Halo: The Master Chief Collection Gets Halo: Reach and a PC Release

A new game for PC players and an excellent add-on for console gamers.

Mar 13, 2019

By: Max Cannon

During 2019's second Inside Xbox show, the team at Microsoft gave us some updates on the biggest franchise to ever grace one of Microsoft's machines. The controversial Halo: The Master Chief Collection is getting some excellent updates that fans have been eagerly hoping to see. But that's not all from the show, Xbox had a lot of awesome information to share.

Halo: Reach will be coming to PC for the first time when it joins The Master Chief Collection.

Bungie's Final Halo

Halo: The Master Chief Collection brings all of the mainline pre-Xbox One Halo games into one single package -- so that leaves Halo Wars, Halo Wars 2, Halo: Spartan Assault, and Halo 5 as their own games missing from the bundle. The MCC includes Halo 4 by the current franchise developer, 343 Industries, and Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3: ODST. So there is a ton of Halo on the Xbox One X, in fact, the only Halo game that didn't get an update was the last game made by Destiny developer Bungie, Halo: Reach. But, and you already know if you read the headline above, Bungie's final Halo is coming to the package with Halo: Reach getting updated to a 4K resolution, with 60 frames-per-second performance, and HDR visuals.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection Special Announcement

Halo: Reach is a special title for gamers familiar with the Xbox 360 generation and a very welcome but somewhat surprising addition to the MCC. Other than Halo 3: ODST, which was an add-on for Halo 3, each of the games centers around the main character of Halo and the namesake of this bundle: The Master Chief. However, Halo: Reach is a prequel to the events of Halo and puts players behind the visor of a different character. Many also consider Reach to be the best entry in the Halo series and the last traditional campaign before Bungie moved on to the world of Destiny.

Despite being added to the Master Chief Collection, The Master Chief isn't in Halo: Reach.

Playing on PC

While Xbox gamers have been able to play The Master Chief Collection for a few years now, the package has been totally absent from the PC platforms. Also announced during Inside Xbox, Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC in a pair of different ways. If you're a fan of Steam then don't worry because you'll be able to purchase Halo for your library alongside simply downloading the game from the Microsoft Store.

Xbox Game Pass gets you access to the whole package on Xbox.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a release date for either the PC launch of the game or the Halo: Reach update which will be coming in two pieces, a multiplayer update and a single-player update. While multiplayer will be free, you'll need to put up a little bit of money to play the story mode and Reach's infamous Firefight mode. But, if you're fortunate enough to have an Xbox Game Pass subscription then you'll have the whole Reach package at your fingertips. We'll see both updates out by the end of the year but for now, I'd anticipate hearing a little something during E3 or even during a Microsoft panel at GDC, the Game Developer's Conference.