Halo: The Master Chief Collection

The First Flight

This past weekend, we flighted a limited build of Halo: Reach on PC to a small group of Halo Insiders. The goals of this flight were to validate our delivery pipelines to a larger audience, beta test the all-new Halo Support site, and receive feedback on areas we need to improve as we move forward with the project. The Halo Insiders who were selected to participate were those with varying ranges of hardware and were using the Windows 10 operating system. Not everyone was invited to participate this time, but the groups will grow in size as we continue. We see the excitement and eagerness from the community to participate in these flights, and we hear you. Just know that we are going to continue more over time and get as many people in and providing feedback as possible, so please hang in there.

If you want to see what the raw gameplay of this flight looked like in all its 4K glory, here's a walkthrough that we recorded at the studio:

For those of you that can't wait to get your hands on the latest builds, we'll have them playable at all five Halo: Outpost Discovery events this summer. And as mentioned before, we promise that we will continue to flight the game to more and more registered Halo Insiders as development continues.

Additionally, you'll want to make sure you keep up to date with our monthly MCC Development Updates which outline our progress on the entire project. The June Update came out last week and it's loaded with tons of details on Progression, Forge, Theater, and community Q&As.

Again, I highly recommend that you read the full Development Update to get the full context of the quotes and to better understand things, but I'll do my best to provide some high-level coverage here.

Progression

What is a season and when one ends, what happens to the content and unlocks around it?

This was something I also saw online that was being talked about. Our intent has and will always be that when a season is over, content doesn’t disappear. You will not lose access to the ability to earn content from a season or the ability to use previously unlocked content. A core design philosophy we have is to give more options to players and when it comes to earning things, we will not take this away from you.

When a season ends, nothing will be taken away in terms of unlocks. If a new season starts that has a new theme, such as the release of the next title for MCC PC, it will be additive and include new unlocks to work towards. For you, this means that if you haven’t finished unlocking all content for the first Halo: Reach season, and the Halo: Combat Evolved season has started, you now can choose to continue working on unlocking content in the Halo: Reach season or use your season points towards the unlocks from the new Halo: CE season. All content and unlocks are yours forever once they have been earned. If anything, we will look at new and fun ways to add content for you to work towards.

How will you earn the XP to rank up and earn additional season points? As well, what changes have been made to improve how much time it takes to earn the XP?

XP will be granted at the end of each completed game that is played on dedicated servers. This will include PVP multiplayer matchmade games and Firefight matchmaking. XP will be awarded based on the length of the match and medals earned, but the medals earned will account for most of the XP. Medals will award XP in two primary categories; performance and teamwork. Performance medals include things such as kill streaks, style kills, and objective medals like flag captures. Teamwork medals are awarded for in-game actions like assists, protecting another player, or contributing to a score in objective game types. XP will be capped for all the categories; time, performance, and teamwork per match.

What are the different ranks being used in game?

There will be a Global rank and a matchmaking per-playlist rank that players can level up. As players complete matches and earn medals, they will earn XP and eventually reach a new level for their Global rank with each level having a unique name and icon. Per-playlist ranks will be the same as they are in MCC currently, but will be reset at the beginning of each new season or if a playlist is added in.

Reach PC: Forge and Theater

What are the concerns the team has had about trying to launch Halo: Reach on PC with Forge and Theater? What were the key reasons behind deciding to bring them both to PC post-launch?

We need to properly give both features enough time, so they are a true PC first experience. When you look specifically at Forge and what it truly is, it is a 3D editing tool that was built completely for console. In some cases, it’s built to have mouse and keyboard support, and in some it’s not - And that’s one of our biggest challenges right now with the feature.

We’re investigating what the best solution is for both Forge and Theater on PC. We know that to create a true PC first experience for both where it’s full mouse and keyboard support is an undetermined amount of work at this point. And we haven’t done a deep enough dive to determine how much work it truly is due to the priority of getting the main game up and ready. What we suspect, is it’s a very lengthy amount of time. So with that in mind we have to go and figure out what we think is going to be the best experience for PC players that also gets it into PC players hands as soon as possible so that we can empower the community to create the content they want to. Our primary focus right now though is the main game and getting it done. Forge and Theater are going to be something we transition to post-launch working with Ruffian and Splash Damage for PC.

Will this have any impact on console?

No, Xbox One’s Halo: Reach Forge and Theater will remain the same and we will be shipping with both as you would expect on console.

Any final thoughts on when and where players will be able to experience these two features?

Basically, our goal is to get them out as quickly as possible with each title. While I can’t commit to a timeline right now, the underlying goal is a high-quality experience that it will empower PC players to create the content they want to.

Community Q&A

Will we flight Firefight?

Yes. We will be Fireflighting at some point. Currently no date set in stone as there is a lot of work going on around it, but our goal is for Public Flight 2 to be our FireFlight.

The big one, “When will Halo: Reach in MCC and MCC on PC be released?”

When it’s ready. This is a journey we are all taking together through development, flighting, and the inevitable release. When it is ready – we will release it.

Legacy MAPS AND GAME TYPES MIGRATION

Your favorite creations (maps and game types) from Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4 are making their way over to Halo: The Master Chief Collection! We're doing a one-time copy of the maps and game types in your file shares to help bring them over to MCC. Due to the complex nature of this process, we will only be able to do a single one-time migration for each file type, so we’ve separated this into two separate days – one day for maps and one day for game types. By allowing players to fill up their file share with maps during the first pull and again with game types on the second pull, players can maximize their slots and bring over as many of each file type as they can fit in their file share. While we don't have a definitive date of when this will happen yet, you may want to begin loading up your file shares on each game (Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4) as soon as you can.

Legacy Screenshots

After extensive exploration we were unable to find a workable solution to copy and migrate screenshots and videos to the new system – so unfortunately Screenshots, Film Clips, and Films will not be transferred to MCC during this process. However, even though we might not get them in-game, we are still investigating a way bring screenshots to Halo Waypoint and make them both viewable and downloadable.

Who would want to lose classics like these?

Playlist Updates

While the Score Limited Changes are fairly straightforward, our refresh of H2A Infection is a little bit more in-depth. Catch up on the two most recent playlist updates to MCC!

HCE 2v2 & 4v4: time limit reduced from 15 to 12 minutes in Slayer, Oddball, CTF, and KotH.

HCE 4v4: score limit reduced from 5:00 to 3:00 in KotH.

H4 4v4 & 8p FFA: Ninja Assassins score limit has been reduced in Action Sack.

H3 8p FFA Race: reduced lap count from 10 to 5, removed Saturn (Foundry), and added 12-minute time limit.

H3 8p FFA: Beehive and Lava Pit have been moved from 12p FFA Action Sack with adjusted round limits.

We spent some time looking at the maps and game types offered in Infection, and noticed quite a bit of feedback surrounding the Halo 2 Anniversary experiences. As a direct result of that input, we've overhauled the entire offering to ensure both the Spartans and Infected players are able to enjoy their time. Here's a breakdown of the new maps and modes!