343 Industries has provided a development update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which talks about the future of the game, and what upcoming improvements and changes players can expect.

343 also mention the “next Halo FPS title,” which has the bulk of the development team working on it.

The update goes into a lot of detail, especially in the networking portion, which makes for a lengthy post. Thankfully, Reddit user reiku78 has done us all a favor by offering a short summary:

• They will probably be using the Xbox Insider Program to allow public testing of changes to the game, will start off small but will become opt-in, they are aiming for a March 2018 start
• The matchmaking API’s will be updated meaning more reliable and stable party management as well as matchmaking
• All of the game engines will be updated, meaning all 8 games could feature increased resolution, visual enhancements as well as possible support for Xbox Arena, custom game browser & mixer support, this includes that all games will include retiling game textures, recompiled shaders this will result in a big re-download of the game when the update is released, at the moment MCC is at 61GB so probably expect the update to probably be around the same or possibly larger
• There will also be faster game to game transition time, better UI consistency and will also means that it will be easier for them to get us in to games quicker after the previous session has ended
• The games network code has been overhauled meaning that they can now work around NAT setting issues meaning that you should have less issues of joining other people
• It also seems that dedicated servers will be guaranteed for all match made games meaning less chances of games being peer hosted
• This update will not affect the development of the next Halo FPS game, as it is a completely different project and only a small part of 343i are working on the update, the rest are working on the next Halo FPS title

Sounds like a solid plan to me, with changes that all Halo: MCC players will appreciate. And it’s also good to hear about the next Halo game, which I know is hotly-anticipated by Xbox One (and PC?!) owners!

Source: Halo Waypoint via Reddit

Essential Reading:

• Monster Hunter World Review – Beast Mode
• SOS Battle Royale Gameplay Proves a Lone Wolf Can Be Deadly
• Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Review – Audio Hack