Halo classics getting crossplay features, Infinite multiplayer to be free
The past few days have been great for fans of the Halo franchise. Of course, there's the shadow of Halo Infinite looming over the horizon but that's still a few months away at best. In the meantime, those fans can relive the good old days but with some slight twists. Thanks to the Master Chief Collection, the classic Halo titles are getting more than just a fresh coat of paint but new capabilities like crossplay between PCs and Xbox consoles.
Originally released in 2014 for the Xbox One, the Halo: Master Chief Collection compiled six of the franchise's earliest titles with some graphical updates and even new higher definition cutscenes and audio. Developers 343 Industries' began the journey to bring the MCC piece by piece to Windows PCs, a journey that will hopefully end before Halo Infinite is launched later this year.
Just last month, Halo 3 finally joined that list but that isn't the only good news that 343 Industries was willing to share. As part of its 2020 roadmap, the developers revealed that it will be adding crossplay between PC and Xbox One players, finally bringing down the wall that divided fans. That said, crossplay across these two different gaming platforms has been rather controversial due to the inequality between input methods and 343 has two solutions for that.
The first is that it will be rolling out keyboard and mouse support for the Xbox so that gamers will be on equal footing. In addition to that, however, there will also be input-based matchmaking so that players from both sides of the divide could opt not to be matched with those that only have controllers or only have keyboard and mouse.
Halo is for everyone. We can confirm #HaloInfinite multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X. More details will be shared later! pic.twitter.com/9bIrppFiON
— Halo (@Halo) July 31, 2020
The Halo good news train doesn't stop there either. For those looking forward to the upcoming Infinite release, Microsoft confirmed that the game's multiplayer mode will be available free-to-play. Additionally, those who will be getting the game on the upcoming Xbox Series X console will be able to enjoy it in glorious 120 fps.