Halo: The Master Chief Collection is apart of a long list of 2014 games that have disappointed fans with its continued miscues.
Coming off hype that even Destiny couldn’t match, The Master Chief Collection launched to equally horrible game-breaking bugs that plagued Assassin’s Creed: Unity. With a broken matchmaking system, faulty mechanic issues inside the games themselves, and overall disappointing frame rate and lag issues, Microsoft has been working relentlessly to fix the issues surrounding the game. Today’s patch is just apart of a long list of updates that Microsoft has rolled out to fix the problems but this one feels a bit different.
Most patches in The Master Chief Collection’s brief history have addressed very specific details that have hindered the game. But with this update targeting a wide list of games it feels as Microsoft is either making progress on the game as as whole or is just spraying and praying at the laundry list of issues still effecting the game. Either way this is something to look out for in future updates.
Here is the official list of patch notes:
MATCHMAKING
- Made improvements to the reliability of Matchmaking parties.
- Local split-screen players will now always be on the same team in Halo 2 Matchmaking.
- Made an update to allow players to use Voice Chat during loading screens in Matchmaking.
- Made an update to ensure that players are not forced into an incorrect party after encountering an issue in Matchmaking.
- Resolved an issue where the “Winning Team Won” text was shown in the Carnage Report.
ROSTER
- Made fixes to reduce the amount of time it takes to update the Roster:
- Players will now be discovered sooner after starting the game.
- Changes to the roster will be more immediate to better reflect friend activity.
PARTIES
- Made several improvements to party joining and management.
- Resolved an issue where players that were in a party could not join another party from the Roster.
- Made changes to ensure that parties cannot exceed the maximum party size of a playlist.
- Made an update to ensure that Party Leaders can assign a new Party Leader or Kick a player from their party.
CUSTOM GAMES
- Made a change to ensure that teams selections are correctly carried over in Custom Games.
- Made an update to ensure that player settings do not revert to a previous state after completing a Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer match.
- Made an update to ensure that players do not disconnect after completing a Custom Game.
- Resolved an issue in Custom Games where parties would disband if some players were playing in Split-Screen.
- Made a change to ensure that Halo 3 Custom Game variants display correct author information.
HALO: CE
- Made various changes and improvements to Halo: CE multiplayer hit registration.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Made an update to ensure that the “Legend Slayer” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met.
- The “Pacifist” Achievement will no longer be awarded for resuming “Assault on the Control Room”.
STABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- Made a variety of stability improvements across the following areas:
- Matchmaking
- Custom Games
- Campaign Playlists
- Main Menu
CONTROL SCHEMES
- Updated the Halo 2 “Green Fingers” Button Layout.
- Updated the Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer Recon Button Layout.
MISC.
- Made improvements to stat-tracking.
- Improved language support for Norwegian, Spanish, German and Japanese.
(Thanks to Game Informer for putting together the list from an official 343 Industries document)
So as The Master Chief Collection enters the holiday season, it is important to look at the state of the game. Currently, while there are now more people than not with the ability to enter multiplayer matchmaking, there are still thousands without that simple ability. Hopefully 343 will right the ship soon, but it is awfully strange that a remake of a game a decade old still has the same mechanical issues that a game that long ago would have. 343 wanted to maintain the integrity of the games themselves but these game-breaking bugs were not maintaining any sort of originality.
Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to go download the latest fix for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
