Studio head apologizes for woeful Halo: The Master Chief Collection launch: ‘We will make this right with our fans’

It’s been two weeks since launch, and first-person shooter Halo: The Master Chief Collection still isn’t working properly online.

Bonnie Ross, the founder and studio head of developer 343 Industries, apologized to frustrated Xbox One gamers last night, saying that 343 will “make it right” with them once it fixes the game. Players have struggled to find online matches in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which collects together four classic shooters remastered in high-definition. For such a high-profile release to struggle at launch is hugely disappointing, but it’s becoming a worrying trend recently, with PlayStation 4’s flagship racer Driveclub faltering online and open-world action game Assassin’s Creed: Unity launching with serious framerate issues.

“With the initial release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection … we have not delivered the experience you deserve,” said Ross. “I personally apologize for this on behalf of us all at 343 Industries. Our team is committed to working around the clock until these issues are resolved.”

Ross said that fixing matchmaking is still the studio’s priority: “On the matchmaking front, we have encountered unexpected issues that were not apparent in our internal test environment and that have resulted in a frustrating experience, including long matchmaking times and low session success rates. Within 343 Industries and Xbox, I can assure you that resolving these issues is our No. 1 priority.”

343 Industries will “detail how we will make this right with our fans” once the game is working properly, according to Ross, but she didn’t divulge any further details.

She explained that a new update should arrive this week, but it doesn’t sound like that will be the end of Halo’s problems.

“We are planning multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates over the coming weeks,” said Ross. “Development and testing of our latest content update continues, and we are on track for release later this week. We will update you on the status and patch notes of the content update once we have a better understanding of our release window. Only through making changes on both the ‘server side’ — matchmaking and other server rule sets — and via content updates — to the game itself — can we make the significant progress we’re working toward. And in the interest of expediency, we’re attacking the problem from both sides, non-stop.”