34 PCWorld JANUARY 2020NEWS HALO: REACH PC IMPRESSIONS
the Reach beta
tests did have
more granular
settings earlier
this year.
Where’d they
disappear?
Field of view
has been
expanded since
my last hands-
on, at least. As I
said at E3:
“[Field of view] is one of the more
complicated hurdles 343i’s been struggling
with for Halo’s PC version. The console
versions of Halo were all designed to run at a
specific FOV, and animations were rendered
with that in mind. Changes can theoretically
lead to some bizarre behavior, like Master
Chief’s arm detaching from his shoulder as he
throws a grenade.”
The E3 demo was capped at an FOV of- The release version goes up to 120
degrees (I’ve been sticking to 105) which is a
relief because Halo: Reach’s guns take up an
absurd amount of screen real estate.
That’s due in part to another change to the
PC version, though this one’s optional. I’d
forgotten that Halo traditionally offset the
crosshair towards the bottom of the screen
instead of placing it in the center. Presumably this
allowed the player to see more of the world,
since the console FOV was so tightly constrained.
Reach on PC defaults to a centered
crosshair, which causes the guns (and your
arms) to take up a ton of space at the standard
70-degree FOV. Ramp it up to 90 or more
though and it starts to feel more normal.
Or you can switch back to the offset
crosshair, if you’re a sadist.KEYBOARD KLUDGE
If you’re buying Halo: Reach on PC, I assume it’s
because you want to play Halo with a mouse
and keyboard. Good news is, you can. The bad
news is it’s going to take some adjustment.
I’m surprised at some of the choices here,
some of which I mentioned at E3. Case in point:
You switch weapons by tapping the 1 key. Just
the 1 key. Tap it once, you switch to your
secondary weapon. Tap it again, you switch
back to your main. Scrolling the mouse wheel
back and forth does nothing at all, and tapping
2 to access your secondary weapon like you