updating Halo 3 and Halo 4 with only basic lighting changes and a boost to frame rate and graphics quality. Meanwhile, 343 Industries took care of designing the game’s interfaces and online connections. United Front Games helped create a unified interface that works well across all games in the collection. At the same time as The Master Chief Collection was released, 343 Industries created the Halo Channel – an app for Xbox One and Windows that serves as a successor to the previous Halo Waypoint app. This new app is integrated with the game collection, allowing players to access extra content like “Nightfall” animations, unlock rewards, and start games right from within the app.

Halo 2 Anniversary – A New Look for an Old Classic
Saber Interactive, a company that also worked on Combat Evolved Anniversary, helped revamp Halo 2’s campaign. The game got a complete makeover in terms of visuals. Its soundtrack and sound effects were also updated to make it feel more modern. Two new cutscenes, created by Blur Studio, were added to complement the storyline of Halo 5: Guardians. These new scenes had the same layout and timing as the original ones, but they used motion capture technology to bring them to life.

Terminals, first introduced in Halo 3, were added to the Halo 2: Anniversary campaign. Their main goal was to connect stories within the Halo universe and explore how different Covenant species interact with each other, as well as show what happened in Halo 2. Terminals also helped 343 Industries introduce a new character, Spartan Locke, who plays a key role in Halo 5: Guardians. The animation for terminals was done by The Sequence Group, which had worked on similar projects like Combat Evolved Anniversary and Halo 4. Many of the original voice actors returned to their roles, including Keith David as the Arbiter, John DiMaggio as the Heretic Leader, and Tim Dadabo as 343 Guilty Spark. Mike Colter took over the role of Spartan Locke with his voice-over.

Once the Halo 2: Anniversary project got approved, Dan Ayoub at 343 Industries contacted Max Hoberman from Certain Affinity for help with the multiplayer part. Hoberman had originally made Halo 2’s multiplayer mode and started Certain Affinity after leaving Bungie in 2006. Certain Affinity was asked to remake some of the original multiplayer maps from Halo 2. The team had a hard time deciding which ones to fix up and ended up choosing six – two small, two medium, and two big ones – to give players some variety.

The game’s new look was accompanied by a fresh musical score, recorded with the San Francisco Symphony at Skywalker Sound studio. In addition to this change, guitarist Steve Vai contributed his skills to some extra tracks on the soundtrack, joined by Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor. The Halo 2: Anniversary soundtrack arrived on November 11, 2014.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection was officially released on June 9, 2014, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo with an exciting trailer titled “Hunter and the Hunted”. This trailer was created by Digital Domain, which had previously worked together on other Halo commercials. The trailer reenacts a famous scene from Halo 2, where the Master Chief rides a bomb onto a Covenant ship. Keith David, who is known for his voice acting as the Arbiter, narrates this epic moment. Before its official launch, several other trailers were shared online to show off the updated cinematics and Terminals in Halo 2: Anniversary, as well as gameplay from all the games included in The Master Chief Collection. Later on October 31, 2014, 343 Industries released a documentary called Remaking the Legend – Halo 2: Anniversary. This documentary tells the story of Halo 2’s history and how it was remade into Halo 2: Anniversary, featuring interviews with developers from Bungie and 343 Industries.

In August 2014, UK game store Game released two special versions of The Master Chief Collection. The “Limited” edition came with extra goodies like a metal book box, a map book, and an in-game boost. The “Mjolnir” edition had everything from the Limited one plus a really cool 1-foot statue of Master Chief on it. Later in October 2014, Microsoft said they were going to sell a special Xbox One bundle with white packaging just for Brazil and some other countries. Then in March 2015, they announced another bundle for the US that would include The Master Chief Collection.

The entire collection was made available for download worldwide in November 2014. Microsoft’s 343 Industries confirmed that fans could get their hands on the new content straight away from the Xbox Games Store on release day. Before the official launch, a big update – weighing about 15 gigabytes – was sent to those who had preordered digitally through the store earlier on November 6, 2014. As an added bonus, players who preordered online also received early access to a special “Boom” Skull accessory that enhanced explosion effects in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2’s campaign mode; this extra item became available to everyone else just a few weeks later, on December 12, 2014.

After the game’s release, many players encountered issues with online matchmaking modes. 343 Industries worked hard to fix these problems by releasing multiple updates. On November 24, 2014, Bonnie Ross, the head of 343 Industries, spoke out about the issues in public, saying they had caused a lot of frustration and delayed matches as well as low success rates for players. Later, on December 19, 2014, Microsoft decided to make things right by offering a free month of Xbox Live Gold, along with some special rewards, like a cool avatar and nameplate, and a free copy of the Halo 3: ODST campaign, to anyone who played the game between its launch and that date. For those who didn’t get the free code for the add-on, they could still buy the campaign mode separately.

The Spartan Ops series of episodes that first appeared in Halo 4 was made available as free downloads within The Master Chief Collection on December 22, 2014. More achievements for both Spartan Ops and multiplayer gameplay were added to the game on January 8, 2015.

A new series of digital videos called Halo: Nightfall was created. It had weekly episodes that were directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan and made with help from Ridley Scott. The videos came out after some Halo games already released. They helped connect those stories to what would come next in the Halo 5 game. Before Halo 5 was even available, a test version of it started on December 29, 2014, and ended on January 18, 2015.

Microsoft and 343 Industries made an official announcement about their new esports league, the Halo Championship Series (HCS), with the release of The Master Chief Collection. They teamed up with several organizations, including Twitch, to support the competitive multiplayer community in Halo. In November 2014, the first season of HCS kicked off, focusing on Halo 2: Anniversary’s multiplayer mode, and ran until March 2015. This initial season helped test out ideas and plans for future esports events in Halo 5.

In April 2018, 343 Industries launched a special testing program called MCC Insider Program to try out new updates for The Master Chief Collection. These updates included improvements to the game’s interface and multiplayer features. As part of these changes, the company added patches that brought back old Halo 2 glitches from the original Xbox version, like swords flying in the campaign. This led many players to try speedrunning the game on the MCC version. Later, on August 27, 2018, all players could access the updated changes.

In August 2020, 343 Industries revealed that gamers would be able to play together across Xbox and PC by the end of 2020. The company used an algorithm to match players with similar skills, ensuring a fair game for everyone. This crossplay feature was introduced when the final game in the collection was released on November 17, 2020.

Windows release In March 2019, Microsoft surprised gamers with an announcement that The Master Chief Collection would be available on Windows computers through two popular digital stores: Steam and the Microsoft Store. Two game development companies, Splash Damage and Ruffian Games, played important roles in helping 343 Industries create the PC version of the collection. As part of their plan, Xbox Game Studios intends to release each individual game in the collection separately, starting with Halo: Reach and then continuing in chronological order from Combat Evolved. When this news was shared, fans took to social media to share their excitement, including sending pizzas to 343 Industries’ office in Redmond, Washington, which was overwhelmed by orders from unknown people, especially on Reddit.

The collection was made available for purchase on Steam and Microsoft Store on December 3, 2019. At first, only Halo: Reach could be played at launch, but later games were added over the following months. The goal of 343 Industries was to make this collection playable on PC before another big Halo game came out in 2021. To achieve this goal, a special computer version of Halo 4 was released on November 17, 2020.

Xbox Series X|S upgrades The original Xbox One game got an update that made it better suited for playing on newer consoles like the Xbox Series X|S on November 17, 2020. This upgrade includes several improvements to graphics and gameplay, including some features that were introduced in the PC version of the game, such as a variable field of view and playing at 120 frames per second in both single-player and multiplayer modes. Additionally, the game can now display high-definition resolution on Xbox Series X consoles.

Reception for Halo: The Master Chief Collection was mostly positive. A website called Metacritic gave it an average rating of 85 out of 100, based on opinions from 69 critics. Critics liked the graphics, how fast the game ran, and what extras came with the bundle, but they were unhappy about a big problem that made it hard for players to play online with friends when it first came out.

The technical problems had a big impact on how well the game worked online. According to Forbes, Paul Tassi said that the game’s release was “totally messed up” when it came out. Although some issues have been fixed, he still thinks it might be one of the worst major game releases in the past decade. Stuart Andrews from Trusted Reviews noted that Halo 3 looks and feels older than the other games in the series, especially compared to Halo 2 and Halo 4.

After sending out a series of mysterious pizza-themed hints and following up with news about Halo: Reach coming to Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Halo: Reach was added to the collection and made available on PC, fans decided to show their appreciation by sending pizzas from 343 Industries. However, Brian “Ske7ch” Jarrard, who oversaw community relations at 343 Industries, asked his fans to stop sending pizzas as too many were arriving at the studio, causing chaos.