Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC

https://store.steampowered.com/app/976730/Halo_The_Master_Chief_Collection/

It's happening. I've been waiting for a Halo 3 PC port for years, but instead we got four games at once. I've never been a console player, so it's going to be awesome playing these games for the first time, especially Reach with all of the good things I've heard about it.

Sweet. I'll finally see what Halo is all about.

I was never mad keen on the Halo games but I'll probably pick this up. I hope the port is good.

Someone will hate me for saying this, but I always saw Halo and Golden Eye as "great FPS if you've never played FPS."

Microsoft is giving up the exclusives lately.

2 hours ago, KVELLER said:

but instead we got four games at once. 

Unfortunately it isn't all at once but it is part of one package.

They are starting with Reach for PC first, and then releasing them in order after that (I'm assuming Halo 1, 2, 3 and ODST, and 4, possibly 5 later on?)

I'm excited for this. I only ever beat the first one waaay back in the day and barely touched the others, however I really loved the replay system in 3 and Reach and the Forge editor was also great. Can't wait to do all that in 4K 60FPS mmmmm

I only wanted Halo 3 so I can finally finish the first trilogy. I wish they would put them on GoG.

8 hours ago, wheresthebeef said:

Unfortunately it isn't all at once but it is part of one package.

They are starting with Reach for PC first, and then releasing them in order after that (I'm assuming Halo 1, 2, 3 and ODST, and 4, possibly 5 later on?)

Oh, I guess I misunderstood then. In any case, it's still great.

As somone whos gotten all the games on release I'm very happy to see this.

Is there such a thing as too much pizza? 343 says yes.

Please give us proper keybindings and mouse settings. To describe Halo 2 PC's menus as an absolute shitshow is an insult to shitshows everywhere. Most of the keys were locked and you needed to have double-jointed elbows just to turn in a complete circle even on max sensitivity because the ,ouse control felt like it was running through an emulator's analogue stick movement. I couldn't even finish the first stage it was that intolerable.

Enjoyed what I played of Halo 1 back then, so this is quite nifty. Seconding the above: hopefully this is a proper port and not a janky mess regarding controls and settings.

18 hours ago, wheresthebeef said:

 

Unfortunately it isn't all at once but it is part of one package.

They are starting with Reach for PC first, and then releasing them in order after that (I'm assuming Halo 1, 2, 3 and ODST, and 4, possibly 5 later on?)

Here's what the Steam page says:

Quote

The Master Chief’s epic journey covers six Halo games, collected here in a single integrated experience built for PC.

[...]

Featuring Halo: Reach along with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, the Halo 3: ODST Campaign and Halo 4, this is the definitive Halo experience. 

It's about time! I loved Halo 1 as well as 2 on Xbox as that's what i played a lot of when it was too hot to skateboard. The "Flood" level in the first Halo, man i loved that level co-op. I forgot the damn name of it, it's been so long. I've played Halo: CE on PC (way later on) but never Halo 2 as i believe that was Vista only (yuck) but i think there is a work around for Win 7. I heard Halo 2 was shit on PC anyways.

Being able to play these with mouse/keyboard support with the remastered graphics should be great, even if i'm not really a graphics "whore" so to speak ;) I don't have anything 4k (yet).

I'm pretty sure that this will be a Windows 10 only game though so i doubt i'll get a chance to play it as i don't plan on upgrading my OS anytime soon but i do hope at least that on launch that 343 doesn't have any server issues (for MP) or w/e like the console launch had...i heard it was horrid. I do have an Xb1 so i suppose i could just play it via controller on there if i ever get the craving to go back and play Halo again as i own all of these expect for the remastered versions of 1 & 2. I'd have to play those on either PC or use my original copies and play them on my OG Xbox or 360.

Also i've yet to play Halo: Reach but i heard it was a great game (some months ago i bought it for $5 for 360, just haven't gotten around to playing it) and i've never finished 4 as i thought it was boring but i'd be down to try it again. And Halo 5 doesn't even look like Halo anymore (imo) so i don't really care about that one tbh.

TL:DR - It's great that this is finally coming out on PC. I'm sure it'll be Win 10 only though but that is the most recent OS so it makes sense.

8 hours ago, CyberDreams said:

but never Halo 2 as i believe that was Vista only (yuck) but i think there is a work around for Win 7.

I remember being able to install it normally on Win 7 and 8 without any issue, despite the installer constantly going "THIS IS FOR WINDOWS VISTA".

The work around was for XP, not the later systems 7, 8 and 10, they have no issues installing H2V.

Eh.

8 hours ago, KVELLER said:

 

I remember being able to install it normally on Win 7 and 8 without any issue, despite the installer constantly going "THIS IS FOR WINDOWS VISTA".

Maybe it was because of DirectX 10, which explains why it runs just fine on later operating systems. The warning didn't age well but made it simple for its time I guess.

19 hours ago, KVELLER said:

 

I remember being able to install it normally on Win 7 and 8 without any issue, despite the installer constantly going "THIS IS FOR WINDOWS VISTA".

19 hours ago, Avoozl said:

The work around was for XP, not the later systems 7, 8 and 10, they have no issues installing H2V.

Well that's pretty cool as i didn't know this. You learn something new everyday!

Never played the Halo games, can't wait to play co-op with my friend, it's definitely a must buy for me.

On 3/17/2019 at 8:25 PM, MFG38 said:

Eh.

Yeap, I'm mostly indifferent to this release as well, probably because I got tired of seeing people boasting about HALO years ago.

Might still check it out so that I can finally know what HALO is all about, but nothing more.

1 hour ago, seed said:

 

Yeap, I'm mostly indifferent to this release as well, probably because I got tired of seeing people boasting about HALO years ago.

 

Might still check it out so that I can finally know what HALO is all about, but nothing more.

I didn't play a lot of Halo so I won't try to convince you it's good or whatever, but don't let dumbasses color your opinions. It's just another way of letting them ruin your own fun further.

Used to play Combat Evolved a lot back in the day, I'll have to check this out eventually. It's good to see Halo is coming back to PC.

2 hours ago, seed said:

 

Yeap, I'm mostly indifferent to this release as well, probably because I got tired of seeing people boasting about HALO years ago.

 

Might still check it out so that I can finally know what HALO is all about, but nothing more.

It is a huge series with different gameplay than the likes of Doom. Only way to find out if you like it is to try one of them. Going off people whom opinion is just "game isn't following the classics to a T so it sucks" will just stop you from trying a game series you might love. Honestly same goes for every single fps franchise; FPS games have way too many people with strong opinions that never played as many games as they pretend. 

It's just that I've seen the name, along with random footage from the games, pop up far, far too often, praised by both fans and critics to the point I'm almost willing to ignore it completely.

Similar to what happens when someone won't stop talking about something... bla bla bla, they just won't shut up. Hope I'll get to it eventually.

Its about time it comes to Steam, has anyone heard a price on this collection?

On 3/17/2019 at 5:46 PM, Kira said:

Maybe it was because of DirectX 10, which explains why it runs just fine on later operating systems. The warning didn't age well but made it simple for its time I guess.

Nope. The executable was literally written to check the OS and fail it if it detected WinXP. All the "loader" for WinXP did was lie to that executable and say "I'm definitely not WinXP, boss!" 

This is why you could even play it on WinXP period, since WinXP, of course, doesn't have DX10. If it truly needed it, it would've never run in a million years. And it's why it has no problem running on later Windows - it's actually not WinXP, so it shrugs and proceeds.

Basically Microsoft lied to everyone about how it "needed" Vista and used it as a carrot to dangle and drive up adoption of their new OS. But what else is new?

@Dark Pulse I see, thanks. Good business practices as always then huh. I assumed the workaround for WinXP was to ask the game to use DirectX 9 by unofficial means. Then again I never heard of Halo 2 regarding Dx10 features back then, so... yeah.

34 minutes ago, Kira said:

@Dark Pulse I see, thanks. Good business practices as always then huh. I assumed the workaround for WinXP was to ask the game to use DirectX 9 by unofficial means. Then again I never heard of Halo 2 regarding Dx10 features back then, so... yeah.

Nope. That'd be impossible without literally reverse-engineering the engine, hacking out the renderer, replacing said renderer, and testing it to make it match the original as much as possible.

Way too much work. Thing always ran in DX9. The original game ran on an OG Xbox, after all, and its GPU was somewhere between GeForce 3 and GeForce 4 territory - not to mention its graphics API was a tweaked DX8.1 anyway. Zero chance it "needed" DX10.

On 3/14/2019 at 3:04 PM, scalliano said:

Please give us proper keybindings and mouse settings. To describe Halo 2 PC's menus as an absolute shitshow is an insult to shitshows everywhere. Most of the keys were locked and you needed to have double-jointed elbows just to turn in a complete circle even on max sensitivity because the ,ouse control felt like it was running through an emulator's analogue stick movement. I couldn't even finish the first stage it was that intolerable.

the project cartographer mod fixes the mouse issues, even lets you up the FOV and even added dedicated server support, people still play it

15 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

Nope. That'd be impossible without literally reverse-engineering the engine, hacking out the renderer, replacing said renderer, and testing it to make it match the original as much as possible.

 

Way too much work. Thing always ran in DX9. The original game ran on an OG Xbox, after all, and its GPU was somewhere between GeForce 3 and GeForce 4 territory - not to mention its graphics API was a tweaked DX8.1 anyway. Zero chance it "needed" DX10.

I mean they could have the game having both (like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky did), except obfuscating an easy way to use the former, to champion Vista. Assuming it would have been a last minute idea. I'm talking about a non-existent scenario here so it's a moot point :-).

Your second point is much better, I reckon. It wouldn't prevent an upgrade but we are talking about a lazy port here after all.

i was pretty underwhelmed playing the first two games on xbox way back when. i'm thinking of giving the series another shot with this PC collection to see if it'll change my mind this time around.