After what seems like an eternity, 343 Industries is finally ready to release Halo:Reach on PC, and it’s actually coming very soon! Announced at the annual XO19 event, the game will be officially launching through Steam and the Microsoft Store on December 3, Tuesday. In addition, the title will be added to the already stellar lineup of the Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One on the same day, and will be part of the Xbox Game Pass program right off the bat.
The company has been diligently working on bringing the game to PC for the better part of a year now. After all of the flights and tests, it looks like 343 is ready to show the fruits of their labor, and the anticipation is already at a boiling point. This will be the first of many Halo games to make the jump to PC, as the developer is bringing them out one by one in stages as opposed to a giant collection all at once. Reach is the chronologically the first game in the series, so it will be taking the leap before the others.
The likelihood of seeing the title come out this year was foreshadowed a couple of weeks ago when 343 released the PC Requirements list. This isn’t usually done unless company is preparing to launch the game soon after, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see them follow suit with that. It’s apparent that the developer is doing everything they can to make this right, but as we all know the transition from console to PC can be a bit rocky, so don’t be too shocked if there are some growing pains at first.
For those that don’t know, Reach acts as the prequel to the Master Chief saga. The story follows the exploits of the Spartan squad Noble Team and their ill-fated task of trying to fend off the Covenant threat on the planet Reach. When it originally launched all the way back in 2010 on the Xbox 360, it was a critically acclaimed with some considering it to be the best game in the series. Reach is also the last main game in the series to get the 60 fps and 4k resolution treatment, as it was just a backwards compatible game on the Xbox One up to this point.
Reach will cost $9.99 when it releases. However, if you want to own all seven main entries in the Halo franchise, you can pre order entire MCC for $39.99. Considering that each game is going to be singularly priced when they release, this is actually quite a bargain to own some of the best FPS games of all time. The fans have been waiting a long time for this, and now that patience is about to be paid off. Halo: Reach officially launches on both PC and the Xbox One as part of the MCC on December 3.
You can check out the announcement trailer here: