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March 14, 2015
If you remember back to near when The Master Chief Collection was released, you may recall 343 Industries announcing that they will be releasing ODST as part of the collection to say sorry for the game's launch problems.
Even though we haven’t heard anything about the remastered version of ODST for a while now, 343 Industries haven't stopped developing it. In fact, a new blog post has just been put up on the 343 Industries blog, detailing their progress with the ODST game and the state of the Master Chief Collection.
Firstly, 343 Industries have revealed that there will be a new update in April that will further improve the game and fix any issues that are still plaguing the game. 343 Industries have also shown off two images. One shows ODST in all it's glory, and the other shows the new Halo 2 remake planned for The Master Chief Collection. The remake is Relic, and it should be coming alongside ODST.
Unfortunately 343 did not reveal when ODST or Relic will be released,
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January 29, 2015
A new Master Chief Collection update has been planned to improve online matchmaking, but strangely 343 Industries will not make the update available to all players straight away.
The update, which has since been delayed, was planned to fix many issues with the current in-game matchmaking system. Whilst 343 Industries did mention that they would release the update this month, new plans reveal that most players will not get to experience the update at all.
Before full release, the matchmaking update will be pushed to a select few US beta participants, and these members will be able to help stress test the matchmaking before it is finally rolled out globally.
To enter the beta process and be in with a chance of entering the matchmaking beta, you must reside in the US and join the Xbox One preview program. 343 Industries gave a small statement about the update.
"In recent weeks, we have been conducting extensive internal testing of an upcoming content update for
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January 17, 2015
A new patch was planned to roll out for the Master Chief Collection last week but it has since been delayed. The patch had been mentioned to include some fixes to matchmaking whilst adding some general tweaks to multiplayer, campaigns and interfaces.
Whilst 343 Industries failed to mention why the patch was delayed, they have since confirmed that the release of the patch has been pushed back till later this January. According to 343, the patch should be up and ready to install within the "next few days."
It's a shame that after all this time, the Master chief Collection is still not working 100% as planned, but 343 are still working on it.
The patch notes for the upcoming patch rolling out later this week can be read below.
Matchmaking:
Improved matchmaking search success rates.
Made an update to reduce instances of "Awaiting Privileges" matchmaking errors.
Made an update to ensure player counts more reliably match the expected numbers for each -
January 06, 2015
Whilst we all rightly presumed that the Master Chief Collection was going to be released with all of the content from previous games at launch, 343 Industries has been very far behind with development, due to server issues and other problems with the new Halo 2 anniversary multiplayer.
As a result, many in-game features and content of the Master Chief Collection has been unavailable since launch, including the Spartan Ops missions that were released as part of Halo 4.
The Spartan Ops missions were a set of in-game objectives that followed a set story and played out like the firefight game type in both Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST did. Unlike firefight, Spartan Ops were specially designed to delve into the story that took place whilst the Master Chief was floating about in space, and many players have complained that they are an incredibly important part of Halo 4.
Fortunately enough, 343 Industries have just launched Spartan Ops for the Master Chief Collection in a
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December 29, 2014
When the Master Chief Collection launched for the Xbox One, plenty of Halo fans were left devastated. Whilst 343 Industries did a spectacular job at delivering the new remastered content and graphics for the Master Chief Collection, it's online servers were plagued with problems, and most players had to week at least a week before they could play online properly.
Even then, there will still bugs, glitches and server problems, and most of the playlists were not even implemented at this point. Fortunately, 343 Industries have slowly been rolling out new fixes and extra content for the multiplayer portion of the Master Chief Collection, and this latest patch sees some much needed tweaks to the game bundle.
When you next get into the Master Chief Collection, a download will start for the newest update for the game. This new content patch has been focused exclusively on matchmaking online, and it's main feature adds new team balancing mechanics to the game.
343 Industries
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December 08, 2014
Although the Master Chief Collection has been filled with issues at launch, the new Halo 5: Guardians is still being worked on by 343 Industries, and they are getting ever closer to releasing the game.
Whilst for most of the development process 343 have been pretty quiet about Halo 5, we have seen an influx of new content recently, and just this week 343 released yet another gameplay video, showcasing the new multiplayer in action.
This time round, the gameplay lasts for 15 minutes and it shows off two full games of slayer. The first map is played on Empire, a map we have already seen in previous videos, whilst the second map is Crossfire, one that some of you may not have yet seen.
As always, Halo 5 is looking pretty good in this latest gameplay video, and the great lighting can be seen in full effect. One thing that is clear is that 343 have attempted to put a lot more emphasis into the power weapons in Halo 5, and a typical game of slayer will revolve more around
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November 25, 2014
A brand new video has just made it online that shows off a whole games worth of online content from 343 Industry's upcoming game, Halo 5 Guardians.
Straight away, it's clear that the gameplay has been evolved more so than any Halo game before it. The first thing that is noticeable is that a lot of elements from Halo 4 have been incorporated into Halo 5 Guardians, including the various power drops and the overall look and feel of the gameplay.
However, a lot of new things have been added to make the game feel more in-line with other AAA shooters on the market. For example, players can now dodge sideways, similarly to COD: Advanced Warfare, and players can also jump over objects in a similar style to Call of Duty games too.
A new aim-down sight feature has been added, although there is no negative effects to hip firing luckily enough.
If you are a long time Halo fan, you may not like what you see. Check out the multiplayer video here.
Do you think 343 Industries
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November 24, 2014
It’s time for a bit of a throwback. The Halo Master Chief Collection has just launched, and it’s flooded our brains with nostalgic memories of the hundreds of hours we spent on Halo games in the past.
In particular, Halo 2 is getting the most attention, and playing the new Halo 2 anniversary has reminded us of one of our best mods of all time.
Our old Halo 2 mod allowed players to fire two bursts of the battle rifle in the span of a second, and it had absolutely devastating effects. The combo could be achieved without a controller mod, and was often used by professional gamers involved in the MLG circuit.
With a controller mod however, the difficult to execute combo could be achieved effortlessly, and as you can see in the example video shown here, the double fire or BXRR mod could really kick some Spartan butt.
These kind of cool combos were key to being at the height of your game in Halo 2, and we expect
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November 23, 2014
The Halo Master Chief Collection has finally launched, but the game has so much content inside it that there's a lot to take in, so we'll be giving you a quick insight into what's new.
The Campaigns
All four original Halo campaigns from the main franchise, including Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2, 3 and 4 can be played within the Halo Master Chief Collection. All games have had a makeover, although the most difference has been made to the Halo 2 campaign.
The Matchmaking
343 Industries are still slowly rolling out the matchmaking playlists for the Halo Master Chief Collection, and so far there have been a few issues - give it a week and everything should be running. From there, we may have to wait a couple months before all of the playlists and the entire ranking system is ready for play.
New Forge
As well as providing forge mode to all of the Halo 2 online levels, 343 have thrown in a few blank canvas maps that can be used to build to your heart's
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November 22, 2014
For those unaware, Halo: The MCC has just released, and it has dropped our jaws to the ground. In particular, Halo 2 within the Master Chief Collection stands out for it's amazing new cutscenes and HD graphics that have been developed specifically for this new Halo installment.Considering that the matchmaking has been having problems, it has given me more than enough time to hop into Halo 2 and experience the new HD rendition of what is perhaps one of the most classic video games of all time. From start to finish, the campaign is captivating and challenging, and the new cutscenes will definitely keep you from skipping through the story to focus on blowing up more covenant.
If you are still waiting for the matchmaking to come back, we'd definitely suggest checking out Halo 2 within the Master Chief Collection because it is stunning. In fact, even if the matchmaking is back up by the time you are reading this, still head into the Halo 2 campaign, because you'll be missing out