343 Industries and Microsoft have brought forward the international release date of Halo: The Master Chief Collection to get as close to a simultaneous worldwide release as they can.

The game will now release for most countries on the same day as the North American release date November 11th. The exceptions are Belguim which has a release date of November 12th, Japan is November 13th and France is November 14th.

“Some fans expressed disappointment in our original planned release date of November 11 in North America and November 14 in several other territories around the world. We heard you loud and clear,” 343 Executive Producer Dan Ayoub said in a post on Halo Waypoint, in part. “Given the social aspects of the experience, we were really happy to get it as close to a simultaneous worldwide release as possible so that we can all celebrate on November 11 and start playing together.”

Halo 4‘s Spartan Ops campaign will not be included in The Master Chief Collection at launch, but will arrive in December. The game will also have a day-one update that will be around 20GB in size.

“Yes, the update is large, but we weren’t about to cut corners to save disc space,” Ayoub continued. “This ensures that you are getting every bit of Halo goodness we can fit in. Our work is not done, however, as we continue to tune, tweak and optimize the online experience to ensure a smooth multiplayer launch. This will continue right up until launch day.”

(via Gamespot)