Halo: Master Chief Collection has had an incredibly rocky launch. Though it was initially hailed as a compelling and comprehensive collection of the sci-fi FPS series, online connectivity issues have plagued the game since launch, leading to a huge fan backlash as players struggle to connect to online games and find themselves being randomly kicked from online sessions.
Now, developer 343 Industries’ studio head Bonnie Ross has spoken out about the issues regarding the game’s multiplayer component, issuing a “heartfelt apology” to those who have bought it.
Taking to the Xbox Wire, Ross wrote: “On Nov 11th we released Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The goal being to create a tribute to Halo fans around the world, and to celebrate the Master Chief’s debut on Xbox One. With the initial release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, however, we have not delivered the experience you deserve. I personally apologize for this on behalf of us all at 343 Industries. Our team is committed to working around the clock until these issues are resolved.
“While our team works on continual improvements and towards solutions, my commitment to you is that we will take care of all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Our primary and continued focus is first on fixing the issues at hand. Once we’ve done that, we will detail how we will make this right with our fans.
“On the matchmaking front, we have encountered unexpected issues that were not apparent in our internal test environment and that have resulted in a frustrating experience, including long matchmaking times and low session success rates. Within 343 Industries and Xbox, I can assure you that resolving these issues is our #1 priority. We continue to partner with the Xbox platform team to analyze all data to make ongoing server-side adjustments to continually improve the matchmaking experience. We are also preparing additional content updates that will address existing campaign, UI, and other issues to improve the overall experience. With each update we will carefully analyze data to confirm that the improvements we’re seeing internally are also happening with fans at home.
We are planning multiple server updates and tweaks over the coming weeks.
“Know that we’re trying to be as nimble as possible to put fixes in place. We are planning multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates over the coming weeks. Looking forward, I want to give you a high-level cadence of the latest updates we’re currently working on. Development and testing of our latest content update continues and we are on track for release later this week. We will update you on the status and patch notes of the content update once we have a better understanding of our release window. Only through making changes on both the “server side” (matchmaking and other server rulesets) and, via content updates (to the game itself), can we make the significant progress we’re working towards. And in the interest of expediency, we’re attacking the problem from both sides, non-stop.
Master Chief, perhaps pondering what life would be like if he could get into a multiplayer session in the Master Chief Collection.
“As we have been, we will continue to post the details of our updates and other adjustments on Halo Waypoint. Please check our forums at http://aka.ms/mcc_updates for the latest details as we roll out further fixes.
“Please accept my heartfelt apologies for the delay and for the negative aspects of your experience to date. We’re doing everything in our power to resolve it as quickly as possible.”
Unfortunately, there is still no definitive date being set in regards to when 343 expects these issues to be rectified, and the developer stating that server updates will be taking place within the “coming weeks” certainly suggests that it could be lengthy process until the game is fully functional.
Still, they’re doing what they can and that should be commended, even if it’s inarguable that this simply shouldn’t have taken place in the first instance.
Hopefully 343 will rectify these problems sooner rather than later and everyone can finally enjoy some good ol’ fashioned Halo 2 multiplayer.
