343 Industries Bonnie Ross has confirmed Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be Xbox One X enhanced. Sort of.
This tweet from the official Halo account says the actual words, but Ross seemed to cautiously talk around the idea in a recent livestream, mentioning things like bringing the game to "the latest game operating system."
As announced today, work is underway on updates, fixes and Xbox One X enhancements for Halo: The Master Chief Collection – coming in 2018. pic.twitter.com/DlByQ2SkU1October 18, 2017
It's interesting just how unspecific the announcement is. When asked directly about Halo and Xbox One X, Ross replied with this:
"When we look at the Xbox One X, it’s an opportunity to take our current gen portfolio and enhance it across, to give a better play experience, and it looks better on everything we’re doing, and Master Chief Collection should be a part of that."
It's very lacking in specific details. As is this quote for what might actually happen to the Master Chief Collection:
"This is the time we’re going to crack it open, move it over to the latest game operating system which has amazing improvements to matchmaking from which we’ll benefit from."
- What does an Xbox One X Enhanced game do? It's not just 4K and HDR
- What do you need to be Xbox One X ready?
While we don't actually know what's going to happen to the game we do at least know it is going to happen, with Ross confirming, "we’ve got a team right now that is already working on moving MCC forward, and we’re partnering with another external team." She also says that "some time next spring you’ll start to see the latest builds of MCC".
That last bit is interesting because it sounds like we won't see a definitive enhanced 'release', more an ongoing WIP development. The term 'flighting' is used a lot, which is a Microsoft buzzword where software is updated more incrementally - each progression then gets testing and feedback before the next 'flight.'
Part of that is because Ross wants "a much more open dialogue with the community," and "‘flighting’ is a part of that." She then goes on to say that "probably some time next spring you’ll start to see the latest builds of MCC and I hope you guys will help us out and give us some perspective on what’s going on."
As for the next Halo, Ross is still not giving much away, mirroring a previous statement that the next Halo won't be revealed for a while. "We want to give the team time to build the right next FPS big experience," she says, "so you’re not going to hear much from us for a while. The only thing that we’ll confirm, as we do listen to fans, there will be split screen."
Here's the full live stream. Bonnie Ross' interview appears around the 1 hour 37 minute mark.
