343 Industries won’t have Halo 5: Guardians ready for released this holiday season. Instead, they’re offering up a stop gap measure for Xbox One owners in the form of Halo: The Master Chief Collection that is more than just the cobbling together of the first four Halo games.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection includes Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, and Halo 4 in their entirety, running at 60fps and with visual enhancements, a comparison of which you can find in the high resolution screenshots at the end of this article. In total over 45 campaign missions are covered across all four games, running on a single Xbox One disc.
Over 100 multiplayer maps are included as well from all four games, including select maps that are offered in their original visuals and the enhanced visuals. The engines running the multiplayer maps are the same as the original games so players will feel right at home running around and killing each other over and over again via Xbox Live.
There’s also all-new content in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary that sweetens the pot even further. If four Halo games in one package weren’t enough, 343 Industries have created new prologue and epilogue cut-scenes that foreshadow the events of next year’s Halo 5: Guardians.
For forward thinkers, purchasing Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary automatically grants access to the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta expected to start in early 2015.
Microsoft has priced Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary at the standard Triple-A game price point of $59.96. It will arrive in stores on November 11, 2014 and can be pre-ordered right now.
