Halo: The Master Chief Collection headed to Steam and including Halo: Reach
Mister Chef is coming back home
We've known for a while that the upcoming Halo: Infinite is headed to PC, but today Microsoft and 343 Industries have announced that the remastered series up to Halo 4 is headed our way too. While there's still no date on it yet, Halo: The Master Chief Collection is PC-bound, including a planned Steam launch. Better yet, it will include a remastered version of Halo: Reach, my personal favourite game in the series. They'll be releasing the collection one game at a time, so hopefully we'll be caught up by the time Infinite reaches PC shores. Below, an announcement trailer.
For those who haven't paid attention to anything Xbox in a few years, the Master Chief Collection is an enormous remaster compilation, encompassing Halo 1, 2, 3 and 4, plus spin-offs ODST and (now) Reach, all upgraded to the same spec. Resolutions up to 4k with HDR, running at 60 frames per second (even on games that only ran at thirty back in the day), plus the first two games have optional graphical overhauls to bring them more up to modern spec, and closer to the art direction of Halo 4 and 5. While the MCC used to have some issues, 343 have been patching it consistently since launch, and it sounds like the PC will have some extra icing on the cake.
To help get everything polished up to spec, they've brought in a pair of extra studios, Ruffian and Splash Damage, to help with the adaptation. During the Inside Xbox announcement stream, 343 mentioned that PC owners are used to a few specific mod cons including ultra-wide monitor support and customisable mouse and keyboard controls. They're aiming to please everyone - fingers crossed, but it's nice to hear they've brought in extra talent to help make this happen. Now here's hoping that they can bring Halo 5 to PC as well, so we can have the entire series. The less said about the non-event of Halo 5's multiplayer launch on PC (nobody even remembers it), the better.
You can read the full Master Chief Collection announcement here on Halo Waypoint and find it on Steam here. No dates yet, prices, or word on whether PC folks will be able to claim it as part of the Xbox Game Pass. Still, it is happening, and will include six games, 67 campaign missions and 120 multiplayer maps (including horde survival and Spartan Ops stuff) between them all. That's a lot of Halo. Now let's just hope there's cross-platform play too.