Halo coming to the PC after nearly 12 years with the Master Chief Collection - Sensationalist Headlines

Let's hope most are americans, then we'll have a bigger chance

Shit seems to be moving fast, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Reach launch by summer. I am super excited.

What stream?

it was during the SXSW halo championship, there wasn't much.

To add onto this, even if you were an Insider for the MCC update on Xbox last year you should sign up again.

bit on the fence about reach being included (do not like that it will be the first game to be released however) since I didn't get to play that on xbox when it came out, but to me it always seemed like it strayed just that little bit too much for my liking after what i adored about halo 3, also the thought of a fourth game further splitting up the multiplayer numbers is a bit ech. maybe now bungie can follow this up with a marathon remake

reach is excellent. its the only game following Halo 1 that captures that same feeling imo

It's straightup canon and always has been that the only way to distinguish between the Spartans is their IFF tags, and Dr. Halsey is the only person who could ever tell between them from a glance. They've been depicted with tags on their chest showing their numbers before, but that's more a concession for visual media.

I'd like to know how many people have just accepted the NDA clause without noticing it

I agree with LZTYBRN here, Reach is super good. It almost feels like they wanted to tell this story all along but had to get their technology, engine, and assets up to speed first. Don't get me wrong, the Master Chief games have great storytelling, atmosphere, gameplay, soundtrack, writing, etc. But with Reach, it feels like they pushed everything to the absolute limit. As said, the feeling of it all is a big part of it to me, too. I think back to Halo 1 and remember feeling like a scrappy underdog just barely scraping by alive behind enemy lines. In Halo 2, it was like being an angry king trying to avenge the empire they've pillaged. And Halo 3 felt like being a tired veteran journeying across the expanses trying desperately to undo their death machine before it ends everything. Reach took you back to being a fresh Spartan on a new world, drastically under-armed against a conquering empire, making riskier and riskier moves just to score even one hit. And it really nails that feeling largely because it was the last Bungie Halo game. I'll probably sound like a producer in a pre-release "making of" video, but whatever--by the time of Reach, they were able to push the graphics the farthest, draw from four games' worth of worldbuilding and lore, recognize what kind of gameplay worked and didn't, and figure out how to mesh writing, acting, animation, environments, cinematography, and soundtrack into what I feel was the most compelling storytelling of the series. (It's my favorite)

I feel like I had this permanent visceral burnout on Reach's campaign due to how much my friends and I grinded certain levels for more cR and daily/weekly challenges. I had a playthrough of all the campaigns around August/September of last year and I specifically skipped Reach because of that. The PC port news has cracked a fair amount of that burnout off for me. I can't wait. I kind of hope linking my XBL account with all the stuff already unlocked will carry over. I don't want to get burnt out again. Please 343?

For the other games in MCC the armour is already unlocked IIRC, it's all one unified menu system.

Oh I know that, I have it on xbone. But it's also gimped within the collection. I'm hoping they go into detail on customization and unlocks for Reach specifically during the AMA.

I did Reach on Legendary over my Christmas break, and I had an absolute blast. 3 was a complete slog by comparison. It just felt so right.

I do hope that they'll let you do armor customization individually instead of it all just being armor sets for the PC release.

It's gonna be limited to 60fps due to the engines being built for consoles and having plenty of stuff such as physics and AI linked to framerate, but they've already confirmed ultra wide support and 4k support.

Did I just sign my soul away?

I really wish Reach had proper customizable Elites

Yes.

Probably most people, but I'm sure every sort of "insider program" has those weeds they need to weed out initially. I was actually a good little boy and read the whole thing.

Once came across one italian guy starting a sea of thieves stream before the game released. Despite it clearly saying NDA and shit all over the place he still thought it wise enough to broadcast watched rare join the chat, and this guy promptly getting disconnected

I'm still mildly disappointed that Halo: Reach proper effectively disregarded large chunks of lore this book (and First Strike) had established. The game still ended up being fucking fantastic so no harm there, but I still wonder what could have been if they had followed the books more closely. There were some awesome scenarios laid out in the book that would have translated beautifully to the game.

Really excited to try Halo for the first time ever, although I'm kinda afraid starting with Reach will spoil some things when, eventually, I'll play Halo 1. Does anyone know if starting as a newcomer with Reach is a good option?

I don't think you'll spoil much for yourself at all. It might be a bit jarring to transition from Reach's gameplay to Halo 1, but all of the games have help up remarkably well through the years. In fact, Reach will give better context to Halo 1, which really just threw you into the thick of it with little explanation.

I think Reach will transition pretty decently into Halo CE. Minus the abilities, they both basically play the same even down to health packs being a thing (which were later removed in 2 and 3). And of course, it wouldn't hurt to read some of the earlier Halo books while waiting between Reach and Halo CE. The early books are actually good reads. Can't say much about the later books as I kind of dropped out of Halo after Reach. Interestingly enough, I think the Halo game I'm most interested in playing is 4. I initially wrote off 4 at the time because "not Bungie = bad/quick time ending", but the more I look into the campaign, the more good things I hear about it (with some iffy-ness as well). I do know multiplayer isn't that great for 4 though, again, at least from what I heard. Oh, and also ODST. I only played a bit of ODST at a friend's house back in the day but it didn't grab me at the time, and I didn't buy it because I bought into the whole "$60 for an expansion is bullshit" argument. However, as my tastes have changed, ODST really seems right up my alley now.

Seconding the book recommendation, First Contact & Fall of Reach especially, followed by First Contact after you beat the first Halo. You can safely ignore "The Flood" which is just a retelling of Halo 1's plot with some embellishment. Some of the embellishment is great, but the writer also gave Master Chief such quality dialogue as: [quote]"I didn't know you, Sarge, but I sure as hell wish I had. You must have been one hardcore son of a bitch."[/quote] As you'll see as you play the series...not only would Master Chief never utter those words, I'm not even sure he'd think it. He's no stranger to a badass quip, but that felt way out of character.

The problem with 'canon' and the games is that Bungie actively tried to ignore the book series as much as possible; they really didn't like it because they thought it interfered with 'their' vision of Halo. Halo: Reach started the idea of Spartans having different Armour (Bungie's idea), with Halsey's Journal (co-written by the books' author, funnily enough) discrediting them.

This is really neat, great for people that don't want to or can't use the Microsoft Store (i.e. don't use Windows 10). Wish it'd be on GOG, but I'm still grateful as I know Steam will have a decent discount for it at some point.

Halsey's Journal has a diagram of the Keyes loop though, which was an awesome moment only present in the books. Bungie can suck it, IMO. Microsoft themselves showed the numbers back in the day -- the books actively improved Halo's sales and increased fan interest in the series as a whole. I know plenty of people who discredited the series as generic macho burrr until they read Fall of Reach, and Halo 2's best moments (like Return to Sender) are a direct result of Nylund's characterization of Chief and Cortana as the risk-taking rogue and the cocky but frazzled genius, respectively.

We nearly got Eric Nylund as Narrative Director, but he applied after the position had been filled by Paul Crocker. Unfortunately, Joseph Staten has pretty much resigned himself from going back to Halo unless Frankie has convinced him otherwise, but the guy at least reprised his role as the Grunts for Halo 5 and Wars 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZjGAVONgTg