A brand-new Halo: The Master Chief Collection update has launched on both Xbox One and PC. Primarily aimed at improving the Halo: Reach experience in the MCC, this Master Chief Collection December 18 update brings with it a variety of improvements and fixes to the game. Reach for the bottom of this guide to read through the complete list of Master Chief Collection update patch notes. Stick with us a little longer, however, to read through a selection of the update highlights.
Halo Master Chief Collection Update Highlights
Xbox Narration Improvements
As stated above, this new update to the MCC is for both the Xbox One and PC. There is just the one Xbox One exclusive patch note to tell you about, however. Following the December 18 update, the game’s front-end narration interface has been improved on Halo: Reach. The game should now be a little more accessible.
ALSO: Ex-Naughty Dog dev says Microsoft’s studios aren’t the ‘same level’ as Sony’s
Mouse and Keyboard Improvements
Supposedly, there was a legacy mechanic still at play in The Master Chief Collection while playing with mouse and keyboard. This produced some negative effects while aiming whilst taking damage. Following the update, this should now be better to some extent.
General Fixes & Playlist Updates
A few small fixes have taken place thanks to the update, too. The sound effect upon gaining a Season Tier should now play as was intended, for example. That annoying stat error in which multiplayer kills were showing up as deaths too in Halo: Reach has been fixed as well.
A good number of Playlist changes have taken place with the December 18 update, also. In Social 4v4, for example, Oddball has been removed from Solitary. In Reach Hardcore Playlists, you should now notice that the maps and game types no longer have equal weighting. Zealot and Sanctuary, for example, should now show up a lot more as Capture the Flag in Hardcore. Read through the full list of patch notes below to learn more about the fixes and changes.
Halo Master Chief Collection Update Patch Notes (December 18)
Read through the complete list of Halo: The Master Chief Collection update patch notes below, courtesy of 343 Industries:
Improvements to narration across the front-end interface for Xbox.
- One of our top priorities is ensuring that Halo: Reach is accessible to as many players as possible. Today’s patch includes a few updates to further improve accessibility for the title.
Addressed a mechanic for mouse + keyboard players which improves precision of aiming when taking damage.
- As part of our ongoing work to assess player feedback across controller and M+KB inputs, the team discovered a legacy mechanic from the original game that was contributing to negative sentiment regarding the feel and responsiveness of playing on M+KB. We have adjusted this mechanic and are interested in what the community thinks of this change. The team will continue to monitor player feedback around controller/M+KB input.
Additional small fixes:
- Fixed an issue which prevented the sound effect for unlocking a season tier from playing.
- A stat error has been fixed that was causing multiplayer kills in Halo: Reach to increase the deaths in your service record.
- A new Halo: Reach themed splash screen has been added to celebrate the inclusion of Reach, our sixth title into Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
- Resolved an issue that could cause players to be kicked from a matchmade game when an intermittent loss of Xbox Live connectivity occurred.
- Fixed an exploit where season items which were manually made available while Easy anti-cheat (EAC) was disabled and were able to equip them after launching on an EAC enabled exe.
Playlist Updates
Social 2v2
- [Slayer] Removed Solitary and added Synapse (Forge World).
Social 4v4
- [Slayer] Added Think Twice (Forge World).
- [Asset Denial] Removed Oddball on Solitary.
- Made various weighting adjustments. Players will spend a bit less time on Anniversary maps and a bit more time on vanilla maps and classic forge map variants.
Social 8v8
- [Slayer] Added default variants of Boneyard and Spire. The updated variants (Scrapyard and Spear Broken) will see additional playtesting and refinement before reentering the core map pool.
- [Slayer] Added classic Forge World variants Delta Facility and Wayont.
- [Slayer] Added new Forge World variants Brick and Hivemind by MythicFritz and Hexduster respectively.
- [Slayer] Removed Paradiso (Forge World).
- [Flag & Bomb] Replaced Neutral Bomb Assault with Multi Bomb Assault on Tempest, Highlands, and Hemorrhage (Forge World). This will reduce the number of matches which end in stalemates.
- [Flag & Bomb] Added Multi Flag CTF on Brick and Hivemind.
- [Zone Control] Removed Territories on Breakpoint and High Noon.
- [Action Sack] Fixed an issue where players could spawn out of bounds on Spear Broken (Spire) and reenabled it for Elite Slayer.
- Retuned weighting to better balance DLC and vanilla maps.
Halo: Reach Hardcore
- Retuned weighting based on player feedback. Previously, each map / gametype combination held equal weight.
- Zealot and Sanctuary CTF hold very high weight.
- Countdown and Pit CTF, Zealot and Sanctuary Slayer, and Nexus KotH hold high weight.
- Countdown and Battle Canyon Slayer hold medium weight.
- Battle Canyon KotH holds low weight.
- Penance Slayer holds very low weight.
