No good news for Halo fans with player numbers dropping

Bad news surrounding Halo has only gotten more intense after news was found out on Halo Waypoint about adding microtransactions to The Master Chief Collection (MCC). This naturally garnered mostly negative reviews. Built up largely by anger at the state Halo Infinite had left in players’ souls.

I, for one, am against the whole idea of MTX (Microtransactions) in MCC. Especially due to the fact that it was fun, because everything could be earned by just playing the game. No money needed to be spent on FOMO items or to buy a premium of any kind. Needless to say, I feel like the backlash might cause 343 to rethink why they would do this at all. I do know the reason why though. Infinite has flopped for the time being, and 343 knows that MCC has far more Halo fans that they can get to spend some money.

MCC also had a rocky start to begin with: servers were broken, and the game didn’t want to work. But, over a long time, the game eventually became playable and fleshed out. Fans were quick to point out that Infinite was following the same path. An unfinished launch and then a gradual move towards a full experience, except here’s the catch:

MCC was £60 for 5 Halo games and Infinite was the same price for just a campaign that had (and still has) no co-op and no real reason to replay it other than boredom. At one point there was even hope regarding Season 2. But it was dashed quickly with the lack of content actually released with the new maps and game modes. One of the only new modes, ‘Last Spartan Standing’ was fun, but only due to the novelty of it being different.

Do we need MTX in MCC?

Short answer. No. The long answer is more tricky. However, it mostly involves the failure of Halo Infinite and the negative reception surrounding its abundance of MTX. It may be unfair to side all the blame with 343, as Microsoft probably pushed for more purchasable elements to be added to compensate for Infinite’s failures. The ‘Spartan Points’ as they’re called will let you buy items you might have missed out on from previous seasons. But, the seasonal battle passes can be picked up at any time and are completely free and have no premium version as well. Guess we have to wait and see just how egregious these purchases will be.

Do you still play Halo? Do you approve of these additions to the Master Chief Collection? Read the previous article discussing what Season 2 would and now could have done differently and join our Discord for more news and Discussion!

UPDATE: Since this article was written, co-op for the game has now been announced and is coming later this year. According to Halo Insider, however, it’s not looking promising.