New ‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ Update Released

Tis the season for video game updates, following the numerous rocky launches experienced by major titles like Assassin’s Creed Unity, DriveClub and Halo: Master Chief Collection.

The issues that plagued this last one, the The Master Chief Collection, came as a disappointing surprise for gamers, especially considering that none of the four games included in the collection were brand new. Each one was tried, tested and good to go, or so we thought. It seems 343 Industries’ attempt to roll the collection out was a little premature, as the most anticipated feature of the games – the multiplayer – was all but broken at launch. Not a good stepping stone on the path to promoting and releasing Halo 5: Guardians next year…

Since the rough start, 343 Industries has been working to quickly patch and update the collection so it’s in the state it should have been when it launched, including a patch last week meant to update the matchmaking issues plaguing the game. The developer released another patch yesterday that expands on its previous one, including improvements to matchmaking reliability, voice chat and parties.

With these major fixes in place, we expect 343 Industries to resume their work on Halo: Spartan Strike, the top-down shooter co-developed by Vanguard Games that was delayed while 343 fixed the Master Chief Collection. They can also put a greater focus on the Halo Championship Series, the eSports league meant to revive excitement for the once FPS leader Halo 2.

If 343 Industries can finally get these issues resolved, we expect they’ll have strong sales during the holiday season as a key Xbox One exclusive, just in time for the Halo 5 beta, which is set to roll out December 29th. Hopefully the heavy focus on The Master Chief Collection won’t hamper the beta experience for players. Luckily, 343 Industries and Microsoft are breaking away from the normal few-day beta timeline that other games use and allowing players to experience the next edition to the Halo series for almost three weeks.

If things go well with the Halo 5 beta, 343 Industries and Microsoft can move past this disaster and once again find themselves in the good graces of Halo fans.

See the full patch notes for the Master Chief Collection below.

MATCHMAKING

• Made improvements to the reliability of Matchmaking parties.


• Local split-screen players will now always be on the same team in Halo 2 Matchmaking.


• Made an update to allow players to use Voice Chat during loading screens in Matchmaking.


• Made an update to ensure that players are not forced into an incorrect party after encountering an issue in Matchmaking.


• Resolved an issue where the “Winning Team Won” text was shown in the Carnage Report.

ROSTER

• Made fixes to reduce the amount of time it takes to update the Roster:
  
  • Players will now be discovered sooner after starting the game.
  
  
  • Changes to the roster will be more immediate to better reflect friend activity.
  
  

PARTIES

• Made several improvements to party joining and management.


• Resolved an issue where players that were in a party could not join another party from the Roster.


• Made changes to ensure that parties cannot exceed the maximum party size of a playlist.


• Made an update to ensure that Party Leaders can assign a new Party Leader or Kick a player from their party.

CUSTOM GAMES

• Made a change to ensure that teams selections are correctly carried over in Custom Games.


• Made an update to ensure that player settings do not revert to a previous state after completing a Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer match.


• Made an update to ensure that players do not disconnect  after completing a Custom Game.


• Resolved an issue in Custom Games where parties would disband if some players were playing in Split-Screen.


• Made a change to ensure that Halo 3 Custom Game variants display correct author information.

HALO: CE

• Made various changes and improvements to Halo: CE multiplayer hit registration.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Made an update to ensure that the “Legend Slayer” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met.


• The “Pacifist” Achievement will no longer be awarded for resuming “Assault on the Control Room”.

STABILITY IMPROVEMENTS

• Made a variety of stability improvements across the following areas:
  
  • Matchmaking
  
  
  • Custom Games
  
  
  • Campaign Playlists
  
  
  • Main Menu
  
  

CONTROL SCHEMES

• Updated the Halo 2 “Green Fingers” Button Layout.


• Updated the Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer Recon Button Layout.


• Made improvements to stat-tracking.


• Improved language support for Norweigan, Spanish, German and Japanese.

Note: The team is aware that “Legacy” controls are incorrectly functioning as “Default” in Halo 2: Anniversary and Halo 4, and are working to resolve this issue in an upcoming update. We will continue to work on additional content updates to further improve the game.

Do you think the new patch will finally make the The Master Chief Collection the game we expected at launch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Halo Waypoint

New ‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ Update Released