At the Microsoft press conference this year at E3. There were not 1 but 2 Halo announcements. Not only did they give a release window to Halo 5 : Guardians (late 2015), they also announced Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection will include all the 4 cannon Halo games into 1 big odyssey (Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4). All these 4 games will be remastered into HD at 60 FPS and 1080 p display only for the XBox One. All four of these games will also have their own multiplayer running on their own physics engine. So that means if you are playing a multiplayer match using the Halo 2 lobby, then it will use the physics and the render engine which was originally used in Halo 2.
Also, each and every map that ever came out on the consoles (downloadable or otherwise) will be available in this package. While most maps would be left untouched, the dev team from 343 will touch up some of the most popular maps into their HD counterparts. The games received no changes to their original stories or gameplay. The collection however includes a Mission Setlists mode, where players can curate and play custom sets of missions from any of the four games.
Also (they just keep coming don’t they), every Halo Master Chief Collection will come with a BETA key for HALO 5: Guardians. The Halo 5 beta will run from December 27, 2014, to January 22, 2015. It will also give access to Halo: Nightfall, is a series of weekly, episodic digital videos directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzen and produced by Ridley Scott designed to lead up to the release of the Halo 5. How is this for console seller.
This was perhaps the most strong announcement that I had seen at E3. Forget Titanfall, Watchdogs and even Witcher 3, the Halo Master Chief Collection will sell XBox One when it comes out. It attracts everyone: someone who hasn’t played even a single Halo game, someone who hasn’t played atleast one of the Halo games, and someone who just wants a BETA key for Halo 5. And you still have perhaps the most popular multiplayer lobby now available on your next gen console (Halo 2).
Looking at it from another angle, with this announcement, Microsoft have just increased the XBox One library by 4 very good games (looking at you Sony, a God Of War collection please!!! and none of that PS+ shit). I know that a lot of people expected this, but I seriously believe that this is the announcement that might finally put XBox One ahead of the PS4.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
The collection is scheduled for release on November 11, 2014, for the Xbox One
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