As another week passes by, another patch rolls out for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Make sure to grab your best pals! This patch also adds the entirety of Spartan Ops to Halo 4.
Setting aside the complaints of the broken state of triple-A titles this past year alone, there is no denying the appreciation of 343 Industries‘ hard work as the studio continues to roll out patch after patch since the week of the game’s original launch on November 11th.
“The next time you log into Halo: The Master Chief Collection, you will be prompted to download the latest content update,” reader the latest blog on Halo Waypoint. “This particular content update includes improvements for matchmaking, roster, custom games, and adds Halo 4’s Spartan Ops mode.”
Go ahead and check out the patch notes below. There’s quite a few fixes this time around and we’re really glad that multiplayer team balancing, Halo 2’s Black Eye skull glitch, and other stability issues have received attention this week.
Spartan Ops:
- Added the entirety of Halo 4’s Spartan Ops mode
Matchmaking:
- Made an update to make sure a match only starts when teams are even.
- Players will now receive a ‘loss’ when disconnecting before a round has ended.
- Made an update to include all split screen players in vote tally.
- Resolved an issue that caused players to become stuck “Joining Session.”
- Resolved an issue where players could be dropped from matchmaking after disconnecting their controller.
General Multiplayer Updates:
- Made additional improvements to Halo: CE hit registration.
- Made an update to the “Halo 2: Anniversary Career Progress” page to ensure achievements are correctly tracked.
- Fixed an issue where it took a long time to join players that are in a Multiplayer lobby.
General UI/Menu Updates:
- Made additional improvements to Roster update times.
- Fixed Halo 3 game type text when viewing saved data in “My Files”.
Halo 2: Anniversary Campaign:
- Fixed an issue where the ‘Black Eye Skull’ incorrectly prevented players from reaching checkpoints.
Campaign Playlists:
- Fixed an issue where cross-game playlists could fail to progress to the next level.
- Made several fixes to Campaign Playlist Carnage Reports.
- Fixed an issue where Halo 3 Cooperative Playlist progress would not save correctly when completing a mission.
- Made changes to ensure that Competitive Scoring and Timing are tracked correctly in Halo CE and Halo 2 Campaign Playlists.
Stats & Medals:
- Made updates to improve stat tracking.
- Fixed an issue where the “Steaktacular” medal would not be correctly awarded in Halo 3.
- Fixed an issue where the “Supercombine” medal would be incorrectly awarded in the Halo 4 Campaign.
Achievements:
- Made an update to ensure that the “Flaming Ninja Anniversary” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met.
Control Layouts:
- Updated the Halo 2 “Boxer” Button Layout.
- Updated the Halo 4 “Legacy” Thumbstick Layout.
General Stability:
- Made several updates to improve overall game stability.
That’s not all however, towards the end of the studio’s blog, there seems to be a vital note addressing the concern for dedicated servers in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
“Note: We’ve seen many inquiries about dedicated server support for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Dedicated servers have been up and running since launch, and we continue to optimize and improve connectivity. The vast majority of games are being played on dedicated servers, but in the event that players cannot connect to a dedicated server, the lobby will stay together and the match will still occur on a peer-to-peer connection. Please be aware that you may connect to the dedicated server quickly enough that you won’t see the ‘connecting to dedicated server’ dialog. The absence of that dialog doesn’t mean that you’re not playing on a dedicated server.”
It looks as though the Halo experience this collection is meant to give fans is slowly getting better. Though there remains more issues in regards to the four campaigns and the multiplayer in general, at least fans can rest easy knowing Halo: The Master Chief Collection remains at the forefront of the studio’s agenda.
In case you missed it, there was also an announcement earlier today addressing Bonnie Ross’ apology to the Halo community for the messy launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
For those who played the game between November 11th, 2014 and December 19th, 2014, there will be a generous compensation package including two in-game goodies and a remagined version of the fan favorite multiplayer map Relic for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, as well as one month of free Xbox Live Gold and an upscaled port of Halo 3: ODST on Xbox One.
[Via Halo Waypoint]
