Halo: The Master Chief Collection News

Halo 3 Now Available for PC

It’s time to Finish the Fight, Spartans – Halo 3 is now available for PC via Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta), the Microsoft Store, and Steam! Pick up Halo 3 for your preferred platform HERE and read on for more details on what’s new and everything else included in today’s massive update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

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[h2]FINISH THE FIGHT[/h2]
At long last, nearly thirteen years after Master Chief returned to Earth to finish the fight on Xbox 360, the triumphant conclusion to the original Halo trilogy has arrived on PC! Relive 11 unforgettable missions and fight through 24 multiplayer maps all updated with new features, optimizations, and settings custom-tailored for the PC platform.

Halo 3 looks and plays better than ever at 60 frames-per-second (or greater) with up to 4K UHD support and numerous PC-specific enhancements. Players can fine-tune their experience with a vast array of options including variable framerate, native mouse/keyboard support and the ability to rebind controls, support for ultra-wide displays and different aspect ratios, adjustable field-of-view, updated texture/shadow quality, and more. Additionally, Halo 3 within MCC also now supports expanded player customization options, higher resolution matte paintings, improved audio, and a brand new skull for Campaign - to name a few.

For the first time on PC, unleash your inner designer with the power of an updated and expanded Forge that allows you to build the multiplayer experiences of your dreams and utilize the Theater to commemorate your greatest triumphs.

Select your platform of choice and jump in today to experience everything Halo 3 and Halo: The Master Chief Collection have to offer!

[h2]MCC UPDATES[/h2]
Alongside today’s release of Halo 3, Halo: The Master Chief Collection (MCC) owners will also get an update that includes numerous quality-of-life improvements and new features on PC and Xbox One. Noteworthy items are listed below but please be sure to check out the full patch notes HERE.

[h3]FORGE[/h3]
Forge is now available for the first time on PC for Halo: Reach, Halo 2: Anniversary, and Halo 3! Additionally, new features and functionality have been added to Forge on Xbox One.

[h3]PC GENERAL[/h3]
Forge on PC includes support for mouse and keyboard input, multiple key bindings, and file share downloads. Please note that for now, uploading to file share on PC is not supported and is still being worked on for a future update. However, map variant files can still be directly shared between players on PC. And as a reminder, all content uploaded to the MCC file share on Xbox One can also be accessed by MCC players on PC.

[h3]HALO: REACH[/h3]
Forge within Halo: Reach on PC and Xbox One retains its original functionality but also receives a few cool updates. First, Halo: Reach Forge will now support the ability to toggle between rotating an object along the global world axes or along its local axes. Second, many new objects are now available along with significantly increased budget and object quota limits on “Forge World” and “Tempest.”

[h3]HALO 2: ANNIVERSARY[/h3]
Forge within H2A is already very robust but like Halo: Reach, it will now also "support axes rotation toggling" for greater control.

[h3]HALO 3[/h3]
Halo 3 introduced the world to Forge back in 2007 but the feature has grown and evolved a great deal in the subsequent games. Several new editing features are now supported in Halo 3 to bring it more inline with what’s offered in the newer titles.

Object physics – Toggle objects ability to interact with the environment while editing or be set to ‘no-clip’
Rotation Snap – Snap rotation to degree increments
Coordinate Snap – Snap position to world grid position
Precision Edit – More granular object position shifts for increased precision
Toggle Rotation Axes – Toggle between rotating an object along the global world axes or along its local axes

For more information, including a look at the new content in 'Spark' – Season 2, be sure to check out the full release blog on Halo Waypoint!

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - Halo 3 review

Halo 3 is peak Halo. Released by Bungie in 2007, it served as the culmination of a story built over the course of two massive hit games, a pillar of online gaming on the Xbox 360, and one of the finest first-person shooters to ever appear on console. But it was, indeed, only on console - the first in the series to dodge any kind of PC port even years after release. Thanks to the Master Chief Collection, 343 Industries is finally righting that wrong, and Halo 3 is the best part of the package yet.

The Master Chief Collection on PC should have been a slam dunk from the start, of course, but an array of technical issues have held back each release in the compilation, from minor bugs to much larger multiplayer problems and muffled, crackly audio. Halo 3 exhibited none of these problems during my time playing it. The guns sound just as punchy and impactful as they did back on the Xbox 360, and it all looks and feels fabulous the whole way through.

If 'Halo 3, but on PC' is enough for you, then the lack of glaring technical issues alone is enough to give this release a strong stamp of approval. But Halo 3 stands up remarkably well even when the rose tint of nostalgia fades.

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Halo 3 Celebration

We're celebrating the launch of Halo 3 with three times the fun.

For a limited time, unlock the brand new skull Acrophobia by playing Halo: The Master Chief Collection, earn a launch exclusive nameplate, and level up with a triple XP weekend!

[h2]Acrophobia Skull – The Corps: Now Issuing Rifles AND Wings[/h2]

What it does: This brand new gameplay-modifying Skull allows players to fly and hover around the battlefield, letting them approach encounters and explore environments like never before. When enabled, the Skull is used by pressing and holding the jump button while airborne. Acrophobia can be enabled in any Halo 3 campaign mission (solo or cooperative).
How to unlock it: Defeat 343 flying enemies (Sentinels, Buggers, Banshees, and Phantoms) in Halo 3 campaign or campaign playlists on Normal difficulty or harder.
When you can earn it: July 14, 2020 through July 29, 2020

The skull will unlock automatically via Challenges once all criteria are met.

[h2]Exclusive Halo 3 Nameplate – Two Against the Galaxy[/h2]

You can also unlock this exclusive Halo 3 nameplate from July 14, 2020 to July 29, 2020!

To earn the nameplate, complete the "Three's Company" Challenge by completing three Halo 3 campaign missions in co-op on Normal or harder.

Your nameplate will unlock automatically after completing the Challenge.

[h2]Three Times the Fun[/h2]

Earn 3x XP the weekend after launch! Starting at 10am Pacific on July 24 and running through 10am on July 27, earn TRIPLE the XP (yes, 3XP!) per medal across all games in Halo: The Master Chief Collection! (Match completion and Challenge XP will be awarded at the normal rate.)

Halo 3 PC release time revealed - here's when it unlocks in your time zone

Halo 3 is finally coming to PC as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on July 14, and if you need to revisit the classic as soon as humanly possible, 343 Studios has revealed the precise unlock times. The Halo 3 PC release time is set for the morning of July 14, so sadly you won't be able to do any late-hour gaming the night before.

The Halo 3 release time is set for July 14 at 10:00 PDT / 13:00 EDT / 18:00 BST, as confirmed by 343's Tyler Davis on Twitter. That'll cover whichever version of the game you're looking to pick up - Steam, Microsoft Store, or Xbox Game Pass for PC. You'll be able to pick up Halo 3 at a standalone price of $9.99 / £6.99 / €9.99, or as part of the full Master Chief Collection for $39.99 / £29.99 / €39.99.

I've been playing the Halo 3 PC port ahead of release, and while we won't have a full review until we've had a chance to play a bit of multiplayer on live servers, we've got no embargoes and I can confidently say that on the campaign side it's darn good.

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Halo 3 MCC patch notes - Forge is back with new features, audio tweaks, more

Halo 3 is just hours away from joining Halo: The Master Chief collection. The FPS game's due to land in all its reworked glory on our home platform later this very day, and now developer 343 Industries has posted the patch notes for us to eyeball ahead of launch. Alongside the bunch of new features and fixes, "(PC) Forge is now available for Halo: Reach, Halo 2: Anniversary, and Halo 3".

The patch notes - posted on the Halo Waypoint site and included below - announce the Forge game mode is back, and has been "updated with new features, including object physics, rotation, coordinate snap, and precision edit tools". The feature was originally introduced with Halo 3, and gives players the option to edit, save, and then share multiplayer maps with others for use in custom games.

It'll be exciting news for fans of the original mode, particularity as there are other improvements, additions, and tweaks detailed in the patch notes for its return. For example, "Halo 3 and Halo: Reach Forge pallets have been expanded with new objects and budget increases", and Forge tools for those two titles and Halo 2: Anniversary have also now got a new feature, 'toggle rotation axes', which adds "toggleable rotation around world and local axes".

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