We’re less than a month away from the launch of the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S. While there aren’t any major first-party titles coming out with the new systems, Microsoft has ensured that nearly all previous Xbox games will be fully available for the new hardware. Continuing with this endeavor, Microsoft has announced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be receiving a full optimization for the next generation consoles. This includes some new upgrades that will undoubtedly make the collection of Halo titles look and run better than ever before.
As we can see in the tweet above, all six Halo titles in the collection will be getting some serious visual updates. Both the campaigns and the multiplayer will now run at an insane 120 frames per second, with some additional improvements to the split-screen features if you’re playing co-op. The latter will also be able to get up to 4K resolution support if you’re playing on the Xbox Series X. On top of that, the collection will benefit from being played on the new Xbox Series X and Series S, meaning that it will be able to take advantage of the new hardware which includes the new internal SSD (Solid State Drive) which dramatically decreases the load times in games.
Lastly, all of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection upgrades will be available for free if you own the game, or for those who have it through the Xbox Games Pass or Xbox Games Pass Ultimate. The upgrade will go live on November 17, just one week after the official launch of the Xbox Series X and Series S. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is an amalgamation of every single Halo title in the franchise, with the exception of Halo 5 which launched after it. It contains Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo: Reach, and Halo 3: ODST.
343 Industries has also been working to make all of these games available on PC through the collection, albeit one game at a time. This process started in late 2019 when they first made Halo: Reach available through Steam and the Windows Store, and for the remainder of this year, the company has been bringing all of the others into the PC fold every few months. At the time of this writing, they only have one game left from the collection to port to PC: Halo 4. 343 is still planning on doing this before the end of the year, which would then make the transition of the collection to PC complete.
As for the home console versions, this is an excellent time for those who have, or have never played the series before and are planning on picking up an Xbox Series X or an Series S. This is also a perfect way to hold yourself over if you’re waiting for the next entry in the series: Halo: Infinite. Initially planned as launch title for the Xbox Series X and Series S, 343 unfortunately delayed the game into 2021.