On the last day of October, 343 Industries has dropped another Halo: The Master Chief Collection update over on Halo Waypoint. With Halo: MCC Season 4, Microsoft will finally bring Halo 4 to PC after Halo 3: ODST. But that’s not the only thing that 343 is going to add to the game. From a Spartan Ops update, expanded graphics settings, emblem bug fixes, to future additions for Season 5 and beyond, let’s take a quick look at the highlights.
What to Look Out For in Season 4
343 has finally brought back per-piece armor and visor customization to Halo 4 and are going to add the Halo 4 Champions Bundle DLC skins to Halo: MCC. This time the DLC skin will show up in the Spartan Ops multiplayer mode as well. For now though, they’ll only add in the weapon skins. Armor pieces are coming later, with them coming most likely when Halo: MCC Season 5 launches.
With the release of Halo 4, we are once again expanding the customization system in Halo: MCC. In Halo 4, players will now be able to customize individual armor pieces and preview them in 3D in the menus. In addition, we are bringing over the Halo 4 Champions Bundle weapon skins for the first time in MCC. Players will be able to earn these skins as part of the season 4 progression path. In the future, we are looking to bring over the Halo 4 Champions Bundle armors.”
Design director Max Szlagor and game designer Dana Jerpbak added that they are making an update to how weapon skin works in Halo 4. You’ll be able to select weapon skins universally from a single list and selected skins will show up across every loadout. If you want to use a different skin in a particular loadout though, you’ll be able to do it too. Unlike in Halo: CE and Halo 3, weapon skins will persist on a weapon when dropped and picked up by other players like they always have in Halo 4 due to “fundamental technical differences” between each game.
Unfortunately, matchmaking for the Spartan Ops mode is still missing in the Halo: MCC release. As of right now, 343 said hasn’t said anything about that other than that they want to “include more ways for players to find games across a variety of game modes” in 2021.
Publishing team associate producer Chris Case added that with Halo 4’s release, graphics settings on PC will be expanded. From gamma adjustment, shadow, visual effects, details, to anisotropic filtering. There will be “standard, performance, and enhanced settings” for each of them. In the meantime, the settings will apply to all games but later graphics setting will be on a per-game basis.
Halo 3 and Reach are still getting updates with Halo: MCC Season 4, with Reach getting the previously unreleased GRD armor and a fix to the “smiley face” player emblem bug while more skins are coming to Halo 3. Fans are wondering whether Halo 2 one day will receive similar expanded customization options. Regrettably, 343 has confirmed that they currently don’t have plans to add additional customization to Halo 2.
Halo: MCC Season 5 and Beyond
The update won’t stop with Halo 4 and Halo: MCC Season 4. Right now, 343 is working hard on one of the most requested features, the custom game browser. The team can now host and join games on their internal development builds and are planning to launch it into future flight/beta tests in the coming months along with file sharing on PC. A fan asked if the custom game server would allow players to host their own dedicated servers like in Halo Custom Edition, Halo 2 Vista, and the fan-made Eldewrito. Max answered that they will be updating the feature over time based on community feedback. On top of that, he added that the team will have “more updates on modding” in the coming months.
They are also looking to improve subtitle support especially for Halo 2, 3, ODST, and Reach, where there are no subtitles during gameplay. But given “the number of games and languages”, they are still not sure of the time frame for this kind of update.
That’s all we have for now. What are your hopes for Season 5? Let me know in the comments below.