In the run-up to final week’s Halo Infinite marketing campaign reveal, I began taking part in Halo: The Master Chief Collection once more. Doing so has precipitated a shocking realization: MCC is perhaps the very best factor to occur to Halo – but additionally the worst.
Yeah, yeah, I do know – again when it launched, Master Chief Collection was in a hell of a state. It was the type of mind-boggling mess that’s truly type of symbolic of the complete Xbox One period: bold however misguided to start with, adopted by a prolonged interval of upgrades, modifications and tweaks that truly bought it to an excellent place. The stigma of the launch remains to be onerous to shake, thoughts.
Master Chief Collection has carried out a greater job of shaking that disastrous first impression than the Xbox One, or certainly the Xbox model typically. On Xbox One and on PC it nonetheless isn’t fairly the proper bundle, but it surely is among the finest values in gaming round, particularly contemplating its inclusion in Xbox Game Pass. That’s nice for the followers – however doubtlessly a supply of consternation for Xbox and 343 Industries.
You see, that is the place I discovered myself because the hype across the Halo Infinite’s reveal and Xbox Games Showcase settled in. I needed to play Halo, so I booted MCC. Halo 3 – my favorite one – had simply been added to the PC model of MCC, making issues much more good. So I performed a bunch of Halo 3. It holds up extraordinarily nicely, particularly when maxed out on PC, trying sharp and beautiful in 4K.
So I performed and I performed. Match after match of Big Team Heavy, or Territories, or no matter. With associates as a tight-knit voice-chat squad and with randoms. Then I watched the Halo Infinite reveal, which appeared like the very best post-Bungie Halo but, albeit with some unlucky graphical issues. I then went again to Master Chief Collection.
The extra I performed MCC, nevertheless, the extra I noticed one thing: that is the Halo repair I needed. My love for these older games isn’t nearly nostalgia – these games are usually nonetheless quite sensible. The construction of MCC is much less thrilling in the way it delivers the Halo story – extra constructed round co-op and replaying to seek out skulls and rack up excessive scores and fewer concerning the narrative – however for multiplayer it’s good, seamlessly swapping between games, modes, maps and rule units to maintain issues recent, with helpful filters to take away the stuff you don’t need to play.
It dawns on me that regardless of how good Infinite may look, MCC is now so complete that I’m type of getting my full Halo repair proper there – which considerably dampens my anticipation of Infinite.
Thus the title of this text. From the fan perspective, MCC is the very best factor to occur to Halo. It’s nice worth and a definitive bundle of the games they fell in love with. For 343, its achievement with the gathering may also show to be one of many developer’s best challenges with Infinite: with all this nice Halo obtainable in a single neat bundle that’s playable on each present and next-generation {hardware}, it wants to seek out new methods to promote us on Infinite.
Perhaps 343 knew this and that is what the brand new open-ended construction of Infinite is about. It’s not simply Halo with a grappling hook, however apparently a distinct type of Halo game – one with sidequests, open-ended aims and a map. Perhaps that’ll be sufficient to attract me in – however solely time will inform. For now, whereas individuals meme Infinite’s visuals, I’ll carry on taking part in Master Chief Collection on-line. For higher or for worse, it looks like all of the Halo I want.
