Halo: The Master Chief Collection

"Your journey begins."

- Tagline

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a bundle of Halo games starring MCPO John-117. The set includes Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 4, as well as the digital feature Halo: Nightfall and access to the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta. Halo 3: ODST 's campaign was added via content update on May 30, 2015. The collection was released exclusively for the Xbox One on November 11, 2014 for $59.99 (USD).

Features
The five games in the collection are all contained on a single disc and are accessible through a unified interface known as the "Master Menu". The menu allows players to directly play any mission in any of the five games straight from purchase, or arrange the levels from different games into their own custom playlists. Some playlists arranged by 343 Industries are readily available from launch. Examples of these include "Final Four", featuring the four final missions of each main game, "Hogs" for levels featuring the Warthog, and "Flood" for missions featuring the eponymous parasite. Halo 2: Anniversary also features separate Arbiter and Master Chief playlists which allow players to complete the two protagonists' respective levels individually. The music and backgrounds in the Master Menu are sensitive to the game that is being browsed at the time, as well as specific modes of that particular game.

All five titles have been optimized for the Xbox One and run natively at 60 frames per second; Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo 4 are a native resolution of 1920x1080, whereas the Halo 2: Anniversary campaign has a lower native resolution of 1328x1080 which is automatically up-scaled to 1080p by the Xbox One. Halo 3 and Halo 4 have received upgrades to their lighting systems. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary has also received an update to its graphics toggle, which is now instantaneous similar to Halo 2: Anniversary. The Kinect features available in the original Combat Evolved Anniversary, however, are not supported in this version.

The collection features intro and outro cinematics for Halo 2: Anniversary created by Blur Studio, which was also responsible for remastering the cutscenes in Halo 2: Anniversary. These cinematics follow Agent Locke's search for the Master Chief after the events of Halo 4 and have narrative connections to Halo 5: Guardians. New terminals are featured in Halo 2: Anniversary; the original terminals of Halo 3, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Halo 4 remain unchanged.

In addition to the control schemes of each individual game, The Master Chief Collection features several universal control setups to span all the games. However, Halo 3 ' s specific controls are not available as one of these options due to the difficulty of implementing them to function with the other games.

The collection features campaign scoring for each game and an option to have a HUD overlay tracking one's score in real time. Each level has its own leaderboard featuring various stats, including total score, fastest completion time, and the number of enemies killed. Players can designate friends listed on the leaderboards as "rivals", whose scores can then be measured against in the in-game real-time score tracker.

The Master Chief Collection is available for digital download on Xbox Live Marketplace. The download version also features the attached Halo: Nightfall and Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta access passes. The Halo Channel is integrated with The Master Chief Collection. Players can unlock features, such as skulls, for the campaign by completing challenges on the Halo Channel. Additionally, players can use the Halo Channel to view their friend's stats during ongoing games or seamlessly join their matches.

On December 20, 2014, it was announced that Halo 3: ODST ' s campaign mode, a remake of the Halo 2 multiplayer map Relic, one free month of Xbox Live, an avatar award and an in-game nameplate would be included in Halo: The Master Chief Collection for free to players who had played the collection between its release on November 11, 2014 and December 19, 2014, serving as compensation to said fans who had experienced many bugs and glitches in the weeks following the collection's launch. The Halo 3: ODST campaign was officially released as DLC for The Master Chief Collection on May 30, 2015. Players not eligible for the free DLC can purchase the ODST campaign add-on for $4.99 USD.

MCC Insider program
With the launch of the Xbox One X, 343 Industries announced that the MCC, which had gone without major title updates for several years, was going to be updated with 4k UHD enhancements for the new console. The game had been previously left "as-is" for fear of further impacting the game's code and making bugs and glitches more prevalent - with the Xbox One X enhancement update, the studio saw an opportunity to once again revitalize the game and completely rework the game's structure for a better end-user experience. In October 2017, the MCC Update was officially announced, with 343 putting together a dedicated internal team to oversee the handling of "legacy" Halo titles, with the MCC their top priority. To accommodate the studio's new direction of more transparency and honesty, a series of development updates were released between January and August 2017, detailing the team's progress in patching the game. The MCC Insider Program was also launched for any players who were part of the Halo Community Feedback Program, with invitations to the MCC's test builds (known as "flights") given out in waves. Players were encouraged to play snippets of the game in-development, with a support forum opened on Halo Waypoint forums for feedback, suggestions and discussion with 343 later posting their list of the most requested features to add including the inclusion of Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST ' s Firefight mode, a Custom game browser like that featured in Halo 5: Guardians, expanded Spartan armor customisation and the inclusion of Halo 4 Champions Bundle content that was missing from the MCC such as the Mark V, ODST, Prefect and Ricochet armors, among other features. While 343 confirmed that not all of these features would necessarily be doable or possible to include, they would consider everything - later, it was confirmed that a future update for MCC would incorporate a custom game browser, though this would be after the initial XB1X patch.

The first flight was conducted with a relatively small pool of roughly 2,150 players through April 27, 28 and 19, 2017 and consisted of Team Slayer on Halo 2: Anniversary maps, with the matches set to a time limit of five minutes and 15 kills to facilitate more games played. The second flight, conducted on June 7, 8 and 9, consisted of Halo 3 Team Slayer and Big Team Battle with roughly double the population size of Flight #1. Flight #3 took place on July 6, 7 and 8, and focused on the entire MCC (sans Halo 3: ODST), with players encouraged to test out campaign, forge, theater, custom games and the new "Intelligent Delivery" feature.

Aside from general bug-fixing and patching and the Xbox One X enhancements, the patch also aimed to make a number of other improvements to the game. The main menu user interface was redesigned to be more user-friendly and the background was changed with a new image created by art director Jeremy Cook, better representing the series' namesake - a Halo ring. The game was also given LAN support and a new way to install the game known as "Intelligent Delivery" - players would be able to install specific components of specific games if they only wanted to play certain aspects of a game. Any game's campaign or multiplayer (including custom games, Forge and Spartan Ops) could be installed independently of one another, cutting down on overall file size. The 73GB patch, released to coincide with the Master Chief Collection joining the Xbox Game Pass on September 1, required a 73GB re-download of the game. A trailer was released to coincide with the update alongside a full list of patch notes detailing all of the known issues and issues fixed.

Thanks to the complete re-work of the game's internal structure, 343 Industries plans to support the game with new features, quality of life updates and bug-fixes going forward.

Co-op campaign
Both online and split-screen co-op campaign play are supported in all five games. The campaign co-op breakdown is as follows:
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary – 2 players max, split-screen or online
 * Halo 2: Anniversary – 2 players max, split-screen or online
 * Halo 3 – 4 players max online, 2 players max split-screen
 * Halo 3: ODST - 4 players max online, 2 players max split-screen
 * Halo 4 – 4 players max online, 2 players max split-screen

Multiplayer
Multiplayer is available for all four games—each running from their respective original engines—and is accessible via a unified matchmaking menu system. Players are put into a lobby, then asked to vote for a match from a random selection of over 100 maps from all games (depending on playlist), rather than have the population split into groups for different games. However, there are a number of playlists specific to each game. The collection uses a single unified multiplayer ranking system shared across the four games. Rank, stats or unlockable items such as armor permutations do not carry over from the previous games.

The Master Chief Collection ships with every multiplayer map ever packaged with Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4, as well as all downloadable content maps ever released (including the six maps from Halo PC as well as the two exclusive maps from Halo 2 Vista). In addition to the original maps of each game, the collection also contains six remastered maps from Halo 2: Ascension, Lockout, Zanzibar, Coagulation, Sanctuary, and Warlock.

Forge is featured in Halo 3 and Halo 4, as well the remastered multiplayer portion of Halo 2: Anniversary. Halo 2: Anniversary also features a new vehicle, the M274-M Gungoose.

The Halo 3: ODST update content does not include Firefight.

Multiplayer maps
While originally reported by 343 Industries to contain 93 competitive multiplayer maps, The Master Chief Collection was later established to feature all maps from the four games, increasing the total number of multiplayer maps to over 100. With the complete campaigns of all five games, the collection contains 55 campaign missions, as well as Halo 4 ' s 50 Spartan Ops missions.

Customization
The Master Chief Collection allows players to select single a three-digit Service Tag and a multiplayer emblem which are used for all games in the collection. Nearly all emblems found in the constituent games are available for use.

Players can select an armor permutation for each of the five multiplayer modes. The Halo: CE and Halo 2 armor permutations mirror the original games, however the Halo 3 and Halo 4 is much-simplified; specifically, players can no longer customize individual armor pieces, but instead must choose from complete armor sets. Halo 4 armor and weapons skins are also not found in the collection, nor are the DLC customization elements, specifically the Prefect, Mark V, and ODST armor permutations, the Resistor tactical package, and the Recharge and Survivor support upgrades.

Players can customize five loadouts for Halo 4 multiplayer; unlike the original game, all five loadouts and all loadout options are unlocked by default.

Unlockables
The collection contains its own series of achievements for each of the five games, with the collective Gamerpoints attainable initially totaling 4000. An additional 50 achievements worth 500 Gamerscore were added at launch,, while 50 more achievements worth 500 Gamerscore were added on January 8, 2015. An option in the in-game achievements list allows players to jump directly into a game configured to be optimal for the completion a given achievement.

The collection features 37 skulls, most of which are exclusive to certain games. Some of the skulls were initially accessible only through pre-order bonuses but were unlocked universally on December 12, 2014. One skull, Swarm, is unlocked by watching all episodes of Halo: Nightfall on the Halo Channel and completing all associated challenges.

The Master Chief Collection also features over 300 unlockable player customization options, including emblems, nameplates and avatars for use in game lobbies and player profile pages. There are various ways to unlock these items, although most are earned by completing achievements. Additional unlockable items include 15 terminal videos and a customizable clan tag. For every unlocked achievement, the player receives a high-resolution image from the remastered Halo 2 cinematics, concept art, level images, or a frame from a terminal. These images can be used for one's personal Xbox One background.

E3 2014 trailer
In their E3 2014 conference, Microsoft showed a pre-rendered trailer announcing the bundle.

The trailer features a remastered cutscene from the level Cairo Station from the Halo 2 campaign. The trailer shows John-117 dragging a Covenant antimatter charge through one of the hangar bays in Cairo Station to "return" the bomb to a. Arbiter Thel 'Vadam provides a voice-over for the trailer and it is revealed that an Office of Naval Intelligence agent, Jameson Locke, is searching for the Master Chief.

Terminal trailer
A short trailer originally debuted at the 343 Industries panel at RTX 2014. It showcases the animation used in the terminals for the Master Chief Collection, once again created by Sequence.

The trailer depicts a target profile report concerning Thel 'Vadam, compiled by Jameson Locke sometime after 2553. The report details 'Vadam's personal history from the start of the Human-Covenant War to the glassing of Reach and beyond. The report was later accessed by the Master Chief.

Halo 2: Anniversary cinematic trailer
A trailer that originally shown at the 343 Industries panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2014. It showcases the newly remastered Halo 2 cutscenes by Blur Studio.

Halo 2 Anniversary cinematic launch trailer
The second cinematic trailer for Halo 2: Anniversary showcases more of Blur Studio's new CGI cinematics as well as clips from the remastered Another Day at the Beach for the first time.

Remaking the Legend
A documentary chronicling 343 Industries' journey as they re-imagine Halo 2 for its ten-year anniversary.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection launch trailer
A trailer featuring footage of all four games.

Halo TV Ad We Will Rock You
A television commercial set to We Will Rock You by Queen.

Halo Grunt Ad
A commercial where a grunt is interviewed for being the only Covenant soldier to "survive all battles against the Master Chief".

Halo: The Master Chief Collection Xbox One X Enhanced trailer
To coincide with the launch of the Xbox One X enhancement update and release of MCC on the Xbox Game Pass, a trailer was released promoting the game's new 4K UHD features.

Pre-order bonuses
Like Halo 4, pre-order bonuses for the bundle varies between retailers. So far, three of the bonuses are revealed to be skulls that modify campaign gameplay, namely those introduced in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

Amazon offers the Piñata skull, GameStop offers the Bandana skull, Best Buy offers the Grunt Funeral Skull and the multiplayer map book. and ShopTo offers a new Skull called Bonded Pair. GAME UK has two exclusive "limited edition" offers: the first edition, titled "Limited Edition", has a steel bookcase, a multiplayer map book and a Grunt Funeral skull while the second edition, titled "MJOLNIR Edition", has all of the exclusive items of the previous edition with an ArtFX statue of the Master Chief ArtFX. The Master Chief ArtFX statue bundled with the MJOLNIR Edition is not exclusive however; the statue, made by Kotobukiya, was released separately worldwide in Fall 2014.

Release and reception
Halo: The Master Chief Collection went gold on October 17, 2014. The collection takes up 45 gigabytes of disk space and includes a 15 GB content update at launch. The game launched in most countries worldwide on November 11, with delayed releases in Belgium (November 12), France (November 14) and Japan (November 13). Halo 4 ' s Spartan Ops component was added to the collection via a content update on December 12, 2014. The Master Chief Collection received a day-one update that included an additional fifty achievements, with a total of 500 Gamerscore.

The Master Chief Collection shipped with a significant amount of bugs, many of which had an impact on playability particularly in multiplayer. Among these flaws were atypically long matchmaking times, sporadic unattainability of achievements and glitches in the user interface. 343 Industries applied multiple patches to the title over the weeks after its release in an effort to fix these problems. On November 24, 2014, 343 Industries general manager Bonnie Ross issued a formal apology for the debacle, assuring that the studio would continue their work on amending the issues with the collection. On December 19, Ross announced that 343 Industries would be offering players a series of exclusive items and new features—most notably Halo 3: ODST—as compensation for the issues with the game.

The game generally received positive reviews upon its release. Nathan Ditum of Eurogamer applauded The Master Chief Collection for including each game's original multiplayer and every map ever released; one of the largest criticisms of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was the lack of multiplayer. Ditum also expressed "constant astonishment" at increased resolution of the older games, claiming he spent several minutes at a time staring at battlefields, ancient structures, and walls. IGN reviewer Ryan McCaffrey criticized the multiplayer, calling it "unacceptably unreliable and bug-ridden performance". However, he praised the remastered audio, the game-unifying interface, and the smoother framerate. Despite his criticism of multiplayer, McCaffrey commended the new six Halo 2: Anniversary remade maps, and the nostalgia The Master Chief Collection was able to deliver. GameSpot's Chris Watters delivered a more critical review of the game, also condemning the multiplayer's issues and bugs, citing that it "barely works". However, he enjoyed the engaging combat formula and claimed that the remastered Halo 2: Anniversary cutscenes by Blur Studio to be fantastic. Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer gave Halo: The Master Chief Collection a "Gold Rating", lauding the game's concept and improved graphics. He complimented that the game "is massive and intimidating, but none of it is crammed in or hastily included". Hilliard also praised Blur's cinematics, claiming that the Gravemind is now a terrifying monster, instead of a "huge muppet". Finally, he stated that Halo: The Master Chief Collection has risen a high bar for other video game remastered collections.