Halo: Master Chief Collection gets a patch, is now actually playable online

After a long and tortuous period of time, Halo: Master Chief Collection’s borked online modes could be fixed. According to Halo Waypoint an update is available from today. It not only tweaks various offline errors, but should finally make multiplayer, y’know, actually playable.

To say the online side has been a disaster since its launch in November 2014 is a galactic sized understatement. Fans have long-complained about the wonky matchmaking, party problems or quite simply that the games wouldn’t work.

Here’s what developer, 343 Industries, say the update will fix...

Matchmaking
● Made a variety of updates to improve matchmaking performance and success rates.
● Improved matchmaking search times/time to match.
● Improved stability throughout the matchmaking process across all titles.

Party
● Improved party stability.

Halo 2
● Made improvements to multiplayer shot registration.
● Improved campaign stability across a variety of levels.
● Addressed stability issues for matchmaking and custom games.
● Fixed issues around resuming H2A Campaign from “remastered” mode.
● Improved medal display consistency.

Halo: CE
● Fixed issues regarding aim assist which resulted in the reticle being pushed away from an enemy.
● Improved shot registration consistency between host/client in peer-to-peer custom game matches.
● Resolved a variety of UI inconsistencies, including team color randomization, medals, and in-game scoreboard display.

For most, the whole frustrating episode has already taken the shine off Microsoft’s Halo. It’s also caused white-hot fury across the internet, with some demanding reimbursement for the unfinished product. But this patch should go some way to bringing folk back onside. Besides, their arms are perhaps too tired to type further complains, after carrying all those pitchforks and torches for the last five months.

Nathan Irvine
Hi, I’m Nathan. You may remember me from such websites as, erm, this one circa 2011. Been hustling in games for over a decade and write for Official PlayStation, Official Xbox, Gamesmaster and more.