Players can, however, go straight into any chapter within any campaign - they’re all unlocked and accessible from the start. If you’re playing Halo 3’s story, then you’re playing Halo 3’s story and nothing else.
How will all the campaigns work and fit together?Įach game’s campaign will sit by itself as a standalone option, and the stories won’t meld together into one seamless experience or anything like that. “You can play Halo exactly like you did before.” “It’s about the purity of the experience,” said Ayoub.
And all unlockables will stay in their respective editions. That means, besides the visual improvements (and playing on an Xbox One controller, of course), you will be experiencing each individual title as you would expect. Microsoft and 343 have been very clear on the messaging here: If it was in the original, it will be in its equivalent inside The Master Chief Collection. How else have the games changed for Xbox One? This is useful for when you need to tell spoiled young gamers, “See how good you have it now?” Players can press a button at any point during live gameplay to transform what’s on the screen into its original Xbox form - ugly and blurry by today’s standards (but at 60 fps). The good news for fans: Max Hoberman, the original multiplayer designer on Halo 2, came back to help redesign these classic levels.īoth Halo: CE and 2 Anniversary Editions offer “classic mode” in their campaigns. That means you can select Halo 2 multiplayer to get access to all its original maps in 60 fps and 1080p, or you can select Halo 2 Anniversary Edition multiplayer to get access to six special levels that are 60 fps and 1080p and also revamped and redrawn from the ground up.Īyoub did hint at additional tweaks to these Halo 2 Anniversary maps, but Microsoft is saving details for the Gamescom conference in August.
But the slightly confusing part: Only six of the Halo 2 multiplayer maps will receive the same treatment, and these are on the disc alongside the full Halo 2 catalog.
Halo 2 is also getting an Anniversary-style facelift - totally redrawn visuals plus the 60 fps and 1080p stuff.
The developers already overhauled the graphics and remastered the sound to modernize the game more thoroughly three years ago, and it’ll get the additional 60 fps and 1080p upgrade for the Xbox One. This means this oldie won’t just receive the simple lighting, frame-rate, and uprez treatment (like Halo 3 and Halo 4 are getting). Halo: Combat Evolved is based on its Anniversary Edition, which we saw released on the Xbox 360 in 2011. Only the games that Master Chief has starred in will be in this collection.ģ43 updated the first four Halo games to receive some showy lighting effects and to run at 60 frames per second (that means everything moves about twice as smooth) and 1080p (crisp, high resolution) on the Xbox One. “If it was released in any form, it’ll be in here.”Īnything named “Halo” that wasn’t listed above, including the games Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST. “That’s well north of 100 maps,” 343 executive producer Dan Ayoub told GamesBeat.
That means all maps ever released - including for the PC versions of Halo - will be included.
Halo: Nightfall (a digital video series).Halo: Combat Evolved (first released on the original Xbox).What features are we getting exactly? How will the various tweaks over the years affect older products? What’s the difference between Halo 2 and Halo 2 Anniversary (they’re kind of separate products here)? I had a little trouble understanding how this was all going to work, so I talked to three different sources at developer 343 Industries to get detailed clarifications. It’s an all-in-one disc, coming out for the Xbox One on November 11, but it’s a little confusing to dissect. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a compilation of all the games in the Halo series that the titular Spartan warrior has appeared in. (Seriously - because I plan on playing this one a lot.)
And Microsoft Studios wants to update them all and mash them up into a single do-everything disc? Good luck with that. Learn more about the event.įour first-person shooters and they all have different features, control schemes, maps, playlists, weapons, and so on and so on. Join gaming leaders, alongside GamesBeat and Facebook Gaming, for their 2nd Annual GamesBeat & Facebook Gaming Summit | GamesBeat: Into the Metaverse 2 this upcoming January 25-27, 2022.