CTF matches dragging on for entire
afternoons. For console players, the
equivalent was probably Blood Gulch
or Sidewinder. For me it was Wartorn
Cove, a custom map that dominated
community servers back in 2004.
Because the multiplayer in the
TMCC port is largely unchanged, it
should be easy for modders to get old
maps like that working again.
Long term, Fahrny wants to build
out TMCC with
direct modding
support. That
could mean
releasing tools,
building a custom
game browser,
and even
supporting the
Steam Workshop,
which he says they’d “still love to
investigate doing”. Right now, the
focus is on getting all the games out
on PC, and to at least make them as
easy to mod as possible. Reach can be
launched with anti-cheat disabled to
facilitate mods, and 343 is working on
a new EULA, inspired by Minecraft,
to let modders preserve some
ownership of their creations.
When we talk about mods, Swidersky excitedly asks
everyone if they’ve seen the nuke video on Youtube.
Someone already modded a nuke launcher into Reach,
complete with some impressive explosion effects and
huge damage (it annihilates a Scarab, Halo’s equivalent of
the AT-AT, in one shot). He’s excited about the idea of
custom games playing with the rules of Halo. Could
someone mod in COD-style kill streaks that can earn you
a nuke launcher? Weirder things have happened...
One of the programmers on the team, Sean Cooper,
was a longtime member of the Halo: CE mod community,
before moving on to mod Halo Wars
and eventually working on the series.
Fahrny hangs out in a Discord server
dedicated to modding. The TMCC
team has five games to go before this
PC journey is finished – and with
Halo Infinite coming in 2020, too, it’s a
hell of a year for Halo. But it seems
like the truly exciting times for the
series on PC, at least for Combat
Evolved and its mod scene, start when all the launch fires
have been put out and all the bugs have been squashed.
“The future of the MCC is the community, says Fahrny,
“and how we empower them.”
“That’s kind of always been the master vision, is [our
team] creates this amazing foundation, and then we give
the keys to the community and it’s off and running,” adds
Brian Jarrard. For the first few bitter years of the Master
Chief Collection’s life, that would’ve been a hard sell. Now?
It seems like Halo fans can believe again.“WE GIVE THE KEYS
TO THE COMMUNITY
AND IT’S OFF
AND RUNNING”Halo: The Master Chief Collection
FEATURE
49LEFT: Halo: CE’s
monstrous magnum
is plain unfair with a
mouse.
LEFT BELOW: The
warthog is still one of
the most fun vehicles
in games.