A new trailer for the upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection has just been put out, depicting the character Arbiter, voiced by Keith David. The trailer is part of a series that aims to remember and celebrate the Halo series in anticipation of the collection’s November 11 release date.
The trailer was debuted at the Rooster Teeth Expo in Austin, Texas. Additionally, a panel hosted by developers 343 Industries and Certain Affinity went into detail on the contents of this upcoming tetralogy.
Rather than being just a compilation of games from the main Halo series, TMCC will contain remastered versions of the four Halo games, with both single and multiplayer modes being updated to modern standards. All the games, particularly the older ones in the series, will have overhauled graphics and cutscenes, will run at full 1080p resolution and, rather enticingly, flow at a silky 60 frames per second. Gamers who for whatever reason wish to play the older Halo games with their original graphics can do so instantaneously in the middle of gameplay. Another feature is the Mission Setlist mode, which will allow players to play missions across all four games in any order they wish.
Six multiplayer maps from Halo 2 will be remastered as well, although players playing on the remastered maps will have a limited number of multiplayer modes available. The original version, also included in the collection, will have everything available.
Other bonuses included in TMCC are new achievements, multiplayer beta access to Halo 5: Guardians, which will run from December 27 to January 22, 2015, and Halo: Nightfall, a digital feature film headed by Ridley Scott and David Zucker. Nightfall will be a series of weekly episodes similar to Halo: Forward Unto Dawn that will serve as a prelude to Halo 5.
TMCC is being developed by three studios. 343 Industries are handling the bulk of the work while designing the interface, which will allow players to access all four games’ content quickly. Certain Affinity is developing multiplayer, and Saber Interactive is updating the Halo 2 campaign similarly to how the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was done. The updated cutscenes are being handled by Blur Studio, a visual effects company based out in Venice, California.
The collection will be exclusive to the Xbox One and will be released on November 11, 2014. The updated games within the collection can only be purchased collectively and not individually.