With the PC release of the Master Chief Collection on December 3, 2019, 343 Industries began a roughly year-long endeavor of in the franchise that ended with Hal🦩o 4 on November 17, 2020. Some games, like Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 released on the platform prior to this 🅰decision, but the rest of the games arrived for the first time.
It’s garnered some debate for fans. Which platform is the better way to enjoy the MCC: console or PC? 343 Industries di෴d a good enough job with the ports and salvaging the game’s broken console launch that the answer isn’t exactly simple. For people who only have access to one platform, the answer is simple. 🌠But what do the people who have both do? Which is better overall?
Updated January 25, 2022, by Michael Abayomi: After a somewhat shaky first showing and a well-publicized year-long delay, Xbox Game Studios finally managed to ship Halo Infinite on December 8, 2021. This marked the first time that a Halo game was released simultaneously on PC and consoles. The fact that it ran as well as it did at launch, and across such a wide gamut of Xbox consoles, is a win and proof that the additional development time was time well spent. Now that the game is out though, it brings back to the forefront the PC vs Console debate, making it a good time to revisit this list.
12 🙈 PC: Graphics🤡 Options
If there is one thing that sets the Halo games on ܫPC apart from their console counterparts, it is the bevy of graphical options players have to fine-tune their experience. And nowhere is this more ev🔯ident than with the recently-released Halo Infinite.
With the console versions of the game, everyone is pretty much stuck with the settings already dialed in by the developers of the game. But on PC, they get to set everything from the resolution the game runs at, to the target framerate, and even rendering options for things like texture and geometry quality. Those with capable enough PCs can of course just crank everything up to the max and enjoy the game at its best, but it is also nice that players on hardware closer to the game's minimum requirements can adjust those options accordingly.
11 Console: Couch Co-Op 🎀
Halo has had its roots in local play ever since the days of Halo: Combat Evolved LAN parties. That also goes for its campaigns. The original Bungie series had strong support for co-op through Reach. It’s too bad that later titles saw Halo 3’s 4 player co-op reduced to 2 playeꦚrs local and then no local co-op at all with Halo 5.
As of right now, the PC port of the MCC has no local co-op at all. If you want to recapture the feeling of ♊168澳洲幸运5开奖网:chilling with your buddies on the couch (after the pandemic) then you’ll need to do so ⛄on the console versions.
10 🎉 PC: Mouse And Keyboardℱ
Halo may have been made for consoles, but it still translates remarkably well to a mouse and keyboard setup. M/KB provides numerous benefits such as being able ꦜto turn faster and better flicks. Going back to a controller afterward can feel sluggish.
M/KB may take some getting used to for some people. Movement has a brief accelera🔴tion to better fit with the thumbstick controls the game was designed for. It can be uncomfortable if you’re used to snapping to full speed at the press of a key and it ca🍎n make weaving back and forth feel a little awkward at first. Vehicle controls, particularly the Scorpion tank, also have a learning curve.
9 🍸 Console: Tournaments
Looking to compete? While there are surely fan tournaments across the Internet, they’re far less common than the competitive infrastructure already supported thanks to 🐼the console scene. Not to mention if you make it to any professional caliber. It’s all on console and it’s all done with controllers. It’s exacerbated by the fact that the competitive scene is almost solely based on Halo 5, which is still console only.
You 🗹can push for high MMR and compete on PC all you want, but you’ll be a big fish in a puddle, not a pond. It’s just now where the tr♎ue competition of Halo lies.
8 ꦕ PC: Better Framerat൲es
MCC releases have better resolutions and frame rates than their original versions. That’s no secre😼t. That trend continued for the PC versions, whജich brought over the solid frame rates and increased resolutions from the console ports.
While hitting 60 FPS in titles that sometimes struggled to maintain a consistent 30 back in their original vers💦ions is nice, 343 has announced that unlimited frame rates are in the works for the PC MCC. Get ready to flex your hardware on decade old games and get that FPS number into the triple digits.
7 Console: More Established Player Base ♍
The competitive scene is much stronger on console꧟, and the community overall is larger as well. Regardless of what you’re looking for, you’re likely to have more luck if you play on console. Looking for custom games? Console. Ranked grinding? Console. Practice lobbies? Co✤nsole.
Whatever it is, there’s more of it on console. People have been 🔴playing Halo on console since 2001. There was no way most of them were ever going to jump ship for PC.
6 🐭 PC: Mod Suppor🍨t
Mod support is another long-awaited featꦐure that is on its way. The history of PC gaming is rooted in modsꦬ and Halo is no stranger. Mods have been reworking and improving the original PC releases of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 on Vista for well over a decade. The same people who love those games enough to learn their arcane tools to mod them are going to take that same love to the other Halo titles.
Some of the more basic ideas, like bringing weapons from other games over, have already been covered by recent updates. Anyone who’s ever spent some time mo♕dding Skyrim knows that’s barely the surface of what fans can invent.
5 Console: Only Controllers ꧃
Fans were excited to finally get to play Halo with M/KB setups when Halo: Reach launched, ꦺbut competitive-minded players soon realized there was a divide between M/KB and con🎶trollers. It was no secret that Halo on console had ample auto-aim and aim assist to make up for the imprecision of controllers but no one truly realized how much until then.
Controllers almost play the game for you♑, especially at mid-range shootouts with weapons like the BR or DMR. M/KB had its advantages too, normally at close quarters and long ranges with its extreme flick speed. It creates frustrations and excuses on both sides, doubled by the fact that you can use controllers on PC and still match with M/KB layers. Not on console though. Only controllers there.
4 PC: Inp꧂ut-Based Matchmaking
Salvation is on the way for input purists though. Input-based matchmaking will allow players to decide whether or not they want to use a controller or M/KB and only get matched wi🦹th other players using the same setup. That will help alleviate the frustration caused by players deeming the mismatched inputs as unfair.
Until M/KB sup꧅p🐲ort comes to consoles, this only matters for the PC, but it will be a nice option when support arrives.
3 Co🍒nsole: Play The O♎riginals
Conso🥀le has one big benefit over PC that will always exist outside of the MCC — you can play the originals. The original Halo PC port by Gearbox Software is infamously unfaithful with missing and incorrect graphics and textures. For some reason, this botched version has gone on to be the template for the Anniversary editio♒n that was then ported to the MCC and PC. The original version of Halo: Combat Evolved is being lost to time.
PC players might not have the option to remain faithful but console players do. Whether you pick up an original Xbox or Xbox 360 or you already have one, you can slot in ꩵthe games at any moment and play them the way they were meant to be pl♏ayed.