'Halo: The Master Chief Collection' - Finally on PC

My life with Halo

I've more or less grown up with Halo, but it wasn't until college until I really dived into the universe. While going to middle school, I witnessed a Halo 1 LAN party on the original Xbox. Later on, I merely dabbled in Halo 2 at a friend's house. Finally, I bought an Xbox 360 and got Halo 3. This game was out for a couple of years at this point, but I didn't care. These games were amazing to me because of my fascination with Sci-Fi and just the basic fact that Halo is awesome. Being on the Halo side of the "Halo vs. Call Of Duty" was always fun too. Look, I get the intensive moments of Hardcore Search And Destroy... was even a constant 'COD" guy myself. However, nothing tops alien weapons along with drivable vehicles. Running over enemy players with a ghost... "tea bagging" other lifeless Spartans/Covenant members sprawled on the ground... hearing grunts scream in terror and flee... these games never grow old.

From console to PC

While in college, I also "borrowed" a copy of the original Halo game a few times. Although I never had a true gaming PC at this point, keyboard and mouse gaming was still a big step forward in ergonomics when compared to a controller. Especially for shooting games. Racing and other genres of video games that don't require the accuracy of a mouse are still exceptional on the handheld device.

What truly saddened me was the realization of any Halo game past Halo 2 wasn't ported to PC. That, to put it in the "zoomer" language, resulted in me having a big mood. Thankfully, a few years after building my custom gaming/whatever PC, I discovered the modded Halo 3 multiplayer port known as "ElDewrito":

Downloading and installing this fan-made port to PC was quite simple and ran like a dream. Finally! Halo 3 on PC... but only multiplayer. My thirst for the campaign on the master race platform was unfortunately still present. For now, I still had to endure with the happy birthday skull ability on my R2-D2 Xbox 360 unit; grunt headshots with confetti exploding from the alien's head sure would look awesome with higher graphics...

Queue the rumor mill...

Years later, there was a stirring in the gaming community. All Halo games from Halo 1 to 4 (including ODST and eventually Reach) were potentially coming together at last into a giant, nostalgic package known as Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Without prompt, the next question was "Is this coming to PC?" Pretty sure anyone in the Halo community of which was PC gamers at the time had this question dwelling in the recesses of their minds. Why wouldn't you? Once you discover shooters with a keyboard and mouse, it's hard to go back. Plus, the rapid advancement in video game graphics, the arrival of 4K and monitors with higher refresh rates make us want a remastered Halo more and more.

Finally, after a long time waiting, it finally happened. Over a decade since the last, and proper, Halo release on PC... we're finally getting them all:

My initial reactions

Now, it doesn't take a very smart individual to piece this very obvious puzzle together. From reading this article, you know my initial reaction to this would involve leaping to my feet and emitting a very loud "YESSS!!!!". However, I was at work. So, this was done mentally. Once I got home, I immediately reinitiated my Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription. Because Christmas shopping time and because $1 is a good price for a month of access to Windows 10 games.

343 Industries did a very good job with the collection, especially with the PC port. You've now got 4K gameplay, enhanced graphics settings and it handles very nicely on my Dell G7. Can't wait to start playing through each game as they're added to the collection next year!

"You want breakfast? You gotta catch it!" - Sgt. Avery Johnson