Halo: The Master Chief Collection

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"Your journey begins."

— Tagline

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is an bundle of Halo games starring MCPO John-117. The set includes Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, and Halo 4, as well as the digital feature Halo: Nightfall and access to the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta. It was released exclusively for the Xbox One on November 11, 2014 for $59.99 (USD).

Features

The four games in the collection will all be contained on a single disc and will be accessible through a unified interface known as the "Master Menu". The menu allows players to directly play any mission in any of the four games straight from purchase, or arrange the levels from different games into their own custom playlists. Some playlists arranged by 343 Industries will be readily available from launch. Examples of these include "Final Four", featuring the four final missions of each game, "Hogs" for levels featuring the Warthog, and "Flood" for missions featuring the eponymous parasite. Halo 2 Anniversary will also feature 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 will be sensitive to the game that is being browsed at the time, as well as specific modes of that particular game.

All four titles have been optimized for the Xbox One and will run natively at 60 frames per second; Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo 4 will support a resolution of 1920x1080, whereas the Halo 2 Anniversary campaign will have a lower resolution of 1328x1080. Halo 3 and Halo 4 will receive upgrades to their lighting systems. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will also receive an update to its graphics toggle, which will now be instantaneous similar to Halo 2 Anniversary. The Kinect features available in the original Combat Evolved Anniversary, however, will not be supported in this version.

The collection will feature intro and outro cinematics created by Blur Studios, which will also be responsible for remastering the cutscenes in Halo 2 Anniversary. These cinematics will have narrative connections to Halo 5: Guardians. New terminals will also be featured in Halo 2 Anniversary; the original terminals of Halo 3, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Halo 4 will be kept unchanged.

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

The collection will feature campaign scoring for each game and an option to have a HUD overlay tracking one's score in real time. Each level will have 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 will be available for digital download on Xbox Live Marketplace. The download version will also feature the attached Halo: Nightfall and Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta access passes. The upcoming Halo Channel will be 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.

Co-op campaign

Both online and split-screen co-op campaign play will be supported in all four 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 4 – 4 players max online, 2 players max split-screen

Multiplayer

Armor customization for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Multiplayer will be available for all four games — each running from their respective original engines — and will be accessible via a unified matchmaking menu system. Players will be 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 will be a number of playlists specific to each game. The collection will use a single unified multiplayer ranking system shared across the four games. Rank, stats or unlockable items such as armor permutations will not carry over from the previous games.

All games will ship 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 will also contain six remastered maps from Halo 2: Ascension, Lockout, Zanzibar, Coagulation, Sanctuary, and Warlock.

Forge will be featured in Halo 3 and Halo 4, as well as the six remastered multiplayer maps in Halo 2 Anniversary.

The game will include a new vehicle, exclusive for Halo 2 Anniversary remastered maps, known as the M274-M Gungoose.

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 four games, the collection will contain 45 campaign missions, as well as Halo 4's 50 Spartan Ops missions.

Halo: Combat Evolved Battle Creek Sidewinder Damnation Rat Race Prisoner Hang 'Em High Chill Out Derelict Boarding Action Chiron TL-34 Blood Gulch Wizard Longest Halo PC Death Island Danger Canyon Infinity Timberland Ice Fields Gephyrophobia Halo 2 Lockout Ascension Midship Ivory Tower Beaver Creek Burial Mounds Colossus Zanzibar Coagulation Headlong Waterworks Foundation Containment Warlock Sanctuary Turf Backwash Elongation Gemini Relic Terminal Desolation Tombstone Halo 2 Vista District Uplift Halo 2 Anniversary Awash Bloodline (remake of Coagulation) Lockdown (remake of Lockout) Nebula Shrine (remake of Sanctuary) Skyward Stonetown (remake of Zanzibar) Warlord (remake of Warlock) Zenith (remake of Ascension)

Halo 3 Construct Epitaph Guardian High Ground Isolation Last Resort Narrows Sandtrap Snowbound The Pit Valhalla Foundry Rat's Nest Standoff Avalanche Blackout Ghost Town Cold Storage Assembly Orbital Sandbox Citadel Heretic Longshore Halo 4 Adrift Abandon Complex Exile Erosion Haven Impact Longbow Meltdown Ragnarok Ravine Solace Vortex Wreckage Forge Island Harvest Shatter Landfall Monolith Skyline Daybreak Outcast Perdition Pitfall Vertigo

Unlockables

The collection contains its own series of achievements for each of the four games, with the collective Gamerpoints attainable totaling 4000. An additional 50 achievements worth 500 Gamerscore will be added at launch. 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 are initially accessible only through pre-order bonuses but will be 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.

Development

Release

Halo: The Master Chief Collection went gold on October 17, 2014. The collection takes up 45 gigabytes of disk space and will include a content update at launch that is estimated to be 20 GB in size. The game will launch 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 will be released via a content update in December.

Marketing

E3 2014 trailer

Main article: Halo: The Master Chief Collection announcement 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 CAS-class assault carrier. 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

Main article: Halo: The Master Chief Collection 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

Main article: 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

Main article: 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

Main article: 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

Main article: Halo: The Master Chief Collection launch trailer

A trailer featuring footage of all four games.

Halo TV Ad We Will Rock You

Main article: Halo TV Ad We Will Rock You

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

Pre-order bonuses

GAME UK's Limited Edition

GAME UK's MJOLNIR Edition

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, will be released separately worldwide in Fall 2014.

Gallery

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  Promotional wallpaper.

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  A wallpaper based on the box art.

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  The two main characters of Halo 2 Anniversary, the Arbiter and the Master Chief.

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  The main menu.

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  The cross-game campaign playlist menu.

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  The Custom Game lobby.

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  Avatars in the the collection.

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  Various emblems in the collection.