Halo: The Master Chief Collection last had an insider flight in October 2020 where Halo 4 was being prepped for its eventual PC release. After a small break, 343 Industries is now almost ready to start the testing process back up, and in its latest Halo community update blog post, the studio revealed what"s in store for fans.
The long-promised Custom Game Browser is finally incoming with this Insider build if everything goes to plan, letting players create public custom matches that others can join through a browser without going through the matchmaking system. As the feature"s first image displays above, the host can select how many players are in the session, the region, variants to customize the session, and enable what looks to be team swapping support.
Moreover, 343 Industries is porting a map from the Halo Online project to Halo 3. Looking at the screenshot that the studio shared of this map, seen below, it seems to be an unreleased one. According to the image"s file name, the map may be named Waterfall, and it will be available on the Insider flight for testing.
Some more highly requested features by the community are planned to be included in the test before their injection into the public build. These include double key bindings, FOV slider support for Xbox One consoles, view model customizing, mouse and keyboard support for all Xbox consoles, advanced audio options, as well as Season 6 content.
This Halo: The Master Chief Collection Insider session is slated to begin on February 18, though there may be delays if blockers come to the studio"s attention. Those who are interested in joining the flight were urged to sign up for the Halo Insider program with details or updating the submitted information if they are already a part of it.
343 Industries also laid to rest some rumors that have been circulating regarding the continuation of the Halo Wars real-time strategy series. It revealed that the majority of the development team is working on Halo Infinite, and that "we unfortunately can’t devote the time and attention we’d need to deliver additional updates and content for the Halo Wars franchise."
"As of today, there is no plan for the development team to re-engage with Halo Wars 2 and we aren’t working on a new game in the series at this time," the company added, leaving the door open for the future.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has slashed the price of Halo: The Master Chief Collection across all platforms celebrating the Lunar New Year. The massive six-game collection can be found with a 40% discount across Steam as well as the Microsoft Store for PC and Xbox consoles.