Microsoft finally has Halo: The Master Chief Collection functioning online, and now development studio 343 Industries is looking ahead to some major content updates it has in the works.
The Halo bundle is getting a fifth game later this year when 343 adds the Halo 3: ODST campaign to the package. This is a free update for anyone who played The Master Chief Collection between Nov. 11 and Dec. 19. Microsoft is giving it away to apologize for the many connection problems that plagued the first-person shooter. The publisher noted that it plans to share more details about when it will launch ODST in the near future.
In the meantime, it shared the following screenshot to show off some of its progress:
Above: An early look at Halo 3: ODST running on Xbox One.
ODST was a spinoff game that for the Xbox 360 that followed the adventures of a group of soldiers who were looking for their missing teammate in the city of New Mombasa. It was something of a departure for the series since it focused less on the typical hero, Master Chief, and more on side characters.
In addition to ODST, 343 Industries is also working on bringing the Halo 2: Anniversary map Relic into The Master Chief Collection.
“We’re really excited about how these are coming together to expand what Halo: The Master Chief Collection offers to fans,” 343 studio head Dan Ayoub wrote in a Microsoft blog. “Our test and community teams have been running daily playtests on Relic to hammer on the map as much as possible.”
The company shared a comparison shot of the new Relic map to give fans a taste of what they can expect.
Above: A look at the Halo 2 map Relic running on Xbox One.
Halo is one of Microsoft’s most important franchises, but the company has slightly damaged the shooter’s reputation with The Master Chief Collection. What was supposed to turn into a major tentpole release for the Xbox One last fall has resulted in one of the prime examples of how huge publishers are releasing broken games.
Microsoft did eventually get the game working, but it may have lost the trust of many of its biggest fans in the process. Perhaps giving away ODST and a free map will make up for that, but we won’t really know the long-term damage until Microsoft releases Halo 5 later this year.