'Halo: The Master Chief Collection' Will Be Optimized For Xbox Series X

Less than a month away from the launch of the Xbox Series X and the all-digital Xbox Series S, it has been announced that “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” will be fully optimized for the new consoles.

Set to take advantage of the power and other improvements that the next-gen Microsoft consoles possess, it is not quite the “Halo Infinite” launch that many were expecting earlier this year. That new title has been pushed back to 2021 to allow developer 343 Industries to give it proper attention.

Still, fans of the first-person shooting franchise will at least get to see “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” running at 120 frames per second in both campaign and multiplayer modes. The more powerful Xbox Series X will also provide graphics at 4K resolution while both consoles will see improvements in split-screen play.

“Halo: The Master Chief Collection” is an anthology that includes “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary,” “Halo 2: Anniversary,” “Halo 3,” “Halo 3: ODST,” “Halo Reach,” and “Halo 4.”

Originally released on Xbox One, the collection was ported to PC in 2019 but not every game arrived at once as “Halo 3: ODST” and “Halo 4” only arrived in recent months.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are launching globally on Nov. 10 and the optimized version of “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” is launching on Nov. 17. Existing owners of the collection won’t have to purchase again because they will get a free copy, The Verge has learned.

As is becoming a common practice of Microsoft, “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” will be available on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Launched in 2017, Xbox Game Pass grants access to a catalog of games from past and present Xbox consoles for a monthly fee of $9.99.

Game Pass and backward compatibility have been part of Microsoft’s strategy to give early adopters of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S a large number of games to have access to the moment the new consoles arrive. Otherwise, only 31 games have been confirmed for the Nov. 10 launch of the next-gen gaming machines.